#bureaucratic inertia

[raffaellopalandri]

Book of the Day – Upstream

Today’s Book of the Day is Upstream, written by Dan Heath in 2020 and published by Avid Reader Press / Simon Schuster. Dan Heath is a bestselling author, speaker, and researcher known for his work on business strategy, problem-solving, and decision-making. He and his brother Chip co-authored several influential books, including Made to Stick, Switch, and The Power of Moments. His works focus on…

[bunny--manders]

Capitalist countries cranked out out a ton of posters about public health/generally nice activities to do around this time too! Public health/awareness of public services like the library/encouragement to participate in leisure activities like tourism campaigns were a common government initiative all over the world around this time, and posters were a convenient way to get the word out. I particularly love WWII era public health campaigns, a lot of countries cranked out a ton of enthusiastically insane health and wellness posters.

Most countries still have some modern version of this sort of messaging to the public going on. They're just less reliant on posters to get the word out these days, and much less likely to have a team of illustrators on staff.

love those old soviet posters that are just advertising like, an activity. not some “go to mike’s hardware for the BEST deals around!” just “hey, you can learn stuff at libraries” or “consider going for a hike in the countryside” big kin

[reality-detective]

“The sheer, unrelenting panic emanating from the Democratic Party and its entrenched bureaucratic allies at the mere possibility of Kash Patel leading the FBI is nothing short of delicious. These people, who have spent years weaponising federal agencies to protect their own, are now staring down the barrel of genuine accountability. Patel has made it abundantly clear that he intends to release the Epstein files in their entirety, a move that would send shockwaves through the corrupt corridors of power.

They understand that Patel is not some empty suit who will sit quietly and preserve the status quo. His appointment would mean the damning secrets hidden within the Epstein files would no longer be contained by bureaucratic inertia or legalistic nonsense. No more redactions, no more delays, no more selective leaks to protect their favourite degenerates. The unsealing of these documents would not just expose the grotesque underbelly of the global elite, but it would also implicate many of the same people who have been running interference in the DOJ, the intelligence community, and the highest levels of government. The press, which has played its role as loyal gatekeepers for years, is now scrambling to downplay the significance of Patel’s nomination, hoping to discredit him before he even steps one foot inside the Hoover Building.”

Understand that this will more than likely trigger a HUGE "False Flag" distraction. 🤔

[trumpamerica]

America’s Future Depends on DOGE

Wall Street Journal

If Trump and Musk don’t succeed in showing the bureaucracy who’s boss, it’s likely no one ever will.

Critics view the Department of Government Efficiency’s emails asking federal employees for evidence of productivity as chaotic, arbitrary and even cruel measures to impose on a devoted civil service. But Elon Musk is simply bringing normal private-sector standards to a government that desperately needs them. Since the Pendleton Act of 1883 introduced merit-based selection and civil-service job protections for federal workers, the administrative state has proliferated without sufficient checks and balances from the president or Congress.

The federal bureaucracy has ballooned from a few agencies to more than 400, many of which are “independent” of the president. Americans often view the president as responsible for the actions those agencies take. The system nudges new presidents to give up and go along. And that’s exactly what they’ve done. No president—not Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan—has cracked this nut. Most reforms have made the administrative state larger, not smaller.

As we’re seeing now, substantial opposition awaits anyone who challenges the bureaucracy. Unions are powerful. Intimidation from those with institutional knowledge can be overwhelming. Fear of the media has also been a deterrent to action. Every president has been at least somewhat fearful of the intelligence agencies. Industry leaders who have captured the agencies, including many campaign donors, have been too powerful to unseat or control.

Countless cabinet secretaries come and go with the intention of changing the system. They get big offices, a nice portrait and social status, but the bureaucrats know that the political appointees are temporary and easily can be ignored. Frustrated by institutional inertia, the appointees often leave outwitted, outgunned and demoralized.

Meanwhile, the American people feel increasingly oppressed, taxed, regulated, spied on, browbeaten, hectored and harassed. Voting never made a difference because the politicians no longer controlled the system. The bureaucracies rule all. We’ve come to know this in our gut, which is why voters’ trust in the system has eroded as agencies’ power has built up.

The Biden years underscored this point. We didn’t even need a conscious or active president, only a figurehead. Behind the scenes, institutions ran everything.

How can the U.S. deal with this problem? President Trump alone figured it out in his last term: He simply took charge of agencies in a limited way with selective firings, which he believed he had the legal authority to do. This unleashed howls of horror and whispers of plots from his critics, including in the media. Entrenched administrators hatched clever schemes to thwart his plans and show him who was boss—not the democratically elected president but the bureaucracy.

The message from today’s civic elites is that the president’s job is to pretend to be in charge while doing nothing meaningful. Shut up. Don’t disturb the administrative state. Let it keep doing its thing without oversight or disruption, and you’ll get your library and bestselling memoir.

Mr. Trump refuses this deal. In his second term, he’s determined to slay the bureaucratic beast he knows all too well from his first term and the Biden years. DOGE’s efforts are epic, breaking more than a century of acquiescence to the deep state. The Trump team is courageously confronting the problem head-on, come what may. Mr. Trump’s allies know that they must act quickly and with some degree of ferocity, even recklessness, lest we default back to the status quo of leaders who pretend to be in charge while the embedded “men of the system”—to adapt a phrase from Adam Smith—run things behind closed doors.

It’s critical that this bureaucracy-gutting effort succeeds. There might never be another chance.

[luckydicekirby]

Okay here’s my attempt at a book roundup this year—sorry in advance that this is like, half my reviews of various Expanse books, and then half my thoughts about Lestat. What can you do! I did not read as widely or diversely as I would have liked this year but. there's always next year I suppose. I’ve also included all the manga we read for book club, because it was on the same list where I was keeping this already!

