#because it is responsible for killing thousands of people per year

[artykyn]

This is such a perfect example of @ferrousferrule's point. Here we have someone who is missing the context of the original poll.

Without context, not only are they influenced to vote a certain way, but they are also influenced to judge everyone voting the other way. They are influenced to think that everyone voting for the other option must surely be weird and out of their mind ("why did your brain even go there?"). They find those people confusing.

It's such a common political tactic to manipulate your followers into thinking your opponents are crazy. And just like @ferrousferrule mentioned, this is fine for a dumb little poll because it's all in good fun. But this is just such a perfect example of how this would work for more important, real-world issues.

fuck it let's try this again

[hermiona52]

I can't stop thinking about the recent cases of horrible abuse of women in France, South Korea, Uganda and India, so this fragment of Pauline Harmange's "I Hate Men", about why misandry is actually a healthy and reasonable response, is always on my mind:

If misandry is a characteristic of someone who hates men, and misogyny that of someone who hates women, it has to be conceded that in reality, the two concepts are not equal, either in terms of the dangers posed to their targets or the means used to express them. Misandry and misogyny cannot be compared, quite simply because the former exists only in reaction to the latter.

You’d literally have to have never looked beyond the end of your nose –or alternatively to be possessed of exceptional bad faith – to deny point blank that the violence women suffer is, in the huge majority of cases, perpetrated by men. This isn’t a matter of opinion, it’s a fact. The reason society is patriarchal is because there are men who use their male privilege to the detriment of the other half of the population. Some of this violence is insidious, background noise in the daily lives of women, so pernicious that we grow up with the impression that it’s the norm in male/female relationships. Other kinds of violence are so shocking that they make the headlines in national newspapers.

In 2017 in France, 90 per cent of the people who received death threats from their partners were women, while 86 per cent of those murdered by their partner or ex-partner were also women. Of the sixteen women who killed their partner, at least eleven, that is, 69 per cent of them, had themselves been victims of domestic violence. In 2019, 149 women were murdered by their partner or their former partner. In 2018, 96 per cent of those who received a prison sentence for domestic violence were men, and 99 per cent of those sentenced for sexual violence were men.

It’s not only women who are the victims of sexual attacks and rape, though it’s hard to find statistics of sexual attacks on men. There’s an enormous taboo when it comes to talking about sexual violence perpetrated against men, who suffer the full force of sexist stereotypes that imply that aman cannot be raped, since supposedly they’re always up for sex. It’s also very difficult for men to talk about sexual trauma. Society expects them to be strong and virile: nothing can be forced on them – and if it is, they aren’t ’real’ men.

A significant number of rapes are committed against minors, both male and female, and here too, the perpetrators are overwhelmingly men. In fact, whatever the sex or age of the victim of sexual harassment or violence– whether male or female, child or adult – it is vital to emphasise that the vast majority of those responsible for such violence are men.

[...] There are plenty of reasons to dislike men, if you think about it. Reasons backed up by facts. Why do men hate women? During the thousands of years that men have benefited from their dominant social position, what did we do – what have we done – to deserve their violence?

Misandry has a target, but it doesn’t have a list of victims whose morbid tally is totted up on almost a daily basis. We don’t injure or kill men, we don’t prevent them from getting a job or following whatever their passion is, or dressing as they wish, or walking down the street after dark, or expressing themselves however they see fit. And when someone does give themselves the right to impose such things on men, that person is always a man, and it still falls within the heteropatriarchal system

We misandrists stay in our lane. We might hate men, but at best we put up with them, frostily, because they’re everywhere and we don’t have any choice (incredible but true: it’s possible to hate someone without having an irrepressible urge to kill them). At worst we stop inviting them into our lives – or at least we make a drastic selection beforehand. Our misandry scares men, because it’s the sign that they’re going to have to start meriting our attention. Having relationships with men isn’t something we owe them,a duty, but, as in every balanced relationship, all the parties involved have to make an effort to treat one another with respect.

As long as there are misogynistic men who don’t give a damn, and a culture that condones and encourages them, there will be women who are so fed up they refuse to bear the brunt of exhausting or toxic relationships.

[eponastory]

I'm sitting here wondering why there are people who don't like Zuko because he is a 'colonizer' and this is bad.

Like that's not the point.

History is full of colonization. Especially ours. Being a colonizer does not make anyone bad per sey, not on an individual level at least. Countries over thousands of years have practiced this expansion of culture and politics, which is why we have new countries and new cultures. I'm not disregarding the fact that some atrocities happened with colonization. They absolutely have, and there have been genocides included in that. It's complicated, but evidently some people have forgotten that colonies have been a thing since the ancient times. Rome was the biggest perpetrator of colonization and genocide, yet the Roman Empire is praised for its advancements.

Now, on to Zuko.

They whole reason anti-Zuko people don't like him is because he is a victim of a dark legacy. He is not at fault for the atrocities that his forefathers chose to engage in. If you really look at Zuko and his character, he doesn't actually kill anyone. Where as Aang has inadvertently killed (when he was the Ocean Spirit) several people. Not completely his fault, but he does share the responsibility of choosing to let the Ocean Spirit use him as a conduit of sorts. Again, it boils down to the power of choice and accountability. Zuko takes accountability for the things he does and actively tries to avoid making the choices his forefathers made. He cares about what happens to people, even though he is going through a dark time. I can remember being an emotional and angry teenager trying to get some sort of praise or love from my father. That is his goal at first, but over time he realizes if he continues on that path, he will be like his father. He doesn't want that. And he doesn't become Ozai or do the things that Sozin or Azulon do. Actually, it's the opposite.

Zuko helps bring peace and this sets him on a path that ultimately changes the world for the better. He can only do that if he is willing to accept the past and let go of the anger, which he does.

So, is he responsible for the actions of the Fire Nation because he is a descendant of Sozin? No. He isn't. As we learn, he is also a descendant of Roku. I also believe that Ursa had a very strong influence on Zuko's character as well.

In short, Zuko is not really a villain. He's definitely an antagonist at the beginning, but over time he becomes something else and that is why he is such a great character.

Anyway, just my thoughts as someone who has a deep love for complex characters.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Daniel Greenfield

The Associated Press recently made headlines by falsely claiming that the Israeli campaign against Hamas “sits among the deadliest and most destructive in recent history” and was even worse than “the Allied bombing of Germany in World War II”.

The Washington Post argued that “Israel has waged one of this century’s most destructive wars in Gaza” while The Wall Street Journal contended that it was “generating destruction comparable in scale to the most devastating urban warfare in the modern record.”

That’s all the more impressive since even accepting the Hamas casualty figures (tainted and inflated numbers in which there are no terrorists, only civilians, and fighting age men are really children) as the media does, this is still probably one of the least violent conflicts in the region.

In 2016, the Washington Post described the Syrian Civil War, with a possible 250,000 deaths, as “the most destructive conflict in the region”. In 2020, the UN had called the Yemeni Civil War, with 150,000 deaths, “the most destructive conflict since the end of the Cold War”.

And then there’s the current phase of the war in Sudan (which the media is currently uninterested in) in which 15,000 people have been killed over the course of last year, as part of a larger conflict that may have claimed as many as 2 million lives.

The Tigray War in Ethiopia over the last three years (which you may have missed because the media chose not to hysterically cover every single bomb dropped and protesters stayed home knitting instead of blocking traffic) may have cost the lives of between 80,000 to 600,000 people.

(El Pais, Spain’s newspaper, which did report on Ethiopia’s civil war, described it as “the deadliest of the 21st century” and then had to pivot to argue later that Israel was worse in, “25,000 deaths in Gaza: Why the destruction of this war exceeds that of other major conflicts”.)

In reality, every significant war and civil war in the region had a much higher death toll than the Hamas war: including the Iraq-Iran War with an estimated 500,000 to 2 million deaths. And in nearby Africa, the Congo War has been blamed for 6 million deaths since 1996.

How does the media justify arguing that 25,000 is more than 2 million?

There are plenty of statistical gimmicks available to anyone who wants to argue that 2 + 2 is really 5. Media “analyses” that claim that Israel’s campaign against Hamas is the deadliest and most destructive, and might even be worse than WWII, adjust their claims accordingly.

As the author of every dubious research study knows, to get the results you want, you manipulate your parameters. Media analyses selectively compare Israel’s campaign to battles, rather than wars, they narrowly focus on very specific timetables, they try to estimate per capita rather than gross figures. But drawing a circle around a particular area and going per capita works both ways. The Hamas attack of Oct 7 killed 10% of the population of Kibbutz Be’eri making it far worse per capita than anything in Israel’s response to those atrocities.

But statistical fudging is all in where the line is drawn to achieve a particular agenda.

