#both of the main candidates are going to further the crumbling of the world around me but i've heard that voting third party is a waste ???

[hypernixation]

saying this as a guy who will be voting for the first time in november . does voting for a third party candidate actually help anything or is it a lost cause

[newstfionline]

Sunday, December 20, 2020

Americans Are Drinking More During The Pandemic (NPR) When the pandemic began spreading across the U.S. in March, stores, restaurants and schools closed down. But liquor stores in many parts of the U.S. were deemed essential and stayed open. Alcohol sales have ticked up during the pandemic, so maybe it’s a good time to ask yourself: Are you drinking more than you’d like to be? R. Lorraine Collins, a psychologist at the University of Buffalo, recommends asking yourself, “Are you keeping alcohol as ... a special beverage for limited situations, or are you engaging in alcohol use across the board?” A break from alcohol can lead to a range of outcomes. As we’ve reported, a 2016 British study of people who participated in a monthlong “Dry January” break, found that 82% said they felt a sense of achievement. “Better sleep” was cited by 62%, and 49% said they lost some weight. Maybe you hike farther, have better conversations or get better sleep. Notice if your life feels richer to you. If we’re stuck at home for now, why not give it a try? What do you have to lose?

‘Do as I say’: Anger as some politicians ignore virus rules (AP) Denver’s mayor flies to Mississippi to spend Thanksgiving with his family—after urging others to stay home. He later says he was thinking with “my heart and not my head.” A Pennsylvania mayor bans indoor dining, then eats at a restaurant in Maryland. The governor of Rhode Island is photographed at an indoor wine event as her state faces the nation’s second-highest virus rate. While people weigh whether it’s safe to go to work or the grocery store, the mayor of Austin, Texas, heads to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, on a private jet after hosting a wedding for 20. California’s governor dines at a swanky French restaurant with lobbyists, none wearing masks, a day after San Francisco’s mayor was there for a birthday party. Both had recently imposed tough rules on restaurants, shops and activities to slow the spread of the virus. To the public’s chagrin, some of America’s political leaders have been caught preaching one thing on the coronavirus and practicing another. Sure, politicians have long been called out for hypocrisy. But during a pandemic that’s forced millions into seclusion and left many without paychecks, such actions can feel like a personal insult—reinforcing the idea “that some people just don’t have to follow the rules while the rest of us do,” says Rita Kirk, a professor of communications at Southern Methodist University. Pandemic-era hypocrisy has only deepened the polarization in a time already marked by division, emboldening those who doubt the seriousness of the virus and dividing people’s responses based on political affiliations.

Hacked networks will need to be burned ‘down to the ground’ (AP) It’s going to take months to kick elite hackers widely believed to be Russian out of the U.S. government networks they have been quietly rifling through since as far back as March in Washington’s worst cyberespionage failure on record. Experts say there simply are not enough skilled threat-hunting teams to duly identify all the government and private-sector systems that may have been hacked. FireEye, the cybersecurity company that discovered the intrusion into U.S. agencies and was among the victims, has already tallied dozens of casualties. It’s racing to identify more. “We have a serious problem. We don’t know what networks they are in, how deep they are, what access they have, what tools they left,” said Bruce Schneier, a prominent security expert and Harvard fellow. Many federal workers—and others in the private sector—must presume that unclassified networks are teeming with spies. Agencies will be more inclined to conduct sensitive government business on Signal, WhatsApp and other encrypted smartphone apps. The only way to be sure a network is clean is “to burn it down to the ground and rebuild it,” Schneier said.

College students recruited as teachers to keep schools open (AP) As the coronavirus sidelines huge numbers of educators, school districts around the country are aggressively recruiting substitute teachers, offering bonuses and waiving certification requirements in order to keep classrooms open. Coming to the rescue in many cases are college students who are themselves learning online or home for extended winter breaks. In Indiana, the 4,400-student Greenfield-Central school district about 20 miles (32 kilometers) east of Indianapolis made a plea for help as its substitute pool shrank. “I said, ‘If you’ve got a student who’s in college, maybe they’d like to work even a two-month thing for us—which would be a stopgap, no doubt—but it will help us a whole, whole bunch,” said Scott Kern, the Greenfield-Central Community School Corporation director of human resources. Over a dozen college students answered the call including his own daughter, 19-year-old Grace Kern, who is studying medical imaging technology at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis. She has been working in elementary school classrooms, helping students as teachers offer instruction remotely via a screen inside the room.