January

Caliban’s War, James S. A. Corey

This is the second book in The Expanse, a series which I am now on the homeward stretch of. Have not seen the show, will get around to it someday, I really want to see Shohreh Aghdashloo say fuck. I’ve been switching back and forth a bit but mainly listening to these on audio—Jefferson Mays does a really great job as narrator, I highly recommend the audiobooks.

Very broadly, The Expanse is about a universe where humanity has gone to the stars and is in the process of terraforming Mars, as well as spreading out to a handful of space stations, moons, and bits of the asteroid belt. This has created a big new avenue of social stratification between people from Earth or Mars (who have their own political sniping between each other), and people from the Belt, an underclass that is constantly getting fucked over. We follow a variety of characters, but mainly the authors’ meow meow James Holden and the crew of his stolen-from-Mars-technically-but-don’t-worry-about-it-ship The Rocinante as Holden stumbles his way into various political problems. Also, some alien technology has just shown up and it is so so bad!

In general I’ve really enjoyed these books—there's faction politics, there's interesting worldbuilding, there's alien artifacts that will fuck you up every time. I appreciate the constantly shifting status quo—it’s a series that is really, really not afraid to blow things up. The characters are great, and my only real complaint is occasionally slamming into “oh this is sci-fi written by two white guys, it’s time to be weird about race or about women” disease. Also there’s a thread of like, bordering on evopsych running through its philosophy that everyone in the world seems to subscribe to and I just don’t think that’s true of every character! 

ANYWAY with all that background out of the way, this one was one of my favorites of the series! It has Bobbie Draper, Martian marine forced by circumstances into being a political pawn, which she hates, and Chrisjen Avasarala, UN bureaucrat and bitchy foul-mouthed grandma of my heart who knows better than everyone else and who loves maneuvering political pawns, and I am in love with them both. Also scary alien science monsters!

Dungeon Meshi, Ryoko Kui

Not much to say about this. Dungeon Meshi is simply very good! No one else is doing it like Kui! 

Thus Was Adonis Murdered, Sarah Caudwell

The first Hilary Tamar mystery! Thank you to blot for recommending to me I enjoy them so much! These are lighthearted mystery novels about a group of barristers in London in the … 80s?, narrated by their pal Professor Hilary Tamar, who loves to come down from Oxford to visit and will do absolutely anything to get a chance to be nosy and not do actual work. "Anything", in most cases, is solving a murder. These books are very dryly funny and every character is a delight. This one is about dear sweet idiot Julia almost getting arrested for murder, a thing that seems to happen to her a lot. These are so fun! Big recommend! 

Abaddon’s Gate, James S. A. Corey

Expanse book three. Having talked up Caliban’s War, I think this is actually my least favorite Expanse book so far. It has a lot of fun features: introduces one of the more status quo changing alien artifacts, has my favorite scary way for alien artifacts to kill you (INERTIA!!), and one of the main characters is daughter of a thwarted big picture antagonist from book one who wants to ruin Holden’s life. This is a great premise but I just felt kind of cheated of her and Holden having a direct confrontation before Clarissa decides to not be evil after all, and apparently that annoyed me enough to not have very fond memories of this book despite having just listed a bunch of things I love. Ah well!

The Shortest Way to Hades, Sarah Caudwell

Second Hilary Tamar! Also great. This is the best one due to it is the gayest one. 

February

Paradise Kiss, Ai Yazawa

A short manga written by the author of Nana about fashion, dropping out of high school, and relationship problems. Did not hit the heights of Nana but this was fun! Wish it had been less transphobic and homophobic but. The 90s. The fashions, as you might expect, are VERY good.

March

The Likeness, Tana French (reread)

It’s never a bad time to read The Likeness!

Broken Harbor, Tana French (reread)

IT’S NEVER A BAD TIME TO READ BROKEN HARBOR!

April

The Masqueraders, Georgette Heyer

Have been slowly working my way through Heyers on and off and this was the next one on my list! We follow a brother and sister who are both crossdressing as part of a Scheme (and because they’re like, undercover Jacobites or something, I forget). Not my favorite Heyer, but I really enjoyed the romance between Prudence and her Big Guy, and Robin’s romance was also cute, although I think it would be much improved by allowing him to be a lesbian. Have come to find Heyer’s classism kind of funny, and it’s always exciting to try to figure out how people are going to actually turn out to be nobles, because there’s no WAY she’s going to let someone of high birth marry a commoner! (I liked the switched at birth plot in These Old Shades better.)

Cibola Burn, James S. A. Corey

I got annoyed with this book a quarter of the way through and took a two month break but once I got back to it I did enjoy it a lot. In this one Jim Holden and his ragtag crew go to a newly settled world to try to mediate a property dispute between the inhabitants of the world and the company that technically owns all their shit. Really fun alien artifact stuff in this one, some characterization of the female scientist that made me feel crazy, etc. Classic Expanse!

Death in the Spires, K.J. Charles

One member of a group of friends at Oxford is murdered, and the rest of them are Haunted By This and their lives are ruined in various ways—until ten years later, when they begin getting letters accusing them of the crime and it’s time to solve it Once And For All. I’m a big big fan of K.J. Charle’s romances, mainly because my ideal romance has a murder in it, so I was very excited to read a mystery from her! I did come out of this one wishing…uh…that the love interest was Worse. Sorry. Otherwise I had a great time!

Nemesis Games, James S. A. Corey

My favorite Expanse so far! This one is very big on wrecking the status quo, and gives us POV from the whole main crew of the Rocinante. This vitally means we get POV from my special little guy Amos Burton, a tough, amiable bruiser with nothing behind the eyes who outsources his moral compass to Holden because he does not come with one preloaded. He is my favorite. Also, this book at least did something interesting with the central heterosexual ship that I do not really care about, by getting into Holden’s girlfriend Naomi’s questionable past.

