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

[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.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Matt Ford at TNR (05.13.2025):

The Trump administration has often claimed that it wants to increase the nation’s fertility rate. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported last month that the rate is at roughly 1.6 births per woman. That is higher than in other major developed countries—South Korea has dropped to a fertility rate of 0.75, for example—but below the replacement level of 2.1. Trump described himself as “the fertilization president” at a Women’s History Month event at the White House earlier this spring, a title he claims is apt because of his verbal support of in vitro fertilization, a practice that many other Republicans oppose on religious grounds. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of health and human services, has expressed concern about the decline in potential fertility among younger Americans. “Our fertility is dropping dramatically,” he claimed in April. “Teenagers in this country have the same testosterone levels as 68-year-old men.” (He was presumably referring to teenage boys.) JD Vance and other top Trump officials have supported the so-called “pronatalist” movement that advocates for much higher fertility rates, at least among certain groups of people. These concerns are shaping policy areas that might seem unrelated at first glance. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy ordered his department in February to prioritize infrastructure projects in “communities with marriage and birthrates higher than the national average.” Most of the decline in the U.S. fertility rate can be attributed to the sharp decline in teenage pregnancies, something that would have been seen as a policy victory by conservatives a generation ago. Increasing fertility rates is a vexing issue that countries in Asia and Europe have struggled with for the last 20 years with little success.

Nonetheless, if the Trump administration is actually serious about the nation’s fertility rate, it might want to stop doing numerous things that will likely kill American children. In April, for example, the Trump administration shuttered the communications office for the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, one of the components of the National Institutes of Health, and laid off its workforce. Among the office’s responsibilities was coordinating the federal government’s participation in the Safe to Sleep program, which aims to encourage parents to adopt safe-sleep practices for newborns and infants. The Safe to Sleep program emerged in the 1990s as researchers sought to identify the causes of sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, which killed thousands of infants every year at the time. While the specific causes of SIDS are still being studied, the program has helped persuade millions of parents to avoid practices that might seem safe or normal—bed-sharing, using blankets or stuffed animals, letting infants sleep at night in car seats and strollers—but actually contribute to suffocation risks. Those changes and others helped reduce SIDS deaths by 50 percent by the 2010s. It is hard to imagine a better use of taxpayer funds than preventing infant deaths—or one more aligned with so-called “pronatalist” interests. Instead, the Trump administration appears poised to destroy how federal public health agencies track infant mortality and maternal health problems and communicate about them to Americans. Kennedy began his tenure at HHS by proposing a radical internal restructuring of the department, shuttering numerous programs, and directing layoffs for roughly 20,000 employees. Among the casualties are the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System, or PRAMS, which collects data on prenatal and postpartum care across the country to improve policymaking on maternal and infant health. The Washington Post reported that HHS also dismantled programs that collect fertility and reproductive health statistics, with vast downstream implications for research that relies on official numbers for issues ranging from IVF success rates to postpartum depression. Personnel can be policy as well. Kennedy, the nation’s top public health official, has a long history of spreading doubt and confusion about childhood vaccinations for personal gain. After the island nation of Samoa paused its measles vaccination program in 2019 after a fatal vaccination mishap, Kennedy flew in to encourage government officials there to engage in a “natural experiment” to see what would happen if they went without vaccinating their children against the disease. The resulting measles epidemic killed at least 83 children and sickened thousands of others.

While seeking Senate confirmation earlier this year, Kennedy downplayed his anti-vaccine views and told senators that he would leave current childhood immunization schedules intact. That pledge appears to be hanging by a thread. Kennedy and his allies are reportedly planning to remove the Covid-19 vaccine from the schedule. They also plan to require that future vaccine studies include unvaccinated control groups, a practice that health experts had long opposed because it was unethical. Some of Kennedy’s critics have described his policies and rhetoric, especially toward people with autism and vaccines, as “eugenic” in nature. After overseeing a measles outbreak in Texas that killed two children earlier this year, he recently suggested in a Fox News interview that the measles vaccine was unnecessary because the disease had a low mortality rate.