For example, the New York Times declares that, “Gaza Deaths Surpass Any Arab Loss in Wars With Israel in Past 40 Years”. Of course the last major Arab-Israeli war took place 50 years ago.

The 40 year figure is based on the Lebanon War, but the actual numbers for that war vary wildly from the thousands according to Israel, 10,000 according to the CIA, 18,000 according to Lebanon and 30,000 according to Arafat and the PLO.

While the media at the time emphasized the highest estimates, in order to criticize the Israeli campaign against the PLO, they now use lower estimates to attack the Gaza campaign.

[imaginesmai]

Once upon a fairy tale - Ubbe Ragnarson (1)

First part is here! I have almost finished the story, so expect one part per day BECAUSE I NEED TO SHARE IT.

Other parts: Once Upon A Fairy Tale Masterlist

Plot: just like any other summer, you have to leave your country. Just like any other summer, Ubbe has to open his to your annoying presence.

Warnings: none, maybe mentions of sex and nakedness.

-

“I think I might be sick”

“You aren’t”

“Maybe I’ve got the chicken pox. Have you heard about it? At least half of – “

“You haven’t”

“Storms seasons have barely finished. Would it be safe for the last remain of our dynasty to take that risk?”

“It is”

“Father, I don’t think – “

“We have the same argument every year, darling” your father sighed, finally looking up from the mountain of papers on his desk. “You’ve already faked the chicken pox twice, you got food poisoning on purpose last year and the storm season finished two moons ago. So, unless the kingdom is about to crumble in the next hours, we’re leaving”

“It might” you muttered, looking angrily at the hem of your dress. “It might”

You knew it was pointless to argue with him, but each time, you tried. The chicken pox wasn’t actually an original idea, but Ubbe’s, who tried a year before you. And no one had any proof of the princess sneaking into the kitchens in the middle of the night to drink expired milk. You made sure of that.

None of them had worked. For the past sixteen years, princess Y/N Ealhmunding have spent the summer months in the lovely company of Ubbe Ragnarson and his brothers. It didn’t matter in which castle they decided to try – you hadn’t enjoyed a summer since you both were kids

The first year you actually wanted to try and make a new friend, because you rarely played with children your age. But Ubbe decided you making him look like a fool in front of his father was unforgivable, and after dinner he stained your dress with horse poop. Which got your in problems with your father and maid.

After multiple pranks, he went back to his castle and you thought it was over. Only for next year to go on a trip to his castle, in Mercia. You didn’t like Ubbe nor his brothers, and they didn’t like you. That summer, you went back home with a broken wrist and Ubbe had his nose broken for the first time.

It did not get better. If anything, both of you got smarter and more creative.

“Y/N” Ecbert called, dragging his daughter out of your torturous daydream. “Darling, look at me. You cannot fight me forever”

You didn’t look at him, and after a few moments, the sound of a chair scrapping the carpet filled the room. As he came closer, the anger faded away.

As long as you could remember, it had always been your father and you. Your mother died when you were a child, in some type of retaliation from another kingdom. There was a dark past to that land that not many people talked about, but that you knew. Your mother was assassinated and you were saved by accident. A servant who was in the castle managed to run away with a baby while the enemy took the castle and slaughtered everyone they found in their way.

And by the time they killed the queen and realized there was supposed to be a baby with your, princess Y/N was long gone.

Since then, it had been your father and you against the world. He let his daughter train with a wood sword while he practiced, and draw with ink on old papers while he attended to councils. Everyone in the castle knew and adored the young princess, with your bouncy locks and rosy cheeks. And still, they were happy knowing it wouldn’t be like that forever.

“He’s a good man. He’s responsible, caring, and loves his family” he said for what felt like a thousand time. “And you’ve known him since you were a child. He’s no stranger. One day – “

“I’ll have to marry a person I don’t love, not even like, and become what it is expected for me to be. Which is a quiet wife, ready to carry his children and look pretty while doing nothing” you cut him off, feeling more sad than angry. “I don’t want that, father. I don’t like him. We’ve tried getting along and we don’t. So maybe it’s time to move on”

“It’s not that simple, and you know it” Ecbert put a comforting hand on your shoulder and gave you a small smile. “He needs a wife. You need a husband. It could be worse”

“Sure, he could always break my leg after throwing me from the top of a ladder, almost drown me or make me drink coffee with salt. Oh, but he already did that.”

“Children do that, right? Do I have to remind you when you locked him in the barn and he wet himself?”

You thought about that summer and had to stop a smile. After another argument because something you couldn’t remember anymore, Ubbe had broken one of your dolls. One of your favorite dolls. And that night, when he came back from riding with his brothers, you decided to pay him back by locking him in the barn. Only that you forgot it was supposed to be for just a few hours and ended up falling asleep. The next morning, the ostler found him curled in his own pee after crying himself exhausted.

You weren’t proud of that moment, but it wasn’t by far the worst thing either of you had done. Cutting hair, giving rashes or breaking bones were only a small part of the long list of pranks you had performed over the years.

“It was a pretty good one”

“Yeah. For a child, Y/N” he snorted, and you finally met his kind eyes. “I’m getting old, and you – “

“Don’t say it” the princess whined, not liking that conversation.

“I have to” his eyes lost a bit of light and you were highly aware of the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth, the whiteness of his hair and beard. “I don’t have any other children. Your mother gave me one and I couldn’t ask for anyone better. I couldn’t protect your like I should have, my darling. So I have to protect you, for when I’m gone. Other kingdoms have already started poking at the borders. Unless I assure the kingdom and your safety soon, they’ll start moving”

It was a reality everyone in the kingdom were well aware of. Great king Ecbert was no longer the man who conquered the kingdom of Wessex and brought the best out of it. Who built farms and houses for everyone and made its name known across kingdoms and countries. Now, he was a man who had a noticeable limp, who took medicine before going to sleep and forgot things every now and then.

And according to laws he couldn’t change, a princess like you couldn’t rule by your own. Not unless you were married to a man powerful enough to rule both his and your kingdom, because you were a woman, and women were supposed to just look pretty and carry children.

“Besides” he added, getting up with a soft creak from his left knee. “You didn’t see him last year. Maybe he has changed”

“For worse, probably”

Last year, Mercia entered in war with Northumbria. When the boats of Wessex appeared in the Ragnarsons’ castle, they found it almost empty. Aslaug had seen all of her sons leave to fight, dressed in shiny armors. Ragnar Lothbrok led an army against the enemies’ forces, and you had been there when he came back. Not as a victorious king, but as a tired man who had seen too many wars.

Even though Mercia won, Ubbe and Sigurd stayed in the border to maintain the peace, and you spent the summer with the servants and Aslaug. While she approved the accord between her husband and Ecbert, she didn’t particularly like her soon to be daughter – or anyone that wasn’t her, for that matter. Which turned that last summer into the most boring of your life.

You hoped that summer would be different.

 -

 Ubbe watched the boats come closer to land, the port coming alive as the first rays of sun touched the horizon. It was soon, but not soon enough for the prince to miss the arrival of the guests. If anyone could call them that anymore, as they came every year. It had been a while since he visited Wessex. As the heir and commander of the great army, he couldn’t leave for the summer no more, so they had to come to him.

Which, if it was his choice, wouldn’t happen.

Ubbe Ragnarson had a wide range of scars on his body, all of them worthily obtained in battle. Only that he was a skilled warrior that rarely let a sword near him, and that the biggest battle he had faced so far was against a girl half his size.

“You should head to the port” Hvitserk said behind him, leaning against a tree. There was a naked woman between his legs, whose name they couldn’t remember. “Mother will be furious if she doesn’t find you there”

“She can think whatever she wants” he snapped. “They know just fine their way into the castle. And I’ll see her. Eventually”

“You should have seen her last year. She has tits”

Scoffing, he decided to ignore his brother. It was easy to enjoy life when the crown didn’t rest on him. When the biggest responsibility he had was not to let anyone know if he had a bastard, or at least don’t acknowledge them in public. In the last two years, Ubbe had gone from spoiled prince to commander, heir and almost king.

With a father that was spiraling away, a mother that couldn’t be farther from him, and an enemy that was ready to attack, he wouldn’t think about Y/N’s tits.

What he had thought about, though, was about you. He had always been opposed to the marriage between the two kingdoms, since the moment the young and bratty princess humiliated him in front of his father. Ubbe knew you shared his feelings, that you didn’t want to marry him and would rather throw yourself from that boat.

But he also knew Y/N were in a dangerous age, where other kingdoms showed interest in your hand and the power it held. He knew that you needed the marriage as much as he needed, a strategic union between two kingdoms before one of them fell.

No matter how many times he repeated that, he couldn’t bring himself to ride back to the port and greet the incomers. Pride was a prize he wouldn’t lose on this battle.