May

Babylon’s Ashes, James S. A. Corey

I’m going to be honest, I was trying to look a few things up and realized this book and Nemesis Games are the same book in my mind, and I barely remember what actually happened in it. Since I loved Nemesis Games I guess that means it was good! I found it a little scattered (instead of having four main POVs, like most books in this series, it bounces around to a bunch of characters), but fun. 

The Sirens Sang of Murder, Sarah Caudwell

Third Hilary Tamar! Still great! 

The Ministry of Time, Kaliane Bradley

Oh, The Ministry of Time. Our unnamed protagonist is hired as a “bridge”, someone whose role it is to help acclimate, monitor, and otherwise Be In Charge Of people that the British government has plucked out of time. Because they have time travel now. Our protagonist is assigned to Graham Gore, a guy from the lost Franklin Expedition (who died in episode two of The Terror).

I really wanted to like this book! I enjoyed many aspects of it! I ultimately thought it was very mid. It brings up a lot of interesting ideas about complicity in empire that I found interesting but not fully explored, and I figured out a central twist early and instead of that making me feel smart it made me feel crazy and like the protagonist was an idiot. Her complete lack of curiosity about the very clear and VERY DANGEROUS spy machinations going on in this book—which she should be at least a little attentive to, as someone working for a secret government agency! were incredibly frustrating.

I really support the Graham Gore RPF hustle though and hope Bradley makes five million dollars. Also, I loved the fifteenth century lesbian so so so much and she and the protagonist should have made out.

June

Faithful Place, Tana French (reread)

You guessed it: it’s never a bad time to read Faithful Place.

Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice

Obviously, tv iwtv drove me to insanity, so I picked this up in Barnes and Noble intending to read a bit of it in store and then just bought it. It is completely impossible for me to think or talk about these books not in conversation with the show. The rumors are true, book Louis is kind of a wet blanket compared to show Louis. Book Daniel is very funny. I enjoyed thinking about the adaptational changes they made in the show and also saying to myself what do you MEAN lestat's dad was still around in nola?? Also, no one told me these books were actually gay. I cannot emphasize enough how much they are just straightforwardly gay. Anne Rice has very interesting ideas about interpersonal relationships and agonies, and then some really crazy ideas about everything else. 

July

Lady Eve’s Last Con, Rebecca Fraimow

A con artist In Space is out for revenge on the guy who broke her sister’s heart: she’s going to make him fall in love with her instead, and then swindle him for all he’s worth. Except…what’s that? It’s her target’s incredibly hot sister? Uh oh!!! Loved the romance here and REALLY loved the Sisters of it all. An absolute delight, and can confirm from experience your Jewish mother will love it too!

The Vampire Lestat, Anne Rice

I’m not summarizing Lestat’s life. Suffice to say he’s got a lot going on. I have to admit I really enjoyed this, and it made me kind of Lestat-pilled. All of Anne’s problems out in full force here: she gets more opportunities to be orientalist, and also made me read 100 fucking pages of Marius backstory. But also, Armand is there and he is so so so crazy? Have you heard about this? Lestat is doing little meow meow shit? It’s also written from his completely deranged POV and, I’ve got to say, I understand why Anne was so obsessed with him. He is such a funny narrator. Why did he write about making out with his mom in his IN UNIVERSE PUBLISHED AUTOBIOGRAPHY? He’s Lestat, you simply cannot stop him.

Fullmetal Alchemist, Hiromu Arakawa (reread)

What is there to say about Fullmetal Alchemist. It’s very good. 

August-September

This was the point at which my job kind of blew up so the only thing I read was ¾ of Queen of the Damned, which I still have not finished. The thing about QotD is it has a completely bizarre structure, the main villain has motivations I don’t care about and Lestat is stuck with her for a big chunk of the book, and once again Anne is just really on one. On the other hand, yeah the Daniel and Armand stuff is just as crazy as everyone told you. Who can say if it’s good or bad? Me, maybe, if I ever finish it!

October

Sunshine, Robin McKinley

Decided to continue my vampire kick by reading this, a book blot did not believe I had never read before. For good reason, as if I read this at age fourteen I would have never ever shut up about it (this is also true of iwtv). Sunshine is set in a post-apocalyptic world a few years out from a war between humans and magical creatures, the worst of which are vampires. Our main character, Sunshine, literally lives in a bakery AU before she gets kidnapped by vampires, along with a SEPARATE sexy vampire guy who has also been kidnapped. They team up, etc, you know where this is going! I had a lot of fun with this book—I’m a simple woman, I love a romance with a brooding vampire. The worldbuilding is also very, very interesting and not a lot of it is directly explained to you, which I always appreciate. It takes like 50 pages before we even mention the vampire wars that fucked everything up. Meanwhile, structurally, this book is insane, and it would have benefited from like 100 pages being cut. Still loved it!

Silver Spoon, Hiromu Arakawa

I think Hiromu Arakawa might be good at writing manga? Silver Spoon is a charming slice-of-life manga about a kid who cracks under academic pressure from his school and family, and says fuck it and goes to farm high school in Hokkaido. It’s very different from Fullmetal Alchemist but has a lot of Arakawa’s charm and humor, and is obviously very inspired by her life growing up in Hokkaido. Genre-wise, I’m always going to love a FMA type story more, but this is a great story about friendship and valuing yourself. It made me so, so hungry and also yearn to eat fresh food from a farm. The pacing got pretty wonky at the end—it seems like she went on a lot of hiatuses to deal with family things, and it ends up showing.