The Trump Regime’s policies do NOT have the best interests of children in mind.

[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.

[lavenderarts]

Per my last reblog you may not have heard abt that bc it happened on Twitter but when Bungie did its post-TFS layoffs I said “at least Hazel got fired” and immediately people turned on me and acted as if I said I hoped she had been killed and dumped in a ditch somewhere, all I said was I’m glad a notable racist homophobe Reylo stan who, yes, also wrote some very good things in Destiny, will no longer be contributing to calling an Asian man a racial slur, AFTER Bungie apologized and promised not to do it anymore. She got put on Drifter duty and all of a sudden he’s a rat again; she’s not solely responsible of course, her work had to have been reviewed and allowed to pass with that in there, but it was obvious it was her work. But since people think Drifteris was cute and she’s best friends with H*ykebyr she’s just allowed to do that I GUESS

And then the head of an artist events group I hadn’t interacted with in several years Tweeted a screenshot of what I said and claimed falsely that I was stalking and harassing her and her mods for years, I was negatively affecting their mental health, and I was unmedicated and dangerous. Almost 50 thousand people saw that Tweet and none of it was true, and nobody cared or bothered to ask for literally any proof whatsoever because I wasn’t sad about a racist who blocks gay people who don’t like her weird Star Wars ship on her business account as a public figure getting fired. They were so upset because I privately, to someone else who leaked my conversation, criticized the way they moderate their Discord server lol, but instead of just saying that they fabricated this entire psychological siege I’ve apparently been conducting and yet produced not a single shred of evidence! Mysterious!!

And that’s not even to touch on the much worse harassment friends of mine and other prominent figures in the community have received for pointing out racism or antisemitism inside the game and its lore, even though that criticism has always come from a place of loving the game and wanting it to be better and hold itself to the standard of equity and love it professes. What happened to me is nothing compared to their experience.

So fuck Destiny artists lmaooo. So sad so many of them have come to Warframe now, nobody wants your musty ass art. So if you’re curious why I unfollowed or broke mutuals with people, I love Destiny but I’m not having racists’ art on my dash and it’s not y’all fault for reblogging it I just don’t care to see anyone’s D2 art anymore. Anyone I personally had an issue with I just blocked, no hard feelings for anybody else. Still happy to take comms for it but between that experience and what the game has become, a horrid microtransaction hole where no one who made the game great is even there anymore, its time in my life is done :/

[lennalefay]

heavy thread but I want to talk about it a bit. CW mentions of death. This 'hurricane season' thing, let's talk about it.

I lived in Fort Myers, Florida for ~35 years. Fort Myers is in Southwest Florida, an area that is a geographical magnet for tropical disasters. *Just that city alone* sees some degree of hurricane hit every 2.35 years.

Southwest Florida is not all snowbirds, partiers, MAGAts, whatever convenient excuse people make to justify their righteousness in them having their lives potentially up-ended (or just ended) every potentially 2.35 years. More under the cut.

Even with literal round-the-clock coverage and support of these storms, the tolls are shocking. I remember driving to see a family member's house after Charley hit in 2004. We got access to the area early because they had a home there, and we were warned to not look around too much as we drove. That warning was, as we found out, because while many crews were performing S&R, the poorer areas and trailer parks in Charlotte Harbor were being treated by a cleanup crew, just scrambling to remove blood and other things that I won't mention from any remaining structures/trees.

When storms came, those of us with the least means often meant we stayed no matter what. Many codes of conduct for employment in SWFL had clauses stating you're not supposed to be able to lose a job from fleeing from a disaster - but everyone who lived there knew that was a lie, and they'd find a way to make you pay for leaving. If you were able to evacuate, free bus routes only started in the bigger parts of cities and only went so far.