“You should bring her back” Ubbe told his brother, guiding his horse back to the road. “Her family might get worried”

“Worried about what? She’s with a prince. she couldn’t be safer” he chuckled, closing his eyes. “I intend to extend the night a few hours more. As soon as you leave”

“If I’m not wrong, this is my hideout. Yours was close to the cliff”

“What’s yours is mine, Ubbe. What’s yours is mine”

Ubbe spurred his horse and left his brother behind, knowing he wouldn’t like what was about to happen. It was the only place from where someone could see the port without being seen, and he had thought it would be empty. He didn’t think about his brother and his night adventures, which could happen anywhere.

The road back to the castle wasn’t long, and for Ubbe, it would have been shorter. He knew those lands as the back of his hand, was a fast rider and knew a bunch of shortcuts. But instead of taking them, he chose the long way.

Bordering cliffs, he let his horse choose the pace, stopping to drink water and sniff a few flowers. He let the wind blow his braid, until his cheeks were red and his hands cold. Since he could remember, riding horses and getting was has been one of his passions. Even more when he discovered it was one of the few things he could beat you to.

He would never admit it, but racing you through the forest and feeling the adrenaline of almost loosing was one of the very few moments he looked forward for. That, or losing knowing he did his best and wasn’t expected to do more.

Being the heir of Ragnarson wasn’t easy, and if he could, he would choose the life of any of his brothers. He knew Hvitserk envied him for the power and position he held above others, yet that came with a price. A price that, day by day, he was starting to understand.

By the time he reached the castle, the sun was high and the cold was giving space to the heats of the summer. During the first month, there wasn’t a big difference in Mercia, as there was snow in the mountains and ice in the forest. The same slow changes that every year started with the arrival of his future wife and the king of Wessex.

“She’s mad”

Ubbe had heard his brother Sigurd entering the barn, so he wasn’t surprised when he appeared behind him.

“You should have seen her face. It was red and she was doing that thing with her mouth when someone asks her to change her plans” Sigurd explained, staring as Ubbe tied up his horse. “Father wasn’t there either. It was a bit sad, actually. Only mother and me. But they didn’t say anything about it, so I guess they’re used by now”

“Where’s father?” for the last year, Ragnar had disappeared a few times, only to come back a week after thinner and dirtier, with no explanation. “Is he with Yidu?”

“Probably. He was complaining last night. You know how he gets” he shrugged. “You should go and say hi. Not because mother says so, just… it was sad. Like they aren’t welcome anymore”

He wanted to say that it was because they weren’t, but he bit his tongue just in time. Of all the brothers, you had grown closer to Sigurd. It wasn’t a friendship, nor a relationship. Yet whenever you could, you stuck to his side and in the past summers he seemed to tolerate your presence.

For his brother, he could do so. He could even pretend it was for his father, who wasn’t at his best moment. Either way, he left his horse to rest and made the way to his chambers, hoping to change into something decent and have a short bath that made him presentable. Not that it mattered when you had seen him covered in mud and forced him to come out of the lake wearing one of your dresses.

He tried to list reasons why he should actually try to accord the marriage proposal that summer, why he should make an effort to stop seeing the child who would put ants on his shoes and start seeing a woman he could grow fond of with the years. He managed to come up with two before reaching his room and opening the door.

When he looked up, he was met with a very naked body that belonged to his future wife. And he instantly added Hvitserk’s reason to the list.

Want to read more? Check out my side blog @imaginesmaimasterlists, where I keep all the masterlists! Feedback is always appreciated

Taglist: 

@66vikings​​

[thoughtlessarse]

The demand comes in response to an Israeli ground operation into Lebanon, launched at the end of September to take out Hezbollah positions close to the Israeli border that has killed and displaced thousands. French President Emmanuel Macron has said that 88 predominantly French-speaking countries have collectively called for an "immediate" ceasefire in Lebanon. Speaking at the 19th Francophonie Summit in Paris, Macron also said the group had approved an international conference to support Lebanon, which will take place later this month. "We expressed our solidarity with Lebanon. We unanimously called for an immediate and lasting ceasefire and reaffirmed our commitment to de-escalating tensions in the region. We want peace and security for all," Macron said. Those comments are in response to an Israeli ground operation into Lebanon, launched at the end of September to take out Hezbollah positions close to the Israeli border. Hezbollah and Israel have traded almost daily cross-border fire since the war in Gaza erupted late last year. Those strikes have displaced thousands of people on both sides of the border. And since Israel launched its offensive into Lebanon, at least 1,400 people, including civilians, medics and Hezbollah fighters, have been killed and 1.2 million driven from their homes in less than two weeks. Macron's comments were echoed by Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Ziad Makary who said that Beirut was still "asking for a ceasefire and a diplomatic solution" despite the ongoing Israeli strikes and the recent assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. "They [the Israelis] don't have red lines. They never had red lines. They didn't have red lines in Gaza and they won't have red lines in Lebanon. But in Lebanon, militarily speaking, it will be harder on them to enter and they are also paying a big price," he said on the sidelines of the summit. [...] Meanwhile, thousands of protesters took to the streets of the French capital in support of both Lebanon and Gaza and to criticise French arms sales to Israel.

read complete article

I notice they didn't call for a ceasefire in Gaza. Perhaps because they don't speak French there.

France was to Lebanon what the UK was to Palestine, i.e. after the first world war Lebanon became a French protectorate as per the agreement made with the UK in 1916. French rule ended in 1943 and British rule in Palestine five years later. The UK ceded to Zionist terrorists, who continue to sow conflict in the region to this day.

[ukrfeminism]

Gathered around a wooden table in an unremarkable local council room in east London, ten men are sat side by side. They span a range of ages, ethnicities and social backgrounds; some are in sportswear while some are in smart work gear, like they’ve just left the office. But there’s one thing they all have in common — they have carried out domestic abuse. And they are here to try and change their behaviour. 

“Domestic abuse is a choice,” Mark*, the course leader tells them, as the two-hour session begins. “Not one in the thousands of men I have worked with are possessed by demons or aliens. If you can choose to be bad, you can choose to be good.”

This week’s session of the Spotlight Programme — one of several across the country aimed at stopping people inflicting violence and abuse on their partners — is looking at the repercussions domestic abuse has on children. Eight of the men have, at one time, been under a bail condition which prevented them from contacting their children. 

Mark, who has worked with dozens of male prisoners who have killed their partners and counselled many perpetrators in the wider community, is here to encourage the men to reflect on the consequences of their actions. As he puts it, the abusers’ choice of behaviour has denied their children access to their father.

“When you are abusing your child’s mum, you are abusing your child,” he tells the group, as he hits play on a video. “Does anyone want their sons to grow up and be sitting with me? Does anyone want their daughters to grow up and be abused?”

He then asks the men to say how they would feel if it was their mum experiencing domestic abuse. “I’d be mad, angry, I’d want revenge,” one man says. Another says he would feel upset. The list goes on.

The men who come to these sessions have carried out a range of abuse, from physical violence to psychological abuse, coercive control, financial abuse, and sexual violence, Mark tells The Independent after the session. 

But a common thread is the way they downplay violence and abuse, as well as dodging responsibility and deflecting blame. “When they first join the program, most of them are of the view that, yes, I did do dot dot but it’s because she did X, Y, Z,” he adds.

Examples of the abuse involve men blocking partners from contacting their families, raping partners and strangling them. He also tells the story of a man who regularly denied his partner her medication when she was desperately ill. 

“From how she dresses, who she sees, where she goes, who she talks to, to having to be home at 7pm every night — these are all very controlling behaviours and we come across them every single day,” he said.

The Spotlight Programme was launched in 2020, with referrals coming from the police and children’s services. Some 677 individuals have been referred between the scheme starting and April of this year.

Data supplied by the local council shows 92 per cent who completed the programme saw a decrease in police contact involving domestic abuse. Eight per cent of participants have dropped out of the programme and five per cent have been suspended.

A study, carried out by Durham and London Metropolitan universities back in 2015, found far fewer women reported being physically attacked after their partner went to a programme, with 61 per cent beforehand in comparison to two per cent afterwards.

But Mark also warns that not all men who join the Spotlight Programme are suitable. On some occasions, the more light that is shone on a perpetrator’s behaviour, the more they proactively perpetrate that abuse.

One man was taken off the programme due to frequently laughing at abuse in the group sessions. He also admitted to laughing at the thought of his wife’s face when he was raping her.

Despite this, Mark is adamant his scheme has the ability to change an abuser’s behaviour if they acknowledge there is a problem and they are committed to changing it.

In his view, it is ultimately a man’s belief system which means he thinks he has the right to control and dictate his partner’s life choices. “We help them to understand that: look, you don’t always have to like your partner’s choices’,” he adds. “But there are alternative ways to respond other than abuse and violence.”