November

The Forbidden Book, Sacha Lamb

Sorel runs off on the night of her intended marriage to the rabbi’s son, ends up possessed by a dybbuk, and has to solve his murder, among other things. This had a lot of stuff I like in it—bodysharing where the boundaries get a little blurry! Genders! It did not reach the heights of When The Angels Left The Old Country for me, but I had a lot of fun. 

Fledgling, Octavia Butler

More vampires, but really swerving from Sunshine. Probably NOT my best choice for a first Butler book but here we are. Fledgling is about a young amnesiac vampire, and her attempts to discover who she is and what happened to her family. This book is really weird. I enjoyed it as a thriller, and it was constantly going places I did not expect (last third is like, a vampire courtroom drama. Sure! Why not!), and I liked the vampire society worldbuilding stuff. I was also constantly sitting there like what? What? What? The real barrier to entry here is the protagonist explicitly looks like a ten year old due to how vampire aging works, and also has a lot of sex. I wish that had felt more...necessary? To make up for the fact that I did find it pretty off-putting! I'm sure someone out there has written an interesting essay about this book and Claudia iwtv, which I would like to read.

December

The Talented Mr. Ripley, Patricia Highsmith

I love a good repressed gay serial killer!

Persepolis Rising, James S. A. Corey

I started this book immediately after finishing Babylon’s Ashes and was slammed straight into a 30 year timeskip (most of the Expanse books take place at most a few years after the last one). This is an objectively crazy thing to do which I do kind of respect, because we keep many of the same main characters so it is suddenly a cast full of 60+ year olds, which rules. It did lead to me taking a six month break from this series in bafflement though, so, you know. 

[rochenn]

Star Wars character idea: Coruscant scrap seller who managed to sneak into the Galactic Senate’s recycling area. After a decade of bureaucratic inertia everyone assumes they have legitimate access as they pawn off the fancy furniture and priceless cultural artifacts that didn’t match the interior design fad of the (artificial) season

Other Senate employees or some bureaucratic process might make this difficult but "Recyclegate: Senate in Financial Turbulence after Severe Oversight" is funny as fuck and a scrap seller who clawed themselves up from the parts of Coruscant the Senate never cared about about definitely deserves that coin o7

[racefortheironthrone]

I can get why it was created, but why does Department of Homeland Security still exist?

A combination of bureaucratic inertia and lack of political will. For the former, a lot of civil servants’ careers and influence depends on the existence of DHS as a Cabinet department. Even if the major functions of DHS would continue just as they have always done (the dirty secret of DHS is that the coordination and information-sharing that was the rationale for creating the department in the wake of 9/11 never actually happened and that most DHS agencies do their own thing like they did before the reorganization), a lot of high-up and middle managers would be at risk of losing their jobs or their power measured in terms of budget and manpower - so those folks are going to fight any attempt to de-establish the department with everything in their power.

Likewise, over on the political side, there’s a strong incentive to do nothing. Not only would a vote to reorganize DHS be controversial just in terms of generating lots of winners and losers, but it’s also a vote that could be easily characterized as “soft on national security,” and a lot of politicians would have to answer difficult questions about why they had voted to reauthorize or approve DHS funding in the past. Politicians don’t like having to admit to mistakes, and it’s easy to characterize a change of mind as “flip-flopping.” Finally, politicians also stand to lose power in this scenario - no DHS means no Homeland Security committee positions, means no DHS contracts and lobbyists to raise money off of. And so it goes.

[xiyouyanyi]

A sub-AU of sorts: Inside the Halls of Darkness

Or, "Local Chinese Underworld Liker, creating the LMK! Difu she wanted to see instead of what she got."

-Previously on JotG: the Kings of Ghosts used to be led by the Lord of Mt. Tai a.k.a. Huang Feihu alone, after the War of Investiture was over.

-Then, at some point in the Northern-Southern Dynasties, Ksitigarbha came alone, started releasing damned souls from samsara left and right, and threatened the existing power structure, which led to a huge struggle within the Underworld itself.

-One that left scant records, because the Celestial Host couldn't care less about some dead people fistfighting in the dingy basement of the pantheon.

-However, when all was said and done: Huang Feihu was no longer the highest authority in the Underworld, only nine Kings of Ghosts remained, and were subsequently made the heads of the new Ten Courts.

-An accord was formed between Ksitigarbha and the Ten Kings, who recognized the Bodhisattva as their spiritual leader, with the power of supervision over their judgements and sentencings, yet kept their control over the judicial processes.

-This new Underworld bureaucracy would keep working that way for the next thousand years. Much like their celestial counterpart, they were plagued by the inertia and corruption common to all big bureaucracies, but also paradoxically less resistent to reforms and changes——mostly out of practicality.

-Like, they may not have internet or digitalized paperwork systems, but have adopted a lot of procedures used by modern customs offices, public transport systems, and police/prison systems because of the sheer number of dead people they had to squeeze through the transfer stations of samsara on a daily basis.

-Outside the customs office + courthouse + prison/torture chamber pipeline, the Underworld also had an ever-expanding civilian district, where dead people just carried on their un-life as usual.

-Most residents were still awaiting their judgement at the First Court——some of which had waited for hundreds and thousands of years in mortal realm time.

-Just like the time lag between the Celestial Realm and the Lower Realms, one day in the mortal realm is a year in the Underworld.

-The passage of time is more of a technicality, however, without day and night cycles or the need to sleep, and only marked by the occasional crowing of dead roosters.

-The biggest of these civilian districts become cities in their own rights, like Youdu and Fengdu; the former is where the Ten Courts headquarters are, while the latter sits at the foot of the Mountain of Darkness, next to the Verdant Cloud Palace of Ksitigarbha and the main entrances of the Eighteen Hells.

-If the Celestial Bureaus and the heavenly armies are like special forces + military, the Underworld forces are like police + prison guards.