On top of that, the median age in Charlotte Park, one of the areas most affected by that storm, is 69.8 years old. The average salary? $27,785. That area of Florida is also staggeringly car-dependent, scoring a pathetic average of 28/100 in combined walk/bus usefulness. (Census data and Walk Score taken around 2023 on average.)

All this is to say - people don't get out.

You'd come back to work, if you were lucky enough to have work off, and someone would still be missing. Maybe not a coworker, but a parent, distant relative, pet, livelihood, something, someone. You'd measure life differently as it was before the storm and after it, even if you weren't directly affected, even if there "aren't that many deaths" as people love to claim for some obscene reason, like a collective of smaller cities isn't going to feel deaths in the hundreds per storm in their community and far more lives affected.

All of this is with, I will remind you, round-the-clock coverage of these storms, often with a full month of preparedness taken into consideration. Anything less than this kind of response and our death tolls will look like they did before the 70s again - in the thousands, not hundreds, per storm. And any gutting of FEMA is a gutting of direct, rapid aid to the people most hurt by these storms. Say what you will about government efficiency as a whole, but FEMA gets checks into bank accounts in weeks, sometimes days after storms, to people affected in all manner and priority of ways. Lives are saved by this.

So, with all that, here's the point I'm ultimately trying to make:

If you think the gutting of the NOAA and FEMA is sensible spend reduction, or, even worse, some kind of blessing for the people you assume to "deserve it",

If you don't think that the aim of this administration is anything less, with the knowledge had on these storms, than to actively kill constituents,

If you think that the once-acting head of FEMA being ousted for not kissing the ring and replaced by someone who apparently doesn't know about the US's hurricane season (???) is a "partisan issue", or is justified as the administration claimed FEMA "use[d] “woke” ideologies to appropriate funds", or

If you think now is the time to ridicule anyone for not being able to just "pack up and leave",

I'd better see your ass on the Volunteer Florida website or local food bank's page this hurricane season peak donating your time and/or money to make it right.

[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

[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.

[molsons112000]

Singapore, now he has the highest income per capita in the world.... but they learned a long time ago when things get cleaner and safer, you need to start beating the s*** out of people.... because the natural checks and balances like them, making a mistake on the turn and a semi truck hitting them and killing them. It doesn't happen anymore, so people can get away with more and more and more mistakes, just like they figure it out in japan... So what did I do? Because you're not paying for these other things that would diminish you. They make it incredibly more competitive. They tighten up everything, so small crimes become big crimes, and that diminishes your upward mobility... and they bring in a** kickings... since they don't have gangs and other things, these checks and balances where people in society don't kick each other's f****** a** in public.Cause of assault and battery and other things.They voted for the government to start kicking the s*** out of people!!!, so they don't have to do it as a citizen.The police come pick you up and they kick the f****** s*** out of you... this creates checks and balances, and we need to start beating the s*** out of people.... you will learn.They'll just become unbelievable f***** animals... yes like mob land... they get away with all their mistakes... so they realize that there is a need for physical pain and the church used to agree and used to give physical pain, and you're talking all the way back to jesus... but most of the time society delivered it to you... But now you have to deliver it....

Worldometer

https://www.worldometers.info

GDP per Capita

GDP per Capita ; 1, Singapore, $141,553 ; 2, Luxembourg, $139,106 ; 3, Qatar, $128,919 ; 4, Ireland, $124,578 

Yes, as you see above, singapore's at a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year... jen's sister gina, she moved to singapore.I don't know if she moved back... but they have the highest income per person in the world!!!! And they realize, with a lot of money comes a lot of responsibility, so they tighten up all the f***** roles, and if you jaywalk, you get your f****** a** beat!!!! They don't want people using the money. To fund terrorism or criminal activity, or do negative things... So, you understand when you take the rain's off of them, people get very bad with money, like they show with mob land look at the point of them being rich.. And they think they can get away with everything... so you have to what tighten the noose around their neck!!! So this association should be socking at to people!!!! I shouldn't have to worry about it at all. They should be kicking the s*** out of them!!!! Not my job, their job and I want them to start kicking the s*** out of them!!!!