But funding issues mean schemes like Spotlight — which is accredited by domestic abuse charity Respect — are at risk of being discontinued. Although they are funded from a variety of places, including local authorities and police and crime commissioners, the programmes have been hit by reduced funding from the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice.

Jas Athwal, a local councillor in Redbridge, said Spotlight’s government funding came to an end in March this year as he explained they “desperately need” the money to continue. They are currently using local council money to pay for the scheme. “This is one of those things you can’t walk away from because this is going to have a real impact on a child’s life, on a victim’s life, on a family’s life.”

Mark’s course in Redbridge is one of just three accredited courses left in London, while there are 35 such schemes across the UK. But Caroline Bernard, a spokesperson for Respect, told The Independent the removal of funding has lead to a reduction in risk management or feedback and resulted in Respect telling schemes for perpetrators not to take on these cases as it is dangerous to do so.

Ms Bernard warned the slashing of funding has meant “the entire system has broken down” and that there are a “high number” of perpetrators who cannot access the schemes. 

“Ultimately, the lack of access to these programmes is putting the safety of domestic abuse survivors, and their children, at risk,” she said. 

The world’s first perpetrator programme took place in Deluth in Minnesota in the US in 1980, with other programmes modelling themselves on the scheme since then, Ippo Panteloudakis, head of services at Respect, said. The first perpetrator programme was launched in the UK in 1989. 

But perpetrator programmes are not free from controversy and many who work in the domestic abuse sector are sceptical of the schemes.

“We think they have a role to play but we are cautious about them,” Ellie Butt, of domestic abuse charity Refuge, says. “The evidence base is limited. There is evidence for some people they reduce some of the abuse. While we think that has a role, we don’t want to send a message to survivors that they should have to tolerate any abuse or slightly less severe abuse.”

She also warned perpetrators are “adept at manipulating systems and manipulating professionals and continuing abuse” as she noted many abuse multiple victims.

“They are not a solution in and of themselves. We still need a much better criminal justice response than we have and better services for survivors. They are not a silver bullet,” she said. 

For Paul*, a 36-year-old painter and decorator who lives in London, the Spotlight Programme helped change his behaviour towards his partner. He was arrested and investigated for perpetrating coercive control. 

“I’d become very overprotective of her... I had become smothering,” he said. “I was constantly monitoring where she was and wanting to know when she would be home. I would bombard her with text messages and phone calls. It wasn’t verbal abuse, it was more ‘where are you? Have you left me?’”

But Paul, who has three children with his partner, states his “whole attitude to everything has changed” since taking part in the programme in August last year.

“It has changed my life,” he adds. “I don’t jump in feet first - I judge the situation slowly and calmly. She has noticed a change in me. She has a bit more trust in me now. I leave her to live her life in peace now.”

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “The safety of children who have experienced domestic abuse is vital and we are currently reviewing the role of interventions in the private family court. 

“This includes working with experts, including in the domestic abuse sector, to consider what interventions the family court can most effectively provide in these cases.”

*Names have been changed to protect identities

[capybaracorn]

GAZA/ NEW YORK, 18 January 2024 - “I have just finished a three-day visit to the Gaza Strip, where I have been able to coordinate with local and international organizations about the emergency response and take stock of humanitarian operations since the last time I was in the Gaza Strip two months ago. But more than that, I was able to meet with children and their families suffering some of the most horrific conditions I have ever seen.

“Since my last visit, the situation has gone from catastrophic to near collapse. UNICEF has described the Gaza Strip as the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. We have said this is a war on children. But these truths do not seem to be getting through. Of the nearly 25,000 people reported to have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the escalation in hostilities, up to 70 per cent are reported to be women and children. The killing of children must cease immediately.

“On Tuesday, I met an 11-year-old girl called Sama at Al-Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. She was skipping with friends when they were hit by shrapnel from a bombardment. The shrapnel sliced through Sama’s abdomen, forcing her into surgery to remove her spleen. She is recovering in hospital, isolated from everyone around her because she is now immunocompromised in a war zone full of disease and infection.

“10 minutes later I met 13-year-old Ibrahim. He was in a designated shelter with his family, in an area they were told was safe, when everything collapsed around them. Ibrahim’s hand was badly damaged and quickly became infected. Without medicine, gangrene took hold and he ultimately lost his arm during an amputation without anaesthetic. Ibrahim’s mother, Amani, who accompanied him to the south of the strip for life-saving treatment in Al-Nasser asked for help reaching her remaining six children and husband who had remained north of Gaza City. She has not heard from them in two months.

“A matter of hours after we left, many families fled Al-Nasser hospital as fighting closed in on the area.

“Over 1.9 million people, or nearly 85 per cent of Gaza’s population, is now displaced including many who have been displaced multiple times. Over a million of them are in Rafah, resulting in a patchwork of makeshift shelters and sites that have made the small town nearly unrecognisable.

“The sheer mass of civilians on the border is hard to fathom and the conditions they live in are inhumane. Water is scarce and poor sanitation is inescapable. The cold and rain this week created rivers of waste. The little food that is available doesn’t meet children’s unique nutritional needs. As a result, thousands of children are malnourished and sick.

“Two months ago, cases of diarrhoea were up 40 per cent from before the escalation in hostilities. By mid-December, 71,000 cases were recorded among children under five, a more than 4000 per cent increase since the war began.

“This is nothing short of a staggering decline in conditions for the children of Gaza. If this decline persists, we could see deaths due to indiscriminate conflict compounded by deaths due to disease and hunger. We need a major breakthrough.

“This starts with an end to the intense bombardment, which is not only killing thousands, but is also impeding the delivery of aid to survivors. We have to get more trucks in, do so via more crossings, and with far more efficient inspection processes. Before the conflict more than 500 trucks entered the Gaza Strip every day. When I was there in November, about 60 aid trucks a day entered. Now, it is about 130 trucks a day alongside an average of 30 commercial trucks a day. This is with the opening of a second crossing point but it still remains wholly inadequate. We are trying to drip assistance through a straw to meet an ocean of need.

“There must be fewer restrictions on the kind of aid we can bring in, such as generators for water pumps and pipes to repair water facilities, which are critical to restore the water and sanitation services essential for people’s survival.

“Once aid gets into the Gaza Strip, our ability to distribute it becomes a matter of life and death. It is imperative that access restrictions are lifted, reliable ground communications ensured, and movement of humanitarian supplies facilitated to ensure those who have been without aid for days receive desperately needed assistance. And, we have to get commercial traffic flowing in Gaza, so that markets can reopen and families can be less dependent on relief.

“Finally, we need access to the north. The estimated 250,000 to 300,000 people living in north Gaza have no access to clean water and barely any food. In the first two weeks of January, only 7 of 29 planned aid deliveries have successfully reached their destinations in northern Gaza. Not a single UNICEF convoy has accessed the north of the Gaza Strip in 2024.

“Where we have access, we can make a difference. I visited one of the two desalination plants in Khan Younis that UNICEF is supporting and that is providing some water to about 250,000 people. I saw children wearing the winter clothes we brought in and families using soap and sanitary products from hygiene kits that have gotten through. 

“We cannot wait any longer for a humanitarian ceasefire to end the daily killing and injuring of children and their families, enable the urgent delivery of desperately needed aid and the safe and unconditional release of the two remaining Israeli children still held hostage in Gaza. This cannot go on.”

[lualewis]

New profile ans I'm back to my old antics jumping into the pro/anti rabbit hole!

For anyone who can't tell, I am pretty proship. And jumping back into the rabbit hole has given me thoughts to share. To my currently 2 followers, I know you're not surprised and it will happen again!!! Eventually, when adhd allows is. Also @lightningstarborne you should get the other sibling to follow me as well so I can yell at 3 people along with the void.

Gonna be talking about the classic "fiction does/doesn't affect reality" cause it's one of the biggest arguing points with probably the most nuance.

Fiction can affect reality, but it is not in a perfect 1:1 ratio, and it usually happens in ways people don't expect. The Tetris and Jaws effects are both real, shark hunting and a fear of sharks was increased by a movie and after playing too much Tetris can make people start viewing things like pieces to be fit together until they stop for a bit.

Well let's think about those (admittedly I have seen 3 shark/underwater horror movies in 2 days and wsnt to share) starting with Jaws. The movie claims that maneating sharks are rare, especially ones of the size they had. It also pointed out how the shark was a natural part of the ocean even if it was dangerous. But people only picked up on the killer shark part. You know what parts of the movie focused on a lot more? A town focusing on making money during a holiday weekend more than caring about the safety of the people. There are arguments on screen about whether to close the beach for safety or keep it open for tourism. The movie blatantly points out how politics will bowl over things like safety until multiple people are dead. But that is not something brought up often. There are similarities with "The Meg" but those focus more on environmentalism and how a change can be disastrous. Yet people still focus on the big deadly shark aspect.