-They aren't gonna stand a chance against the former, even though they can put up a good fight inside their home turfs. And despite being very bitter about their pushover status, most would just complain like the miserable dead bureaucrats they were and go no further than that.

-The greatest threat the Underworld posed to any immortals isn't their ghostly soldiers, but the environment itself. Like, the entire realm is saturated with Yin energy, to the point where it will give magical altitude sickness to living beings and insufficently strong cultivators via Qi osmosis——basically, the Yang-aligned Qi inside their bodies is drained over time until they, too, join the rank of the dead.

-Some Yaksha and Raksha clans have the ability to traverse between the realms of Yin and Yang. They have a stronger resistance to the ambience Yin energy, but will still start to feel sick if they ventured too deep into the Underworld.

-They'll feel right at home on the Yellow Spring Road or near the Ghost Gate, and will be mostly okay in the city of Youdu, but not the caverns inside the Mountain of Darkness or the Eighteen Hells.

-Like whales, they must also periodically return to the mortal realm to replenish their Yang-aligned Qi. As the only living residents of the Underworld, they tend to be either specialists who were only summoned for niche missions, or cheap contract workers doing their part-time jobs in exchange for a place to stay.

-The Ten Courts are also responsible for sending one of the Three Calamities against demons and illicit cultivators: the Flames of Yin.

-It's basically the little blue ghostfires that function as the natural lighting of the Underworld, but in extremely high concentration and channeled through a narrow portal like a laser beam. It burns exclusively on Yang-aligned Qi, and is able to reduce its target to ashes from the inside out like a humanoid lantern.

-Speaking of less gruesome lanterns: you can see a lot of these floating above Youdu and Fengdu. They were called Soul Lamps, used to periodically suck up the souls of simple creatures like a magical vaccum cleaner, so the streets of the Underworld didn't get overrun by ten million dead livestocks and wild animals.

-SEM's Shadow Lantern is a modified variant of that: SWK grabbed one while he was bashing his way out of the Underworld, to prove to his buddies that it wasn't all just a dream. And also because it looks real neat.

Notable Divisions of the Ten Courts

Black & White Guards: ghost cops. Work closely with local Tudis and Chenghuangs to fetch newly dead souls into the Underworld, but also go after unruly and malicious ghosts causing disturbances in the living realm. Led by General Xie Bi'an and Fan Wujiu.

Ox-Heads and Horse-Faces: ghost prison guards and torturers. Unlike most Underworld officials, they seem to be something souls reincarnate as, and just spontaneously pop into existence at predictable intervals. Most cannot speak human languages, but are able to communicate among themselves perfectly via moos and whinnies. Pumpkins seem to be a status symbol in their culture.

Underworld Judges: exactly like it sounds. The high-ranking ones assist the Ten Kings like a jury, the middle-ranking ones keep records of the cases, the parties involved, and the sentencings, the low-ranking ones are just your run-of-the-mill desk clerks. Zhong Kui is technically a judge…in the sense that Judge Dredd is a judge.

Ghost Gate Guardians: Shenshu and Yulei, Underworld's oldest doormen, whose very souls are bound to the Gate itself. Their subordinates are much less impressive, and mostly just a mix of Ox-Heads & Horse-Faces, Black & White Guards, Yakshas and Rakshas doing their part-time jobs, and the bureaucrats of Dead People Customs Office.

Ksitigarbha: prison chaplain + couselor. Probably the only one in the Underworld pantheon who understands the meaning of "restorative justice". Spends most of his time in the Eighteen Hells giving therapy to dead criminals, alongside Guan Yin in her Path of Hell manifestation.

His steed, Di Ting, looks and acts the emotional support doggo, but has the personality of a blunt, snarky secretary. You'd be a cynical old dog too if you can hear what's on everyone's mind and the truth of reality at the moment, every time you press your ears against the ground.

Terrace of Forgetfulness: giant amnesia soup kitchen. Mengpo's attendants help her collect the raw ingredients and make sure people drink the soup, but she is the only one who can put the finishing touch on the final product.

Even though no one will remember how bad her cooking tastes, she's aware of that and trying to make improvements, despite the hurdles of collecting customer feedback for literal amnesia soup. If the Underworld had a cable network, she'd be a huge fan of Chang'e's show.

City of Wrongful Death: Underworld's undercity, located deep beneath Youdu proper and administrated by the Second Court. Mostly a giant storehouse for ghosts who died of suicide, whose sentence is sitting it out in there until they are cleared for reincarnation.

However, victims of various crimes, who will not go over the Naihe Bridge until they have seen their victimizers judged and punished, are also welcome. In times of war, famine and natural disasters, it often functions as a dead people refugee camp.

At last, the LMK characters you are looking forward to

-The 2nd-9th Courts in this AU is arranged according to ascending order of the crime's severity. Whereas simple manslaughter may only land you in the Second Court's Minor Hells, being a serial killer will get you a nice, toasty spot in the Ninth Court's Avici Hells.

-SEM would have been sent to the Seventh Court and judged by the King of Mt. Tai, if he didn't try to subject an Underworld official to a fate worse than simple obliteration and badly injure him while resisting arrest. As a result, he landed straight inside a Major Ice Hell of the Ninth Court.

-Ivory Lady the Ghostly immortal (who was once Su Daji the girl in the overarching JotG AU) revived him by exploiting the "Grand Yin Reforge" technique.

-In the old days, some Human Immortals whose bodies are too old or completely unfit for cultivation would sign a contract with the Underworld Courts on their deathbeds, and become a ghostly official to accumulate more merits.

-Once enough merits are gathered, they are allowed to reforge a more suitable body through a ritual: as long as their skeletal remains are stil intact, their flesh and blood will magically grow back.