[tablestakesyogi]

How America Saved 23 Million Lives...but Program Was Chainsawed

Dr. Peter Kerndt with some of the people whose lived he saved. During the thick of the AIDS crisis, my friend Dr. Peter Kerndt helped saved thousands of lives as the Director of the HIV/AIDS and TB Programs at the Los Angeles County Public Health Department. After serving nearly 30-years as an infectious disease expert, you'd figure that Peter had earned a relaxing retirement. But did he head to the golf course?  Nope, he flew to Africa and began working to stem the AIDS epidemic, which was sweeping through the continent, killing millions of people, wrecking the economy and destabilizing governments. The program was launched by the second President Bush, and it may be one of the most successful humanitarian projects in modern history. I knew next to nothing about America’s African AIDS eradication program. But about five years ago I met Peter, and he told me about the work he was doing. Anyone who lived through the 1980’s and 90s and observed the death and suffering of loved ones and friends who were infected with HIV and AIDs knows deadly it was. Even when drugs were developed to fight AIDS, they were at first ineffective not to mention extremely expensive.  That’s why I was knocked over when Peter told me that now America’s program could stop AIDs by providing a daily pill that costs less than 30-cents a day. The challenge was to build a distribution system to deliver that medicine to people throughout Africa. Peter is about as calm and competent as they come, but this was a massive logistical challenge. He and his colleagues worked over years with national health ministries in African countries to slowly build an effective medicine delivery network.  As of today, America’s African AIDS program has saved more than 23 million lives.

But Peter didn’t stop there.  He moved on to fight the killer disease Tuberculosis (TB) which is otherwise known as the “White Death.” TB is an infectious disease that kills more than 1.5 million people a year or about 4,000 humans per day.  Using their experience and connections from the AIDS program, Peter and his team began attacking this deadly scourge.  There’s no vaccine, but the disease can be eradicated with antibiotics.  Utilizing their existing network in Africa and other parts of the world Peter and his colleagues developed a plan to eradicate TB from the face of the earth by 2030.

One example of Peter’s work is a father in Mozambique with TB who his team treated along with giving preventive treatment to the man’s five kids and neighborhood kids so they wouldn’t get TB. Up until two weeks ago, Peter worked for USAID, the agency through which these humanitarian programs were administered. But as you may have read, President Trump and Elon Musk took a chainsaw to USAID and fired Peter, thousands of his colleagues and destroyed these lifesaving programs.  According to Peter these cuts already have taken a toll.

Trump and Musk wanted to save money, about $ 2 billion all together.  And how would they use the money instead?  Trump and the Congressional Republicans already have a plan.  They will use the money to cut taxes primarily for billionaires.  Sadly, this is not a joke.  You can do your own research to verify it. What is the actual price tag for Trump and Musk’s actions? “People infected with TB and HIV will not be able to obtain their medicine.  Their diseases will worsen, they will become very sick, and many millions will die,” said Peter. “These are totally preventable deaths that will now occur because the projects were terminated.”

Some people might say: “Sorry but this isn’t America’s responsibility.” It’s dreadful to hear such a heartless response in the face of such vast human suffering. The humanitarian benefits alone justify the cost of the program. But the national interest also suffers because these programs delivered very real and very deep appreciation from millions in Africa and around the world. How would you feel about a country that saved your husband and your daughter from a horrible death from TB? You would never forget; you would be eternally grateful.  Multiply that sentiment by tens of millions and you can see how our national security is enhanced. Peter and his colleagues and the American taxpayers who supported them are true heroes.  We can only hope that the chaos and cruelty that terminated their work will be reversed.

Read the full article

[eskat]

It's morbid, but... yeah, American healthcare is bad enough that someone can be murdered in the streets, and the populace cheers, not because they know who it was that was killed and personally had a grudge, but because of how fundamentally they represent the rot that kills thousands per year. Some numbers I can find say ~26,000, some say ~68,000, Others still ~45,000. Regardless, let's just say it's tens of thousands as a safe bet.