An Ex-Governor Is Gunned Down, Punctuating a Deadly Year for Mexico (NYT) The former governor of the state of Jalisco was gunned down early Friday while vacationing in the resort city of Puerto Vallarta, the authorities said, a brazen killing that further illustrated the government’s struggles to rein in the deadly violence that has surged across Mexico over the past five years. The killing of the ex-governor, Aristóteles Sandoval, who was shot in the back inside a restaurant restroom, is one of the highest-profile political killings in Mexico in recent memory, security experts said. Mr. Sandoval was killed just hours before President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his cabinet delivered a grim update on the nation’s security situation during a news conference. More than 31,000 murders were recorded in Mexico this year as of November, the latest month for which government statistics are available, a figure roughly on pace with 2019. But homicides have nearly doubled over the past five years.

Bosnian city of Mostar gets a vote (AP) Irma Baralija is looking forward to Sunday, when she intends to vote and hopes to win her race as the southern Bosnian city of Mostar holds its first local election in 12 years. To make that vote possible in her hometown, the 36-year-old Baralija had to sue Bosnia in the European Court of Human Rights for letting a stalemate between two major nationalist political parties prevent her, along about 100,000 other Mostar residents, from voting or running in a municipal election for over a decade. By winning in court in October 2019, Baralija believes she has “busted the myth (that nationalist parties) have been feeding to us, that an individual cannot move things forward, that we matter only as members of our ethnic groups.” Left without fully functioning institutions, Mostar—one of the impoverished Balkan country’s main tourist destinations—has seen its infrastructure crumble, trash repeatedly pile up on its streets and hazardous waste and wastewater treatment sludge dumped in its only landfill, which was supposed to be for non-hazardous waste.

India’s virus cases cross 10 million as new infections dip (AP) India’s confirmed coronavirus cases have crossed 10 million with new infections dipping to their lowest levels in three months, as the country prepares for a massive COVID-19 vaccination in the new year. Dr. Randeep Guleria, a government health expert, said India is keeping its fingers crossed as the cases tend to increase in winter months. India is home to some of the world’s biggest vaccine-makers and there are five vaccine candidates under different phases of trial in the country.

Israel’s top-secret Mossad looks to recruit via Netflix, Hulu and Apple TV (Washington Post) After decades in the shadows, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, the Mossad, has been getting a lot of airtime, both on the news and in popular TV thrillers. In real life, details of operations attributed to Israel are in the open like never before, including the theft two years ago of a trove of nuclear secrets from inside Iran, last summer’s drive-by killing of al-Qaeda’s No. 2 in Tehran and the assassination last month of Iran’s top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. And on the screen, streaming hits like Apple TV Plus’s “Tehran,” Netflix’s “The Spy” and Hulu’s “False Flag” have starred the Mossad as a cold, ruthless and efficient machine. Far from squirming, the once-supersecret agency has welcomed the exposure, former spies say. The Mossad needs recruits. Military veterans who might have once made their career in national service now leave to work for lucrative start-ups, or found their own. Israeli companies Waze, Wix, Viber and others were started by intelligence veterans. In response, Yossi Cohen, the Mossad’s director since 2016 and a close ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has embarked on a hiring spree, increased the agency’s number of sabotage operations and enlarged its budget by billions of shekels. The Mossad’s recruitment drive includes a heightened social media presence and a calculated trickle of unconfirmed information about its exploits. And former spies say the agency is quietly embracing a slew of TV shows and movies that could do for the agency what “Top Gun” famously did for naval recruitment: make a life in the organization seem cool again.

Chaos and jubilation as freed Nigerian schoolboys reunite with family (Reuters) Parents sobbed, mobbed their children in hugs and even kissed the ground in gratitude on Friday as they reunited with scores of schoolboys who had been kidnapped a week earlier in northwest Nigeria. Hundreds of adults jostled to find their offspring among the 344 dusty and dazed looking children who had arrived by bus in Katsina state on Friday morning. Those who succeeded cheered and grabbed their children, but scores more were still waiting by early evening. “I feel like God has granted me paradise because I am so happy,” said an ebullient Hamza Kankara after she found her son, Lawal, in the crowd. Another man knelt and kissed the ground, thanking God for the return of his young son, before clutching the boy and sobbing.