None of that is a 1:1 effect on reality. Jaws caused more people to be scared of sharks, and more people to hunt and kill them despite how low the death rate to sharks actually is. Less than 10 people die by shark per year, but across 4 Jaws movies 18 people died. Nobody was really effected by the explicit rarity mentioned in the movie, and most people don't even remember the politics mentioned. If that movie had a 1:1 effect, how did so much of the movie get overlooked?

The tetris effect is super interesting because it can happen with something as insignificant as a chessboard. Play too much checkers or chess, practice or think about the game too often? Now you're seeing images of it when you close your eyes, when things line up like the game you think of moving pieces like you would in a match? Those are tetris effects symptoms. It's been seen in people who speed solve Rubik's Cubes. With tetris, you think of fitting boxes together or of seeing them fall into place, or visualize a boarder and see pieces when you close your eyes. Being personal again, if I work security for too long and see thousands of people walking around for hours, I'll still see crowds walking around when my eyes are closed for about 2 days after. This is some kind of fiction effecting reality, but is also something that can happen with pretty much anything. See a meteor one night and think "where's the spaceship" cause you've played too many games and you've been effected in a tetris effect way. But, while these are distracting and maybe a little dangerous because of it, they're all super simple and things you can snap yourself out of with just a "wtf, I'm not playing my game" type thing. There is absolutely an effect on reality, but the extent is immediately thinking a response you would do in the thing you have literally just spent hours (minimum) doing and visualizing game elements and random times.

Violent video games are also brought up a lot. Studies are mostly inconclusive and don't always scale for competitiveness or types of violence. It's known tnag they can have an effect and for some people that is stronger. However, game companies and policies similar to movie ratings attempt to motigate this by giving age ratings. As you age, you decelope more of an awareness of reality being separate from fiction, and age ratings are a response to that. This is a part that I think is overlooked a lot. With violent video game debates, and arguments on how to age restrict some games and movies and TV shows, those age ratings are meant to be a guide for how well someone can understand and handle the content. That to some extent includes how well someone can separate fiction and reality. Using a personal example (again) my twin and I are 12 years older than our younger sisters. When my twin and I were 14, we started watching the It miniseries. My twin one day decided to rewaych it while babysitting the then 2 year old younger siblings. One of them ended up afraid of the curtains in our house because of the opening acene; being 2 she couldn't separate reality while my twin being 14 knew it was all fake.

Thats why we apart to explore darker topics, in media and our own imagination, as we age. We can understand that it is 100% not real, while still thinking about ourselves or someone else in a terrible situation. We can think about how we'd react emotionally, the actions we'd take, how everything would play out, while knowing it's not real. All media does this in some way, but I think written media can be the most intense. There is more detail laid out or explained, we can have context going back decades into the characters lives, and so many writers will change the prosody of their writing just to draw you in more. The emotions you feel, no matter what genre story you are using to feel them, are real, they are fiction effecting reality. It can be standard housewife porn that you are reacting to, or some weird violent thing on ao3, or something gross and intense in disturbing ways, and you will have a very real emotional reaction. But that doesn't mean it's effecting you in a way that will make you recreate it. Housewife porn has been around forever but that doesn't mean women are going around and immediately reenacting those books. Saying that fanfiction is going to cause people to do terrible things ignores the entirety of the history of literature and people having taboo books well before the internet got big.

There is so much nuance. Something making you go "ew" doesn't mean it's immediately the worst thing ever. Especially on the internet where you can (to some extent (fucking corporations)) curate your own experience. If you don't like a blog, stop following them or block them. Don't like a story on ao3; close it and put the tags in your exclusion list.

[muses14]

Little Mushroom (Review)

Type: Chinese Novel (BL) Genre: Sci-fi Author: Yi Shi Si Zhou Rating: ★★★★★ Summary: “Until the day humanity falls.” In the year 2020, Earth’s magnetic poles disappeared and humankind was nearly wiped out by cosmic radiation. Within the span of a hundred years, living creatures began to mutate and devour each other while the remaining humans, numbering in the tens of thousands, struggled bitterly in their man-made bases.

In the Abyss, home to the mutated xenogenics, there lived a sentient little mushroom. Because it had been nourished by the blood and flesh of the deceased human An Ze, not only did it take on a similar-looking human form, but a similar name as well: An Zhe.

An Zhe is determined to go to the human base to search for his spore, which had been harvested by humans. Once there, however, he faces the omnipresent risk of discovery and certain death as he tries to keep his non-human nature hidden from the Judges, whose responsibility is to inspect for and eliminate xenogenics like himself. And of all the Judges, Colonel Lu Feng is the most perceptive and merciless—as soon as he determines that someone is a xenogenic, he will execute that person on the spot.

But An Zhe’s mutation goes undetected by Lu Feng’s eyes, and so a tale of humans and xenogenics unfolds…

Silver Award winner at the 12th Chinese Nebula Awards for Chinese Science Fiction.

Characters:

An Zhe He is a (adorable) little mushroom who gains human form when a human died near where he was growing, and he absorbs his flesh and blood and gains some of his genes and memories. That said person was named An Ze, and thus, he adopted the name An Zhe. He became a special kind of xenogenic. Having lost his spore when humans came and took it, he made it his mission to sneak into a human base and take back what was his. Lu Feng The aloof and silent Arbiter who vowed to serve mankind in all ways. Having to bear the burden of killing xenogenics (people who are infected by creatures and lose their humanity) from entering the base he was residing in, he was the target of ire from people who felt he was killing without remorse. But little do they know this is one of the hardest things someone can shoulder, because I sure as heck thought so! Poor Lu Feng. Though one thing that was a little iffy was the fact he had so much POWER within the base. Like, his words were law, and he was able to kill whenever and whoever without question. This required some suspension of disbelief on my part, but there’s been worst things I’ve read. lol

Relationship: It’s cute, is one way I’d word it? It is subtle, but the way they interact is on a realistic level and An Zhe knows he can’t be with Lu Feng in the same way two humans can. In fact, at first he was afraid if Lu Feng even liked him a little bit. Not hard to think that since Lu Feng is stoic and of few words the majority of the time. He does tease An Zhe but our little mushroom didn’t quite understand, haha.

Minimal romance is fine to me so long as I can still feel like the characters care deeply for one another. The author nailed it in my eyes. The slow burn was very nice~

The epilogues go a little more in depth of their relationship, but I am excluding those and am only focusing on the main stuff, per usual. Supporting Characters: Does An Ze count? He never left my mind really the entire novel despite being present only in the beginning. It was because of him that An Zhe came to exist the way he did. THANK YOU, AN ZE! And I was moved that An Zhe never forgot about him. Bless his little heart. The scene where An Zhe wanted to go back to where it all began (during a certain segment of the story) moved me too, and I teared up a bit. Pauli was cool too. Most were killed off or forgotten about by the author. Oof. The remaining ones didn’t leave any kind of lasting feelings from me. Overall: Excellent read! I was never bored at any moment (and this is unusual for me) and binged it easily whenever I had the time to. I enjoyed how none of the main characters drastically changed or anything by the end. Everything was subtle and it worked for this novel. *chef’s kiss*

[lavelled]

story of my life.

You’re a family of pedo lineage minus internal logic or heart.

Harry and Meg use Europe in their press to symbolize rope and rape. No vacation home for the divorcing couple. Why combo media for a psychotic pairing whose husband publishes X-rated messages on his X-website? I wish to disrupt every facet of their life.

Born and raised in Los Angeles with a Dad who was a television lighting director, Megin knew me and my old-time story. That’s well established. What are the odds that her National Enquirer family—with their royal perks of magazine interviews, morning chat shows, hosting The Kinsey African American Art and History Collection in Los Angeles where mom, Doria, the mother who gives the media as many nuanced quotes on the fraught nonexistent racist abuse of her daughter as she does about yoga, posed with Tina Knowles, The Diary of Princess Pushy sister book deal, that sister’s defamation lawsuit in Florida, meritless and princely, her brother on Big Brother VIP, an outcast father’s heart attack and papped “Images of Britain” reading pics inside an internet café, then that ticker story retraction—all know Tom and I and are limelight sellouts?

Since 1995, Murdle has displayed such range to inhabit the roles of two different characters named Megan. In 2009, Meg guest-starred on Knight Rider, or KR, the remake of a tv show I never watched because I was a toddler. She played Annie Ortiz, a cagefighter. Keen sense of irony.