Many years ago, one of those people was my father in law, or at the time, someone I would've called one of my best friends. He was a lot older than me for sure, but he was truly a good friend to me. Years ago, he died of a heart attack. He had had one before, and it had financially ruined him. For over a decade later he was hounded by debt collectors, had his bank accounts seized, and was effectively squeezed for every penny they could get out of him.

And then when it started to happen again, and he felt the second heart attack begin, he accepted death rather than go through that again. He picked up the phone, called his best friend, told him what was happening, ignored his friend's begging to get help, and died.

And in that year, he was just one of literal tens of thousands of others who died, because trying to keep him and others like him healthy and alive was deemed to be less important than making a profit for share holders.

I don't necessarily like the idea of us "addressing" this by random acts of violence. Systemic rot isn't something I feel we'll fix by killing a few people at the top of the pile. But I just wanted to give some people who are outside the US a window into how bad it is over here when it comes to healthcare. A lot of people outside the US who I've seen seem shocked and horrified that someone was shot in the streets and the American response has been just to jeer and laugh at the corpse. No sympathy for the family, no fear, no concern, no thought for how due process should be considered. And yeah, I kinda get it! It's pretty unhinged to have an entire nation of people cheering over a brutal killing in the streets. But it's because basically everyone knows someone, or at bare minimum, knows someone who knows someone who either flat out died, is basically a debt-slave to the medical system, or just doesn't treat a treatable medical condition due to its cost, sometimes conditions that are manageable without treatment, and sometimes conditions that will kill or cripple them eventually, just... not yet, so they just choose to live with the idea that death is coming for them soon, but hoping that maybe they'll get lucky to have it take longer than expected.

I personally don't think this killing was really justice. But Brian Thompson's job, no matter how ethically he tried to do it, was built on the idea of finding new and innovative ways to let people suffer and die in service of balancing the budget and maintaining an ever growing profit margin. Maybe he did it with a wicked smile and malice in his heart, maybe he did with blind ignorance to the suffering he generated, maybe he felt bad about it, and tried to minimize the harm that his role caused. But in any case, he was responsible for the death, harm, and torment of many. His death wasn't real justice, but no one here has even hoped that people like him would face justice for the harm they caused. It was however, revenge, and since we hadn't hoped for anything, a lot of people are willing to take our morbid consolation prize, and I can't even blame them.

For profit healthcare is mass murder.

[bllsbailey]

Journalists Reveal Why They Think Dems Aren't Opposing Trump's Anti-DEI Executive Order

The Left is freaking out over the shuddering of federal DEI programs and officers, per the latest executive order issued by President Donald J. Trump. A significant group that’s mum on the subject are congressional Democrats. All DEI staffers in the federal government were placed on paid leave this week. The media melted down. The activist wing of the liberal base is besides themselves, but Democrats on the Hill writ large aren’t flipping out. Sure, they’re preoccupied trying to deliver a body blow to the Trump White House by derailing the nomination of Pete Hegseth to be our next secretary of defense, but journalists Michael Shellenberger and Alex Gutentag have another theory: they’re keeping their mouths shut because they know DEI initiatives are trash. 

Of all the actions Trump has made, this one is notably muted. It’s almost like a shoulder shrug. Part of that could be fatigue, as the Left has raged against the president for years and with little success. It took an unprecedented pandemic, which liberals weaponized for political gain, to ‘win’ the 2020 election. Gutentag and Shellenberger noted that it’s also notable since DEI stuff permeated the cultural scene, with the federal government, Hollywood, and other cultural bastions injecting it into their veins. It’s now being gutted at the federal level, and no one is taking to the streets. Again, they know it’s wrong, just like how liberals know Elon Musk didn’t hurl a Nazi salute at the inaugural rally on Monday (via Public): 