[mistlethace]

Accept prompt? So here's one, Zaggar prompt. "Thoughts of a passionate Galra" I know they are not affectionate beings, at least by appearance, so I wondered what went through Zarkon's mind when he realized he was in love. Sorry if it's confused, English is not my native language.

This…is not exactly what you asked for? But I had your prompt in mind when I started this, and it’s definitely about Zarkon falling in love, so here you go.

Also found on AO3.

The first time he had seen Daibazaal from space, he had lost his voice. Space travel was something reserved for the orbital fleet, those wealthier members of the merchant class, and occasionally the imperial family, when a diplomatic event was important enough to require their presence. Then, he had just been a prince; thirteenth in his line of the House Syncline, barely past his majority and fit mainly for dueling, politicking, and the most rigid of court ceremonies.

“Small, isn’t it?” One of the lieutenants - Zarkon had been introduced to him at the start of the party, hours ago - remarked to him, gesturing to the viewing-panel with his glass of liquor. The few markings of ranks on his armor were polished to a high sheen. “Like it could fit in the palm of your hand.”

Zarkon looked back out the window; he could just pick out the dark stretch of land that was his House’s lands, spotted with pale glows that marked not cities but old bombing-sites, still contaminated. Clouds streaked over glassy green seas that hid their gravitational currents under the surface, racing over the few defiant lights on the jagged edges of the world before vanishing into the void. It looked steadfast, like the last rampart in a crumbling red ruin.

He takes a drink from his own glass, to be polite. “From this perspective, certainly.”

===

The woman - Master Alchemist Honerva - has eyes that gleam like small chips of gold. Perhaps they’re unique to her sub-group, as none of Alfor’s other attendants or compatriots had them, much like the soft, subtle gray of her hair. She had taken command of the project swiftly and with great cheer, reserving her greatest enthusiasm not for conversation with her king but for directing the numerous assistants scurrying through the lab, that odd pet still curled around her shoulders.

She’s still there when he takes a last detour on his way back to the palace, late past the reasoning of most people who don’t run a planet.

Zarkon pauses as the door to the main lab slides open; his bodyguards remain a few steps behind, manning the entrance. Honerva sits at a bank of consoles opposite to the door, her back turned to him. The cat is gone, and she seems unaware of his presence, completely focused.

Just when he determines to clear his throat, Honerva sighs abruptly, slouching back in her chair in a way that’s both petulant and discouraged. She sighs again, and in a quick, practiced motion, tugs the fastening from her bun so that it tumbles down her back in a loose tail. The cool blue light of the screens creates a radiance around her, blurring her outline as she sits up, shaking out her hair and leaning back over her work.

It’s unusually terrifying to head back down the hallway while trying not to make a sound. For all Zarkon’s worries, him and his cadre make it out of the enclosure without any disturbances. If Honerva ever realized that he was there, she doesn’t mention it the next day, or any other.

===

“The feast is still going to be held in the lesser hall of the east wing, correct?”

“Yes. Unfortunately the windows in the greater hall are still having their force shielding rebuffed,” Alvreid says with a faint sigh, adding a few notations to the data pad in her hands. She has been social director to the throne since long before he was sired, back to the early reign of Zarkon’s predecessor. If she isn’t the official matchmaker to the throne, she is a filter for the amateur ones trying to maneuver various noble youths close enough to him to make a proposal, weeding out candidates with ruthless discretion. “The seating arrangements, for your approval?”

Zarkon takes the pad she hands him, looking down at the spread of table settings, names written alongside each seat in crabbed handwriting. It’s well-arranged to keep the hangers-on at a distance and any feuding Houses well separate; he almost hesitates before saying, “Yes, but have the Yurakor guests on the right side rearranged - I want the Altean delegate seated at my table.” The delegate being the highest ranked citizen in residence, and with Ambassador Pinna withdrawn due to illness, the duty falls to Honerva, being of royal appointment to the Quintessence Project.

Instead of making a note, Alvreid just stares. The aged yellow of her eyes is nearly enough to make him squirm, but Zarkon doesn’t back down.

“You would go decaphoebs without a single indiscretion, and then throw your backing behind someone entirely respectable and utterly unsuited,” she finally says, in a disgustedly resigned tone that would be treasonous if she didn’t traffic in royal secrets for a living. “Very well; but you’ll be the one who has to listen to every backwater prince bleating about the purity of the royal line.”