Although feminist studies on sex can be strict, role models should quite literally have lots of sex. However, if you embark on a high culture, holier-than-thou royal protocol tour, greeting young devotees alongside the gentleman you knew ruined a girl and inspires thousands of deaths and famed suicides as he pays your baby bills with seedy tech money, you should have the pedigree and resume worth emulating.

She was Wendy in the rebooted 90210 series. The sexual explicitness didn’t make it into the Oprah interview:

https://metro.co.uk/2017/03/13/meghan-markles-raunchiest-role-to-date-sees-her-performing-a-sex-act-in-a-car-from-2008-episode-of-90210-6506457/

This is the monarchy’s Meghan lipgloss that smears story.

On YouTube, there’s a video of mouthiness: "2008 Meghan Markle in a saucy scene in the first episode of 90210."

Henry Charles Mountbatten-Windsor and his purist wife joined together in falsehood for titles, revenue, babies—and for Harry—movie-star vindictiveness and prudish slut Internet slurs aimed at my already stymied life at 51. It’s been eight years. Our worldview is that they’re defrauding, hypocritical representatives who cause suicide. Academy Award winners and Nobel laureates have shunned the spotlight to live in fade-out reclusiveness. 90210 Wendy can do this, too.

The Duke and Duchess of royal family duty need to be taken down a peg socially. Tell her he tweets eloquently about fucking another woman from his full-time tech.

On Twitter, Prince Harry is Brooks Otterlake. Harry parlayed this guy into an Orson film. It can be confusing. Per review (https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-other-side-of-the-wind-2018), Netflix distributed the restoration of an old film by Harry the same year as the royal wedding. How does the contract madman who torments kids on the Internet with Nutella death threats, responsible for terrorism, produce a movie in absentia about my rape during a honeymoon?

On Twitter, my childhood triplex wrestler:

Ironic - as a child, I was enthralled by the WWE..... yet today, it is I, who must "wrestle mania"

Young on ice show:

I don't think we're done hearing about the Toronto Maple Leafs. I have a feeling they'll be playing hockey for many years to come!

Royally sexing, though, not his wife:

My experimental novel "Megan, a Stallion" has been moved to my cancelled projects folder because it would be too good and discourage other people from writing.

google.

Their meager wedding of egotism kills kids—Meg Thomas, 13, on Oct 30, 2018, five months after the royal nuptials, committed suicide at home in Leeton Shire, New South Wales, Australia.

Your love life is a lie.

She’s shitty at her job.

DIVORCE.

K

[denimbex1986]

'Can a weapon be inherently evil? A pistol used to shoot a Nazi in France in 1944, brought home by a demobbed GI and later used to kill a bank teller during a robbery in 50s New York is the same device in both instances.

The mechanism functions the same way – the trigger, firing pin and magazine co-operate in oiled unanimity to ignite a cordite charge and propel a bullet of identical mass from the barrel at the same velocity. Regardless of whether the trigger finger belongs to a citizen soldier, defending civilisation by killing a fascist occupier, or a thief, murdering an innocent civilian for a bundle of bank notes, the pistol is coldly adaptable.

Small arms are responsible for around 40 per cent of global violent deaths, excluding suicide according to the Small Arms Survey. Despite the focus on weapons of mass destruction, we should not forget this.

This is not an argument that weapons are neutral – that “guns don’t kill people, people kill people”, as the inane NRA (National Rifle Association) bumper sticker claims. Obviously, people choose to kill people, but it’s self-evidently easier with a gun than with something less suitable. Gun control introduced after Dunblane has protected this country from the school and other mass shootings that the United States continues to suffer from, and thank goodness for it.

Rather, my question explores whether there’s a moral quality to a weapon. A gun – which can be used to defend the innocent just as easily as to harm them – is a controversial creation, but pales in comparison to the atomic bomb, which Christopher Nolan’s new film, Oppenheimer, invites us to consider this, by following the agonies of its creator.

The Bomb changed the world in a blinding flash. It did so with such shocking force that even now, almost 80 years after its two deployments in anger, the very concept of a weapon so powerful continues to distort our assessment of its moral nature.

In particular, it remains hard for us to acknowledge, and to fully accept, that the most destructive device ever invented – something so elemental that its inventors feared that testing it might accidentally ignite Earth’s atmosphere and destroy the world – has proved to be humanity’s most effective force not for death and war but for peace.

Oppenheimer’s team did an amazing thing in ensuring that the forces of democracy and civilisation won that technological race. They were under little illusion that they were working towards delivering the end of the most dreadful conflict in human history by the most blunt force possible, but they also knew the alternatives were vastly worse.

At best, many thousands more allied soldiers, occupied civilians and slave labourers would have perished in a grinding out of the war by conventional means. At worst, if the Axis powers secured this technology first, a lasting darkness would have settled over the world which we can only begin to imagine.

So they worked, and they succeeded, and history took this path instead. Their moral dilemmas at the concept and then the reality of their work, and at the obliteration of Nagasaki and Hiroshima are well-documented, and will no doubt be explored further in Oppenheimer.

What came after deserves consideration, too. The nuclear bomb became, and continues to be, an amazingly successful deterrent to war. Nato, underpinned as the most successful force for peace in human history because of the dreadful reality of the atomic bomb, has kept its members safe to live their happy and comfortable lives since 1947 and continues to do so today.

This is all too easy to disregard. At the weekend I encountered a stall run by the local branch of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. How, I asked, could they still bang this drum even while Ukraine – a country which gave up a nuclear arsenal only to be invaded by one of the nuclear-armed countries which agreed to respect its borders in return – is wracked by the very horrors the nuclear deterrent has protected us from?

The response – once they’d recited the usual dogma about poor Russia being provoked to murder Ukrainians by Nato aggression – was outrage. Peace? How could a weapon, a hugely destructive weapon of unparalleled force, possibly bring peace?

I can understand that it’s counterintuitive that a bomb might be a force against war, but it remains true nonetheless, and a truth that it is vitally important that we do not overlook.

Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and more are just as “guilty” as Ukraine – in the twisted worldview of Kremlin imperialism – of supposed crimes against Russia.

Each condemns the crimes of their former Soviet occupiers, each looks westward for its future to democracy and reason rather than east to violence and paranoia, and each celebrates a culture and an identity which Russia previously sought to suppress. And yet those in Nato have not been subjected to punitive invasion for their defiance, while Ukraine, denied Nato membership even now, has been invaded twice, her cities bombed and occupied, and her children kidnapped and deported to Russia in their thousands.

What is the difference between these nations? Only one: those at peace are sheltered beneath the nuclear umbrella, while their unfortunate neighbour, forced to suffer war, is not.

If we recognise that there are no inherently good or evil weapons – if the gun fired in liberation is no different to the gun fired in greed – then we must also acknowledge that, although a nuclear bomb is the most terrifying weapon in history, the Western allies actively chose to do such good with it. Deplore the bomb, by all means. Lament its possibility, its existence and its toll. But be thankful, too, that it has been used for such a beneficial cause as to protect us all.'

[knuckle]

Genocide is based on the actions taken to exterminate a people, in whole or in part, regardless of the reason. it does not matter if you think Israel was "provoked" into displacing, starving, killing, terrorizing, and concentrating the population of Gaza into refugee zones that they then bomb too. "Retaliation" does not diminish or justify genocide. In fact, the killing, displacement, prevention of births, prevention of food, and prevention of medicine being in retaliation only serves as proof it is genocide - because Palestinians are being targeted for their ethnic and national identity as collective punishment.

Biden himself lied to the world and the American public that he had personally seen photographs of beheaded babies on October 7th, manufacturing consent for the genovide. You want to talk conspiracy theories? He proudly spread a right wing fascist and Islamophobic conspiracy crafted by Israeli right wing extremist settlers.

He BYPASSED congress when he provided billions in military aid, 2,000 pound bombs to drop on hundreds of civilians at a time, crushing them under the rubble. He vetoed multiple security council resolutions calling for a permanent ceasefire and to let aid into Gaza. He condemned the ICJ genocide proceedings and asserted that the U.S. would not respect the outcome. He built a sea pier instead of forcing land aid, which Israel then used to massacre hundreds of civilians.

He lied and provided cover for Netanyahu at almost every turn imaginable - including lies about Israel's willingness for a ceasefire. Instead of sanctioning Israel for illegal west bank settlements and terrorism, he sanctions individual Israelis. He's a genocidaire. How many Palestinians can choose to give up their career after 80 years old as the biggest sacrifice they'd need to make to help their country? How is caring about their lives some form of disrespect?