Progressives, Democrats, and the media reacted with outrage at Donald Trump’s words and actions. Thousands took to the streets to protest his policies as racist. “Trump is a racist,” said a New York Times columnist. Rep. Nancy Pelosi called Trump’s statements “racist” and Chuck Schumer said they “drip with racism.” Even some conservatives called Trump’s remarks “clearly racist.”  Were they responding to President Trump’s sweeping repeal yesterday of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs, known as DEI? No, they were responding to various tweets and statements by Trump in 2017, 2018, and 2019.  […]  … the response to Trump’s anti-DEI order is nothing like the response we saw to Trump’s actions over the last eight years. Starting in 2015, progressives called much of what Trump had said or done on immigration, DEI, Covid, and other issues as racist and white supremacist. Save for perhaps the word “fascist,” progressives and Democrats have used no word more than “racist” to describe Trump and his policies. While the media has criticized Trump’s order, nothing is happening remotely like the hyperbole on race we saw over the last eight years.  And the response to Trump’s anti-DEI actions is nothing like the response to the killing of George Floyd in 2020. Beyond the protests, there was a massive push for DEI. Back then, Jeff Bezos of Amazon reaffirmed his company’s support for Black Lives Matter and pledged $10 million to social justice organizations. Twitter’s then-CEO Jack Dorsey donated $10 million to Ibram X. Kendi’s center. Google’s Sundar Pichai displayed a message supporting racial equality on Google’s homepage and committed $12 million to groups working to address systemic racism. Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook announced a $10 million donation to groups focused on racial justice and said that Facebook needed to do more to support the safety and equality of the black community.  Corporate America took unprecedented steps to implement Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Companies including Google, JPMorgan Chase, and Walmart pledged a total of $50 billion to support DEI.  […]  And, yet, there have been no noteworthy protests, much less riots, in response to Trump's repeal of DEI. The statements from Democratic politicians have been muted. DEI is a massive, multi-billion industry employing tens of thousands of people. Creating it took decades of work. Why, then, has there been so little resistance to dismantling it?  Most Americans agree that there are good reasons to support reasonable measures that prevent discrimination in government and other societal institutions. They believe that racism and racial inequality remain issues of concern, and some understandably fear that eliminating DEI programs could result in more racial disparities in the government and among government contractors.  But part of the problem is that DEI programs grew out of control. Much of the public has lost confidence that civilization-critical institutions will choose the most qualified candidates. As we saw with the LA fires, DEI severely hindered fire departments’ preparedness, putting the public and firefighters in danger. The preventable destruction of the fires highlighted the absurd priorities of progressives, who devoted money, energy, and mental space to DEI over human survival.  Americans are among the least racist people in the world, and genuine racist speech and racial violence have declined dramatically over the last 100 years. And yet, rather than acknowledge this reality, most DEI programs denied it. Not only that, they sought to expand the hunt for racism in intrusive and even totalitarian ways, such as in the search for so-called racist “microaggressions.” DEI programs often led to strict speech codes in the workplace, inappropriate intrusions on employees’ social behavior, and cult-like indoctrination into so-called “anti-racism.” This had a chilling effect, creating an atmosphere of self-censorship and cancel culture in schools, universities, corporations, and government agencies. 

And that has led to a suppression of free speech and overall strangeness in the workplace that’s impeded workplace efficiency and production. As Gutentag and Shellenberger noted, it’s why a host of companies have covertly shuddered their DEI operations. 

We are likely to see more resistance to Trump’s repeal of DEI in the weeks and months ahead. After all, it’s how the ACLU, Human Rights Campaign, and tens of thousands of people in the DEI industry make their money.  But we are unlikely to see Democrats unite to make DEI a high priority on their agenda for the simple reason that doing so runs counter to the American values of freedom, equality of opportunity, and meritocracy. 

And even CNN broke down how voters are down on DEI: 

The era of anti-common sense and illiberal exercises are over. We won, liberals. You lost, and this is partially why. 

Trending on Townhall Videos

[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

[ahouseofstarkdefender]

Pretty sure the prophecy GRRM had in mind was something like what Maggy gave Cersei, not what the show decided. Because Maggy's prophecy became true in a sense, while the alleged dream of Aegon... not so much.