The feast goes excellently. Honerva looks splendid in the formal uniform of the Altean Scientific Corps, and spends much of the meal in lively conversation with himself and her neighbor, one of the fleet generals just returned from orbital service. If anything is said of it, well - Zarkon is not in earshot to catch it.

===

“Children,” is Honerva’s next question. “Do you want them?”

Zarkon blinks, taken by surprise. He leans down to examine a row of thistle-thorns, grown red and fat in their trays: Honerva’s current experiment involves the usage of quintessence-fueled soil as fertilizer. “Yes,” he says. “It’s generally considered an imperial duty to have a few, should a line of succession ever need to be established.”

Honerva gives him a look of playful frustration. “I mean, do you want them beyond the throne?”

“Certainly,” Zarkon says, without hesitation. As Honerva picks up one of the samples, holding it high to examine its roots, he asks, “And you?”

“Ah, well.” Honerva tilts her head in indecision. “I always figured I might have one of my own in few years, once I reached a secure point in my career. Just the one - any more and I’d be totally lost, I think.”

Some assumption in Zarkon’s mind crumbled and collapsed, leaving him momentarily scrambling for a reply. No - such a detail couldn’t have slipped past him, not for this long. “You, ah, have a partner back on Altea?”

“No,” Honerva says, darting a look at him that’s just this side of amused. “Though it’s more… straightforward to do it the usual way, it’s easy enough to conceive without a partner thanks to gravidity treatments. With artificial replicators, you don’t even have to be involved on the physical level.”

“I see,” Zarkon says. He tries not to sound too relieved. He thinks he’s successful. “That sounds like a fascinating process: would you tell me more about it?”

===

She says yes. She says yes, and it’s as though a whole new paradigm has opened up; the weight of the world, shifted, like how he had felt stepping down from the dais after his coronation. Another dimension full of new possibilities. 

It takes three decaphoebs to plan the wedding: half of that is due to the delicate social engineering required of any imperial wedding, and the rest a consequence of the fact that Zarkon is marrying someone neither Galra nor noble nor ready to give up their life to the tide of duty. And at the end of it all, she stands with him in front of a crowd of thousands, millions more watching, hands clasped.

He says yes, and she smiles up at him with a star’s brilliance.

===

After Alfor leaves - after Zarkon has convinced him to leave - he finds Honerva fixed at her usual station in the lab, eyes flicking over multiple videos and reports scattered across the holographic screen. Several teams have already been deployed to investigate the area the beast had laid waste, clean-up crews close behind. She hasn’t slept since the first disturbance, now nearly two cycles ago, and it shows: her hollowed eyes only emphasized by the red streaks accenting their corners, face drawn and hair a mess.

“My love,” Zarkon says. Honerva looks up as he moves to stand beside her. He almost doesn’t know what to say. In the past few days he has seen a monster pull itself out of the core of the world, known his planet was on the verge of destruction, and piloted a ship that flew faster than thought, one that sang in his mind with each soaring movement. “Are you certain?”

Before she can speak, he continues, “I don’t mean to end the project. But things can be put into stasis; to hold off further incidents while we take time to rebuild and recover. Are you certain that this is the imperative moment?”

Honerva is quiet. She looks back to the screen, eyes reflecting blue, before saying, “Do we know for sure that it’s dead?“

"It must be. Alfor said that the only things left were scraps of atoms - ”

“And if it were to rebuild itself from those scraps? Or another one to emerge, following after it?”

Zarkon doesn’t have to answer. He can well imagine the effect of another battle like this one, an endless cycle tearing the land apart.

"It is too dangerous not to be studied.” Honerva jerks to her feet, laying both palms flat against the console as if for emphasis. “We have to have control over it. To command it.”

She turns to face him, gold eyes shining like coals against her dusky skin. There are the faintest streaks of white in her hair, he realizes, turned silver in the low light: from what? For how long? Then, abruptly, she strides forward, and throws her arms around his waist, clinging onto him fiercely.

“I will not let it escape our grasp,” she says - a vow and a threat all at once, declared to a universe far bigger than the two of them. “I’ll find the answer, no matter what it takes.”

Zarkon cautiously settles his arms around his wife, holding her close. There is a strange, coaxing feeling in his chest that recalls a red planet hanging in the void; to see something wild and dangerous and wish to close one’s hands around it - to protect it.

“Yes,” Zarkon murmurs into her hair, turning his cheek to let her tuck her head into his shoulder. “You will.”