Palestinians have to beg on the Internet right now to bribe Egyptian border patrol for thousands per person because Americans won't facilitate their escape. Palestinians are dying of thirst, surviving on less than a liter of water every day that is polluted in one of the worst global heat waves in modern history. They are malnourished, in famine, being firebombed in refugee tents, seeing the limbs of their loved ones strewn around, watching their cats and dogs die with them after desperately trying to hold onto their companions, begging for international contacts to send them ESims because the Israeli government has turned off their internet and phone connections in an attempt to black out the genocide.

How is saying the most powerful man in the world who wrote blank checks and blank defenses for Israel bears this responsibility a fucking conspiracy theory? Despite the massive losses from his progressive base and the undecided primary votes, he persisted. Saying that Biden chose to aid, abet, and continue the genocide - against the broad international consensus - is not saying that Jews control the government. He does. He chose this. And claiming that October 7th makes this more justifiable or turns this not into genocide is the same disgusting cover Biden has given the Israeli government time and time again

I guess Biden made the decision to drop out of the race.

[swldx]

BBC 0423 20 Apr 2023

12095Khz 0357 20 APR 2023 - BBC (UNITED KINGDOM) in ENGLISH from TALATA VOLONONDRY. SINPO = 55233. English, dead carrier s/on @0358z with Al'Seela modulation in the bg, then ID@0359z pips and Newsday preview. @0401z World News anchored by David Harper. At least 67 million children partially or fully missed routine vaccines globally between 2019 and 2021 because of lockdowns and health care disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the United Nations said Wednesday. "More than a decade of hard-earned gains in routine childhood immunization have been eroded," read a new report from the U.N.'s children's agency, UNICEF, adding that getting back on track "will be challenging." A new attempt at a ceasefire in fierce fighting between Sudanese troops and paramilitary forces in Khartoum failed on Wednesday, leaving people fearful about dwindling food supplies and a breakdown in medical services. At least 78 people have been killed in a crush at a school in the Yemeni capital Sanaa during a distribution of charity for Ramadan, officials say. Hundreds of people crowded into the school to receive donations which amounted to about $9 (£7) per person. two eyewitnesses said Houthi fighters had fired into the air in an attempt at crowd control, apparently striking an electrical wire which resulted in an explosion. This caused panic that led to the crush, they added. Those responsible for the distribution have been detained and an investigation is under way, the interior ministry said. A spokesman for the ministry blamed the crush on the "random distribution" of funds without coordination with local officials. A Russian woman has been sentenced to 21 years in prison for attempting to kill her lookalike in a bizarre identity-theft plot in New York City. President Joe Biden will discuss Venezuela in wide-ranging talks with Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Thursday, including U.S. willingness to further ease sanctions on the OPEC nation only in return for concrete steps toward free elections there, a senior administration official said. South Korean singer Moonbin, a member of K-pop boy band Astro, has died at the age of 25, his music label Fantagio said on Thursday. A rare solar eclipse has thrilled thousands of people who flocked to a remote Australian town for the best vantage point on Earth to watch it. The total solar eclipse was part of a rare hybrid eclipse, which occurs only a handful of times per century. Some saw a total solar eclipse. Others viewed what is known as an annular solar eclipse - where the Moon is too small to completely block the whole of the Sun - or partial eclipses. @0406z "Newsday" begins. Backyard fence antenna, Etón e1XM. 250kW, beamAz 315°, bearing 63°. Received at Plymouth, United States, 15359KM from transmitter at Talata Volonondry. Local time: 2257.

[ank01-fan]

Frigid monster storm across US claims at least 34 lives

BUFFALO: Millions of people hunkered down against a deep freeze Sunday to ride out the winter storm that has killed at least 34 people across the United States and is expected to claim more lives after trapping some residents inside houses with heaping snow drifts and knocking out power to tens of thousands of homes and businesses. The scope of the storm has been nearly unprecedented, stretching from the Great Lakes near Canada to the Rio Grande along the border with Mexico. About 60 per cent of the US population faced some sort of winter weather advisory or warning, and temperatures plummeted drastically below normal from east of the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachians, the National Weather Service said. Travellers' weather woes are likely to continue, with hundreds of flight cancellations already and more expected after a bomb cyclone - when atmospheric pressure drops very quickly in a strong storm - developed near the Great Lakes, stirring up blizzard conditions, including heavy winds and snow. Some 1,707 domestic and international flights were cancelled on Sunday, according to the tracking site FlightAware. The storm unleashed its full fury on Buffalo, with hurricane-force winds and snow causing whiteout conditions, paralysing emergency response efforts. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said almost every fire truck in the city was stranded Saturday and implored people Sunday to respect an ongoing driving ban in the region. Officials said the airport would be shut through Tuesday morning. The National Weather Service said the snow total at the Buffalo Niagara International Airport stood at 109 centimetres Sunday. Daylight revealed cars nearly covered by 6-foot snowdrifts and thousands of houses, some adorned in unlit holiday displays, dark from a lack of power. With snow swirling down untouched and impassable streets, forecasters warned that an additional 1 to 2 feet of snow was possible in some areas through early Monday morning amid wind gusts of 40 mph. Police said Sunday evening that there were two "isolated" instances of looting during the storm. Two people died in their suburban Cheektowaga, New York, homes Friday when emergency crews could not reach them in time to treat their medical conditions. County Executive Mark Poloncarz 10 more people died in Erie County during the storm, including six in Buffalo, and warned there may be more dead. "Some were found in cars, some were found on the street in snowbanks," said Poloncarz. "We know there are people who have been stuck in cars for more than 2 days." Freezing conditions and day-old power outages had Buffalonians scrambling to get to anywhere that had heat amid what Hochul called the longest sustained blizzard conditions ever in the city. But with streets under a thick blanket of white, that wasn't an option for people like Jeremy Manahan, who charged his phone in his parked car after almost 29 hours without electricity. "There's one warming shelter, but that would be too far for me to get to. I can't drive, obviously, because I'm stuck," Manahan said. "And you can't be outside for more than 10 minutes without getting frostbit." Ditjak Ilunga of Gaithersburg, Maryland, was on his way to visit relatives in Hamilton, Ontario, for Christmas with his daughters Friday when their SUV was trapped in Buffalo. Unable to get help, they spent hours with the engine running, buffeted by wind and nearly buried in snow. By 4 am Saturday, their fuel nearly gone, Ilunga made a desperate choice to risk the howling storm to reach a nearby shelter. He carried 6-year-old Destiny on his back while 16-year-old Cindy clutched their Pomeranian puppy, following his footprints through drifts. "If I stay in this car I'm going to die here with my kids," Ilunga recalled thinking. He cried when the family walked through the shelter doors. "It's something I will never forget in my life." The storm knocked out power in communities from Maine to Seattle. But heat and lights were steadily being restored across the US According to poweroutage.us, less than 200,000 customers were without power Sunday down from a peak of 1.7 million. Concerns about rolling blackouts across eastern states subsided Sunday after PJM Interconnection said its utilities could meet the day's peak electricity demand. The mid-Atlantic grid operator had called for its 65 million consumers to conserve energy amid the freeze Saturday. In North Carolina, less than 6,500 customers had no power - down from a peak of 485,000. Across New England, power has been restored to tens of thousands with just under 83,000 people, mostly in Maine, still without it. In New York, about 34,000 households were still without power Sunday, including 26,000 in Erie County, where utility crews and hundreds of National Guard troops battled high winds and struggled with getting stuck in the snow. Storm-related deaths were reported in recent days all over the country: 12 in Erie County, New York, ranging in age from 26 to 93 years old, and another in Niagara County where a 27-year-old man was overcome by carbon monoxide after snow blocked his furnace; 10 in Ohio, including an electrocuted utility worker and those killed in multiple car crashes; six motorists killed in crashes in Missouri, Kansas and Kentucky; a Vermont woman struck by a falling branch; an apparently homeless man found amid Colorado's subzero temperatures; and a woman who fell through Wisconsin river ice. In Jackson, Mississippi, city officials on Christmas Day announced that residents must now boil their drinking water due to water lines bursting in the frigid temperatures In Buffalo, William Kless was up at 3 am Sunday. He called his three children at their mother's house to wish them Merry Christmas and then headed off on his snowmobile for a second day spent shuttling people from stuck cars and frigid homes to a church operating as a warming shelter. Through heavy, wind-driven snow, he brought about 15 people to the church in Buffalo on Saturday, he said, including a family of five transported one-by-one. He also got a man in need of dialysis, who had spent 17 hours stranded in his car, back home, where he could receive treatment. "I just felt like I had to," Kless said. #Frigid #monster #storm #claims #lives Read the full article

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Railway Crashes: Common Reasons, Stats and also Prevention