Edit: "This is GRRM's "input", acording to Condall's POV:

"That actually came from [George]; at least the origin of that point. He told us very early on in the room, as he does. He just casually mentioned the fact that Aegon the Conqueror was a Dreamer who saw a vision of the White Walkers coming across the wall and sweeping over the land with cold and darkness. But it never made the history books, because he never told anyone. Or at least the people that he told didn't tell the history writers. So, it's in George's head, and at some point, it will come out.

One of the things we struggled with is that there's a 170-year gap between our show and the birth of Daenerys Targaryen, as you're told in the opening titles. How do you create that resonance? You don't have any characters that survive, but [there's] the idea of this existential threat to Westeros that we know as fans and watchers of the original show is coming. If we seed that into this world and make them aware of it, and give them this higher purpose to ascend to as sovereigns and rulers, [we see] that the Iron Throne isn't just a seat of power. It's a seat of responsibility and a burden to carry forward.

This idea sounds crazy if you talk about it, because what happens if Rhaenyra just tells somebody? "There's this prophecy, and that's the reason that I can't actually go in and intervene in this problem that's happening elsewhere in the realm. Because if I create war, then I unsteady the realm." You sound nuts, or you sound like you're trying to avoid a problem. It gave us a lot of interesting, dramatic stuff to play with."

So, first: GRRM had the idea that

Aegon was a Dreamer

He dreamed about the Others

In his dreams, the Others will kill everyone in the Seven Kingdoms

Not "A Targaryen ruler must be on the Iron Throne".

That part was invented by C and whoever was with him to try to make the Targaryen rule somehow more noble? To make Rhaenyra more rightfully? Did they realized she wanted to put Jace in the IT, who had less "dragon blood" than Aegon? Where is the logic? Where is the divine call?

"Oh, Nyra can't tell anyone because she will seem nuts, that's why we are putting Hela (another female character they dismissed!!!) To show you what happens when an actual Dreamer tells her about her dreams... But now you see Rhaenyra has a higher purpose..."

Why? Because her daddy told her? Why he didn't tell Aegon or the rest of his children? It just make Viserys more of an idiot because he knew half the family have bigger dragons, in the show he barely spoke with his children except to insult them and he couldn't expect the realm wouldn't tear itself in a senseless war if, less than 30 years before, he witnessed and he was part of a Great Council where they nearly went into war to sew who would be the heir!

Like everyone they touched, they made this concept into garbage!

Because they didn't see the hipocrisy in the so called Aegon's Dream. Look at the Wall! Look at what they did to the order of the Night Brothers! There were 10 thousand men. In three centuries they had with luck a man per mile. They teared down the first (and most important) line of defence the Seven Kingdoms have. They didn't do anything to protect the Seven Kingdoms! Aegon only needed an excuse to conquer like his ancestors did. Jaehaerys's wife went there, saw that the dragons couldn't cross the Wall (my bet is that she was the first Targaryen to question the Dream) and they ignored what could be the meaning?

"A seat of responsibility and a burden to carry forward" bullshit!

They sound like Dány crying at boys being killed by the Dothraki and as she looks away, weeping dramatically for the price for the IT that she doesn't have to pay! At least that's an ignorant girl brainwashed by her damaged brother.

Sorry for the rant but I just found out this and now I'm mad

Will I do it again?

Of course I will!

There are many parallels between Rhaenyra and Cersei, actually an kind of ridiculous amount:

1. Both had a taste for the finer things in life

2. Both had three bastards, and each had a bastard named Joffrey.

3. They both tried to put their bastards on the throne, or at least solidify them as heirs.

4. Two of their sons became king.

5. They were both hated by the smallfolk when they were Queens

6. Very paranoid about basically everything. Ex, younger girls threatening their position.

7. Both were compared to Maegor.

8. While Aegon’s prophecy is overplayed in the show, GRRM requested for it to be there, so both of them are heavily involved with prophecies.