-Ivory Lady bypasses the merit requirement by transferring hers under SEM's name, gathered while she was still working as a regional guardian and had not been thoroughly disillusioned by her experiences as a Ghostly immortal.

[mariacallous]

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) enforces the nation’s antitrust and consumer protection laws. We focus primarily on domestic markets and the U.S. economy. Through this work, we get a ground-level view of how markets are structured in America—and of how the extent of competition or consolidation drives outcomes that affect us all.

Like many across government, the FTC is watching closely as the release of sophisticated AI tools creates both opportunities and risks. Our work is already tackling the day-to-day harms these tools can turbocharge, from voice-cloning scams to commercial surveillance.

But beyond these immediate challenges, we face a more fundamental question of power and governance. Will this be a moment of opening up markets to free and fair competition, unleashing the full potential of emerging technologies? Or will a handful of dominant firms concentrate control over key tools, locking us into a future of their choosing?

The stakes of how we answer this question are enormously high. Technological breakthroughs can disrupt markets, spur economic growth, and change the nature of war and geopolitics. Whether we opt for a national policy of consolidation or of competition will have huge consequences for decades to come.

As in prior moments of contestation, we are starting to hear the argument that America must protect its domestic monopolies to ensure we stay ahead on the global stage. Rather than double down on promoting free and fair competition, this “national champions” argument holds that coddling our dominant firms is the path to maintaining global dominance.

We should be extraordinarily skeptical of this argument and instead recognize that monopoly power in America today is a major threat to America’s national interests and global leadership. History and experience show that lumbering monopolies mired in red tape and bureaucratic inertia cannot deliver the breakthrough technological advancements that hungry start-ups tend to create. It is precisely these breakthroughs that have allowed America to harness cutting-edge technologies and have made our economy the envy of the world. To stay ahead globally, we don’t need to protect our monopolies from innovation—we need to protect innovation from our monopolies. And one of the clearest illustrations of how consolidation threatens our national interests is the risk monopolization poses to our common defense.

In 2021, an errant spark in an explosives factory in Louisiana destroyed the only plant in the United States that makes black powder, a highly combustible product that is used to make mortar shells, artillery rounds, and Tomahawk missiles. There is no substitute for black powder, and it has hundreds of military applications. So when that factory blew up, and we didn’t have any backup plants, it destroyed the only black powder production in all of North America. There’s a simple lesson here: Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

This is but one of many examples of how consolidation threatens our national interests. We know that monopolies and consolidated markets can result in higher prices and lower output. But monopolies also foster systemic vulnerabilities, since concentrating production also concentrates risk. Someone could probably argue it was more efficient to put all black powder production in one plant in Louisiana. And maybe it was—until it wasn’t.

Defense officials now identify the problem of monopoly in our country as a strategic weakness. The Pentagon has been warning about vulnerabilities in our national security supply chain for years. One top official recently noted that our increased reliance on a small number of contractors for critical capabilities impacts our ability to ramp up production.

One early victory in my tenure as FTC chair was blocking the proposed merger between Lockheed and Aerojet. Aerojet is the last independent U.S. supplier of key missile inputs, and our investigation showed that the deal would have allowed Lockheed to cut off rivals’ access to this key input and jack up the price that our government, and ultimately the public, has to pay. It was the first time in decades that our government sued to halt consolidation in the defense industrial base.

It’s not just our defense industrial base where we have a problem. The pandemic exposed fragilities across our supply chains, with shortages in everything from semiconductors to personal protective equipment. And it’s not just a once-in-a-century pandemic. Even more routine disruptions like plant contaminations or hurricanes have revealed how, in a concentrated system, a single shock can have cascading effects, yielding shortages in products ranging from baby formula to IV bags.

Consolidation causes problems beyond supply chains. For years, successive administrations have sought to strengthen our cybersecurity defenses against a catastrophic attack. A few weeks ago, one of the main medical benefit claims networks in America, Change Healthcare, was taken down for weeks due to a cyberattack, depriving hospitals and medical providers of the ability to bill for their services—and wreaking havoc across our health care system. That network is owned by UnitedHealth Group, which was allowed to buy Change despite a Department of Justice lawsuit seeking to block the deal. Quite simply, we have a resiliency problem in America. Consolidation and monopolization have left us more vulnerable and less resilient in the face of shocks.

But what about AI and the innovation economy? Black powder and baby formula shortages are one thing, but the corporations that run big data centers and large language models are highly technical operations, with tens of billions of dollars of capital to deploy, trillions in market capitalization, and some of the most highly skilled professionals.

Again, we should be guided by history. In the 1970s, Walter Wriston, the CEO of Citibank and a key leader on Wall Street, asked why antitrust enforcers were filing suits against high-tech American darlings like IBM and AT&T: “What is the public good of knocking IBM off?” he said. “The conclusion to all this nonsense is that people cry, ‘Let’s break up the Yankees—because they are so successful.’” By contrast, Europe and Japan were protecting their national champions to win in the international arena.

We chose to promote competition, and that choice to bring antitrust lawsuits against IBM and AT&T ended up fostering waves of innovation—including the personal computer, the telecommunications revolution, and the logic chip. The national champions protected by Japan and Europe, meanwhile, fell behind and are long forgotten. In the United States, we bet on competition, and that made all the difference.

Imagine a different world, where today’s giants never had a chance to get their start and innovate, because policymakers decided that it was more important to protect IBM and AT&T from competition and allowed them to maintain their monopolies. Even when monopolies do innovate, they will often prioritize protecting their existing market position. Famously, an engineer at Kodak invented the first portable digital camera in the ’70s—but Kodak didn’t rush it to market in part because it didn’t want to cannibalize its existing sales. More generally, significant research shows that while monopolies may help deliver marginal innovations, breakthrough and paradigm-shifting innovations have historically come from disruptive outsiders. It is our commitment to free and fair competition that has allowed America to harness the talents of its citizens, reap breakthrough innovations, and lead as an economic powerhouse. But what about those times when we have accepted the national champions argument? One prominent example serves as a cautionary tale.