Train accidents aren't as usual as other transportation accidents, which probably is why they aren't seen as a significant hazard. Although railways aren't made use of as typically as they were in centuries past, they still stay rather energetic. In reality, trains are still quite usual in the United States - particularly subways, commuter trains, trams, and so on. In the USA alone, there are around 600 railways, thousands of countless miles of tracks, and over 209,000 railroad crossings.Unfortunately, when train crashes occur, they  often|frequently|typically|commonly|usually} result in serious injuries as well as fatalities.When this takes place, getting compensation from the firm or individual responsible can be a lot more difficult than it must be. No one desires to be held accountable for such a terrible mishap, as well as their insurance coverage firm will deal with with every available resource to reject or decrease your benefits.Whether you were harmed while working for a railroad firm or you're a train guest pain in a wreck, we urge you to contact the seasoned Tennessee train accident legal representatives at Gilreath & Associates.Train Accident Data -According to the Federal Railroad Management, in 2014 there were 11,896 train mishaps at railway & crossings, resulting in 804 fatalities as well as hundreds of injuries throughout that year.-Trains are approximated to kill 1 person every 100 minutes. Annually almost 1,000 people are eliminated in train relevant mishaps.-Over half of all railroad mishaps occur at unguarded crossings. -More than 80 percent of crossings do not have adequate warning gadgets such as lights and also entrances.-Residents of vehicles that hit a train are 40 times most likely to pass away than if they had actually collided with another car of comparable dimension. Sever Car Crash Compilation Can Hep: - Every two weeks a train bring unsafe materials derails in the United States.The Great Train Wreckage of 1918 Tennessee has an especially uncomfortable history when it comes to train accidents. The Terrific Train Accident of 1918, which took place near Nashville on July 9, 1918, is widely thought about to be the worst rail crash calamity in US history to today. Over 100 individuals passed away and a minimum of another 170 were harmed when two guest trains, operated by the Nashville, Chattanooga as well as St. Louis Train ("NC&S tL" ), clashed head-on at 50 to 60 miles per hour.When the Interstate Business Payment(ICC )investigated the root cause of the crash, they established numerous aspects were at fault such important errors made by the team as well as tower operators. The ICC additionally positioned some of the blame for the high variety of casualties on the absence of a system for accurately determining train settings and the wooden building of the cars.Top 10 Reasons of Train & Railroad Accidents There are a selection of factors why train crashes occur-the majority of which occur at crossings when automobiles try to"beat"the train. When these mishaps take place, they often involve the passengers, motorist, and some passersby.While every instance is one-of-a-kind, the most common reasons for train crashes include: -Neglect -Human mistake-Reckless pedestrians and chauffeurs-Mechanical failing- Fast trains-

Bad Drivers are Crazy:

Malfunctioning tracks- Derailments -Vulnerable railroad crossings -Stalled automobiles on the track-Suicides 1. Neglect Railway mishaps as a result of carelessness can be criticized on different teams. Some might be the mistake of the train business itself, whereas others are because a conductor or railroad worker was negligent. Some crashes are also brought on by the neglect of a federal government firm. Russian Car Crash are Everywhere. Or probably a tools producer can be a reason that the accident happened.One instance of train carelessness is when a going across arm is run incorrectly. Another careless blunder is if the operator forgot or stopped working to activate the signal light, which should have provided ample warning.An usual aspect that adds to this problem is the decades old, obsolete innovation still often used for trains as well as trains today. Better modern technology is available to improve railway safety and security, but adopting these functions is frequently put on hold since it includes a substantial investment.For example, all Class I main lines that take care of either hazardous products or passenger trains (or both )were needed by Congress to implement a system of train control innovation called Favorable Train Control(PTC )by the end of 2018. PTC intends to avoid various kinds of train crashes such as crashes in between trains, quality crossing mishaps, and train derailments due to broadband. However, an estimated two-thirds of U.S. traveler railroads failed to fulfill the target date, and also PTC is only in operation on 45%of tracks had by freight railroads and 24% of tracks owned by guest railways.2. Human Error If the conductor is inexperienced, train crashes can easily happen. Even those who have been operating in the railroad sector for rather some time may make a blunder that hurts other individuals, including travelers. One more expanding trouble with both knowledgeable and also brand-new conductors is exhaustion. They can not operate the train safely if they're tired, yet they do so anyhow due to push they face from their supervisors and company.Human mistake has actually always been just one of the most common reasons for any mishap. From bad judgment to vision problems to impaired responses, these variables can(as well as do) add to train calamities.3. Careless Pedestrians & Drivers Train crashes aren't constantly the mistake of the train operator or firm.

Dashcam can be good source for Videos: Occasionally, a careless or sidetracked pedestrian can create a collision by standing on or going across the tracks at the wrong time. In other situations, the driver of an automobile, vehicle, motorbike or other car can cause a mishap by leaving their car parked on a train track or attempting to beat the train across a crossing.4. Mechanical Failing The train operator, railway staff members and also the firm itself can do every little thing within their capacity to comply with all the needed safety treatments, but a train accident can still happen. Mechanical failure and malfunctioning parts are much more rare than other usual sources of train collisions, but they do occasionally happen.Trains are large devices with complicated systems and also many moving components. Every one of the different systems need to collaborate perfectly to provide locomotive and also electric power . If some item of assistance tools( such as a rail switch) or safety devices(such as a rail signal )stops working, it can create a dangerous accident.5. Speedy Trains Time as well as once again, auto accident data confirms that driving carelessly quickly can lead to major injuries and also deaths. Trains are no exception. Numerous train accidents over the last few years showed that the quicker the train, the even worse the consequences come to be in case of a crash and also the higher chance of

derailment.6. Defective Tracks Blockage is an usual concern with the tracks and can create train derailment. International items left unintentionally at the website where the train will certainly pass can be dangerous. Conductors should know their surroundings at all times to take care of a potentially dangerous circumstance quickly as well as safely.

However, in many cases, a conductor stops working to see these obstacles at all or in time to stop a crash.7. Derailments A derailment is when a train runs off its rail, either due to a collision with one more things, a conductor mistake, mechanical track failure, busted rails, or malfunctioning wheels. A derailment doesn't always mean the train leaves the tracks- some might be minor. Nevertheless, a serious derailment can be tragic if it takes place while the train is moving at a high rate of speed.8. Vulnerable railway crossings More than 80 percent of crossings lack adequate caution tools such as lights and also entrances, and also more than fifty percent of all railroad mishaps happen at vulnerable crossings. Tennessee homeowners recognize well that there are many unsafe railroad crossings across the state. Accidents at unsafe railroad crossings are frequently brought on by: -Poor visibility- Driver diversion- Chauffeur inebriation/intoxication-Driver attempting to race the train-Malfunctioning signals-Barriers that block a chauffeur's sight-Conductor falling short to seem an alarm 9. Delayed cars on the track Cars and trucks seldom obtain stuck on railway quality crossings . Much more typical is when drivers stall out when decreasing to go across rough grades due to an improperly tuned engine. If this occurs to you, first you try to start it once more quickly. If it won't start, place your automobile in neutral and ask for help to push your vehicle off the tracks. Yet if a train is rapidly approaching and there's no time to save your vehicle, bear in mind that your life and also safety and security are initial concern. Get as far from your vehicle as possible|feasible}.10. Self-destructions Regretfully, some people select to take their very own lives by standing on the tracks or entering front of a train. Federal statistics show that 266 individuals killed themselves by stepping in front of trains in 2017. Sadly, this heartbreaking and desperate act additionally endangers other lives such as train staffs, emergency -responders, guests and also bystanders.Train Mishap Liability The details of a train accident should be evaluated extensively in order to figure out mistake as well as correct compensation. In the Department of Transportation Act of 1966, the Federal Railroad Administration is bestowed with the authority(and obligation) to look after and also advertise railway safety and security regulations.Railroad business as well as commuter rail lines have a legal obligation to keep the highest degree of security for all passengers. Additionally, they are required to set up a black box on all locomotives -a tool that records info that may be very necessary to assess in the occasion of an accident.While the railway is accountable for security, they may not constantly live up what they're meant to do. However, it's not constantly the mistake of the train or conductor. There can be several elements involved in injury instances occurring from a serious or harmful train mishap, which is why it is crucial to employ an attorney that is highly well-informed in railway mishap litigation.Train Crash Prevention & Railway Safety To attain safety and security for railways and railways, firms are required to perform whatever they can to make certain the protection of the travelers, drivers, pedestrians, as well as the public.When a train wreckage happens, the black box ought to be recuperated today as it will certainly offer information of what caused the accident, such as the rate and also instructions of the train. The black box is crucial in showing whether or not there was oversight for the railway.Fortunately, every person's safety and security is extra vital than ever for the railway sector. Operators undergo extensive training and also just those that satisfy strict demands can be approved. State inspectors also collaborate with the FRA to make sure all the railroad tracks and also facilities throughout the country are risk-free and also updated according to security regulations.