9. All Rhaenyra’s bastards died, and likely the same fate will befall Tommen and Myrcella.

10. Rhaenyra was killed by her younger brother, and it pretty much confirmed that the same fate will happen to Cersei (personally I’m in the Jaime will do it corner)

[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.'

[tablestakesyogi]

How America Saved 23 Million Lives...but Program Was Chainsawed

Dr. Peter Kerndt with some of the people whose lived he saved. During the thick of the AIDS crisis, my friend Dr. Peter Kerndt helped saved thousands of lives as the Director of the HIV/AIDS and TB Programs at the Los Angeles County Public Health Department. After serving nearly 30-years as an infectious disease expert, you'd figure that Peter had earned a relaxing retirement. But did he head to the golf course?  Nope, he flew to Africa and began working to stem the AIDS epidemic, which was sweeping through the continent, killing millions of people, wrecking the economy and destabilizing governments. The program was launched by the second President Bush, and it may be one of the most successful humanitarian projects in modern history. I knew next to nothing about America’s African AIDS eradication program. But about five years ago I met Peter, and he told me about the work he was doing. Anyone who lived through the 1980’s and 90s and observed the death and suffering of loved ones and friends who were infected with HIV and AIDs knows deadly it was. Even when drugs were developed to fight AIDS, they were at first ineffective not to mention extremely expensive.  That’s why I was knocked over when Peter told me that now America’s program could stop AIDs by providing a daily pill that costs less than 30-cents a day. The challenge was to build a distribution system to deliver that medicine to people throughout Africa. Peter is about as calm and competent as they come, but this was a massive logistical challenge. He and his colleagues worked over years with national health ministries in African countries to slowly build an effective medicine delivery network.  As of today, America’s African AIDS program has saved more than 23 million lives.

But Peter didn’t stop there.  He moved on to fight the killer disease Tuberculosis (TB) which is otherwise known as the “White Death.” TB is an infectious disease that kills more than 1.5 million people a year or about 4,000 humans per day.  Using their experience and connections from the AIDS program, Peter and his team began attacking this deadly scourge.  There’s no vaccine, but the disease can be eradicated with antibiotics.  Utilizing their existing network in Africa and other parts of the world Peter and his colleagues developed a plan to eradicate TB from the face of the earth by 2030.

One example of Peter’s work is a father in Mozambique with TB who his team treated along with giving preventive treatment to the man’s five kids and neighborhood kids so they wouldn’t get TB. Up until two weeks ago, Peter worked for USAID, the agency through which these humanitarian programs were administered. But as you may have read, President Trump and Elon Musk took a chainsaw to USAID and fired Peter, thousands of his colleagues and destroyed these lifesaving programs.  According to Peter these cuts already have taken a toll.

Trump and Musk wanted to save money, about $ 2 billion all together.  And how would they use the money instead?  Trump and the Congressional Republicans already have a plan.  They will use the money to cut taxes primarily for billionaires.  Sadly, this is not a joke.  You can do your own research to verify it. What is the actual price tag for Trump and Musk’s actions? “People infected with TB and HIV will not be able to obtain their medicine.  Their diseases will worsen, they will become very sick, and many millions will die,” said Peter. “These are totally preventable deaths that will now occur because the projects were terminated.”

Some people might say: “Sorry but this isn’t America’s responsibility.” It’s dreadful to hear such a heartless response in the face of such vast human suffering. The humanitarian benefits alone justify the cost of the program. But the national interest also suffers because these programs delivered very real and very deep appreciation from millions in Africa and around the world. How would you feel about a country that saved your husband and your daughter from a horrible death from TB? You would never forget; you would be eternally grateful.  Multiply that sentiment by tens of millions and you can see how our national security is enhanced. Peter and his colleagues and the American taxpayers who supported them are true heroes.  We can only hope that the chaos and cruelty that terminated their work will be reversed.

Read the full article