In the 1990s, a White House advisor noted that there was one very high-tech firm that was “de facto national champion,” so important that “you can be an out-and-out advocate for it” in government. And we did support it, provide it with government contracts, and allow it to consolidate the industry. That national champion was Boeing, whose trajectory illustrates why this strategy can be catastrophic.

In 1997, Boeing became the only commercial aerospace maker in the United States. It came to enjoy this status after buying up McDonnell Douglas, the only other domestic producer of commercial airplanes—a merger reviewed by the FTC. Boeing is the clearest example of a purposeful decision to bet on national champions on behalf of American interests. Policymakers wanted a national champion, and they got it.

Three things happened after Boeing eliminated its domestic competition. First, according to commenters such as United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby, the merger allowed Boeing to slow innovation and to reduce product quality. Boeing’s R&D budget is consistently lower than that of its only rival, Airbus. Worse quality is one of the harms that most economists expect from monopolization, because firms that face little competition have limited incentive to improve their products.

Second, reporting suggests that Boeing executives began to view their knowledgeable workforce as a cost, not an asset, with tragic outcomes. As one consultant put it in 2000, “Boeing has always been less a business than an association of engineers devoted to building amazing flying machines.” This corporation’s engineers designed the B-52 in a single weekend. But the new post-merger Boeing decimated its workforce, offshored production, and demanded wage concessions.

Third is the risk that Boeing effectively became too big to fail and a point of leverage for countries seeking to influence U.S. policymaking.

Relying on a national champion creates supply chain weaknesses and taxpayer liabilities, but it also creates geopolitical vulnerabilities that can be exploited both by global partners and rivals. As it was buying McDonnell Douglas, Boeing held a board meeting in Beijing and lobbied Congress to end the annual review of China’s trading rights so that it could sell more planes. The Chinese government would order Boeing planes contingent upon certain U.S. policies, like whether the U.S. held off on sending warships into the Strait of Taiwan, or whether the U.S. lifted bans on the export of certain technologies.

National champions are still corporations first. They have earnings calls, shareholders, and quarterly profit targets. When policymakers in Washington decide to back a single monopoly, their objectives are but one concern among many for that corporation’s senior executives. As then-Exxon CEO Lee Raymond said, “I’m not a U.S. company and I don’t make decisions based on what’s good for the U.S.”

These days, the national champions argument often gets made in the context of our dominant tech firms. We often hear that pursuing antitrust cases against or regulating these firms will weaken American innovation and cede the global stage to China. These conversations often assume a Cold War-like arms race, with each country’s firms in a zero-sum quest for dominance.

The reality today is that some of these same tech firms are fairly integrated in China and are seeking greater access to the Chinese market. While there is nothing intrinsically improper about these ties, we should be clear-eyed about how they shape business incentives. Various incidents in recent years have highlighted how when U.S. corporations are economically dependent on China, it can spur them to act in ways that are contrary to our national interests.

Even if America’s dominant firms are not prioritizing America’s national interests, what should we make of the idea that they can keep America in the lead, if only they are left alone? This, too, is an argument we should treat with great skepticism.

We need to choose competition over national champions, and there are steps we are taking to put that into practice.

In 2021, the FTC sued to block Nvidia’s $40 billion acquisition of Arm, what would have been the largest semiconductor chip merger in history. Our investigation found that the merger would’ve allowed a major chip provider to control key computing technologies that rival firms depend on to develop their own competing chips. Our lawsuit alleged the deal would have risked stifling the innovation pipeline for next-generation technologies, affecting everything from data centers to self-driving cars. Two years on, Nvidia has continued to provide innovative products at a lower cost than we estimated they would have charged businesses after completing the acquisition of Arm. Arm itself is thriving, with its stock price doubling since it went public last year.

This is but the latest example of antitrust laws in action. The FTC was created in part to protect the innovative boons of open markets by ensuring that market outcomes—who wins and who loses—are determined by fair competition rather than by private gatekeepers. Protecting open and competitive markets means that the best ideas win. It means that businesses get ahead by competing on the merits of their skill, not by exploiting special privileges or bowing down to incumbent monopolists.

One final argument against protecting monopolies over competition is that it can leave our democracy more brittle.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve had the chance to hear from thousands of people across America—from nurses, farmers, and grocery store workers to tech founders, hotel franchisees, and writers in Hollywood. A recurring theme across their stories is a sense of fear, anxiety, and powerlessness. People from strikingly different walks of life have shared accounts of how markets monopolized by dominant middlemen enable coercive tactics—of how they feel their ability to make a decent living or thrive in their craft is, too often, not a function of their talents or diligence but instead is dictated by the arbitrary whims of distant giants.

A basic tenet of the American experiment is that real liberty means freedom from economic coercion and from the arbitrary, unaccountable power that comes with economic domination. Our antitrust laws were passed as a way to safeguard against undue concentration of power in our economic sphere, just as the Constitution creates checks and balances to safeguard against concentrated power in our political sphere.

Recommitting to robust antitrust enforcement and competition policy is good for America because it will make us safer, our technologies more innovative, and our economy more prosperous—but also because it is essential for safeguarding real opportunity for Americans and for ensuring that people in their day-to-day dealings experience liberty rather than coercion. When people believe that government has stopped fighting on their behalf, it can become a strategic weakness that outsiders are only too happy to exploit.

Thankfully, over the last few years we have seen significant progress across government in ensuring that we are centering everyday Americans in our policy decisions. From trade to industrial policy to competition, this administration has learned from past experiences and adopted new paradigms. A common throughline across these approaches is a commitment to revisiting old assumptions and updating our thinking in light of real-life experience and evidence.

Fighting back against the challenges we face is about more than enforcing the antitrust laws. But by promoting fair competition, by showing the American people that we will fight for their right to enjoy free, meaningful lives outside the grip of monopolists, we can help rebuild not just people’s confidence in the economy, but also a belief in American government, and its leadership both at home and abroad.

[warsofasoiaf]

Economically, is it better for the North to become independent? They wouldn’t have to pay taxes to the Iron Throne, but it might be more difficult for them to trade for food from the South?

And do you think it’s a good decision for each of the Seven Kingdoms to declare independence after overthrowing the Targaryens, after Robert’s Rebellion, instead of having Robert Baratheon as their new monarch?

Thank you!

Economically, it would depend on what trade deals the North could embark on. Braavos would happily buy Northern timber for their ships, and with some seed capital the North might be able to establish a small fleet for whaling and walrus ivory in the northern seas. They would need to mint their own coinage, as Wyman Manderly suggested, and probably build up a navy to protect their coastline and their trading vessels. A city on the west coast to open up trade with Lannisport, and act as a staging point for a western navy to check the ironborn, would also not be amiss.

Declaring independence would be tough, because what would the non-rebel kingdoms say in response. Would there be a rump Seven Kingdoms in the neutral and loyalist areas? What would be the nature of the kings in relation to each other? What happens if Edmure dies and suddenly the newly independent Kingdom of the Trident falls under potential Northman domination? I could see given these and other nebulous questions why bureaucratic inertia takes over and they decide to change the man at the top rather than engage in a vast restructuring of the Seven Kingdoms. So a good or bad idea depends on what you personally value, but I can say that what I said above is a good thought process for why the rebels decided on having a single replacement king rather than break Westeros up.

Thanks for the question, Dragonfly.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[rhian-008]

Nigeria: A Climate Change Crucible

Nigeria, a nation endowed with abundant natural resources and a burgeoning population, is increasingly grappling with the tempestuous challenges of climate change. This environmental crisis, exacerbated by a confluence of factors including deforestation, unsustainable agricultural practices, and rapid urbanization, is inflicting profound wounds upon the nation's social, economic, and ecological fabric.

The specter of climate change looms large over Nigeria, manifesting in a myriad of destructive forms. Extreme weather events, once episodic, have evolved into a recurring nightmare. Flooding, an annual scourge, has escalated in severity, displacing millions and causing billions of naira in damages (National Emergency Management Agency, 2023). The Niger Delta, a region historically enriched by oil, is now experiencing accelerated coastal erosion, threatening the livelihoods of coastal communities and compromising critical infrastructure. In stark contrast, the arid north contends with prolonged droughts and desertification, a malevolent duo that is fueling food insecurity, mass migration, and socio-political tensions.

Agriculture, the lifeblood of the Nigerian economy and the sustenance of millions, is under siege. Erratic rainfall patterns, soil degradation, and the proliferation of pests have conspired to decimate crop yields. The World Bank (2022) reports a significant decline in agricultural productivity, with far-reaching consequences for food security and rural livelihoods. The nexus between climate change and food insecurity is a perilous one, as it creates fertile ground for social unrest and conflict.

Beyond the economic toll, climate change is exacting a heavy price on public health. The rising temperatures provide optimal conditions for the breeding of disease-carrying vectors, such as mosquitoes, resulting in a surge of malaria and other vector-borne illnesses (World Health Organization, 2021). Moreover, the interplay of water scarcity, poor sanitation, and flooding has led to an upsurge in waterborne diseases, further straining an already overburdened healthcare system.

The economic repercussions of climate change are far-reaching and profound. The agricultural sector, a cornerstone of the Nigerian economy, is experiencing a steady decline, impacting food prices, rural incomes, and overall economic growth. The World Bank estimates that climate change could reduce Nigeria's GDP by several percentage points by mid-century (World Bank, 2018). Beyond agriculture, the tourism industry, a nascent but promising sector, is facing headwinds due to the increasing unpredictability of weather patterns and the degradation of natural attractions.

The response to this existential threat has been a complex interplay of governmental initiatives, civil society engagement, and individual actions. While the government has articulated policies and strategies to address climate change, such as the National Adaptation Strategy and Climate Change Action Plan, implementation has been uneven and often hindered by bureaucratic inertia and corruption. However, some states, notably Lagos and Cross River, have demonstrated a more proactive approach to climate resilience.

Civil society organizations have emerged as vocal champions of climate action. Groups like the Nigerian Conservation Foundation, Friends of the Earth Nigeria, and Health of Mother Earth Foundation have been instrumental in raising awareness, advocating for policy reforms, and implementing community-based adaptation projects. These organizations have played a pivotal role in bridging the gap between government and the populace, fostering a culture of environmental stewardship.

At the individual level, awareness of climate change is growing, but behavioral change remains a challenge. While there are isolated examples of eco-conscious citizens, the broader populace is yet to fully internalize the urgency of the crisis.

A constellation of factors impedes Nigeria's progress in combating climate change. Poverty, a pervasive challenge, limits the adaptive capacity of vulnerable communities. Weak governance, characterized by corruption and inefficiency, undermines policy implementation. The country's heavy reliance on fossil fuels complicates the transition to a low-carbon economy. Moreover, a dearth of technological capacity and expertise hampers the development and deployment of climate solutions.

Despite these formidable obstacles, there are glimmers of hope. A growing number of young Nigerians are emerging as climate leaders, demanding bold action and inspiring hope for the future. Individuals like Naomi Ageli and Isioma Osakwe have galvanized youth activism, leveraging social media and grassroots organizing to drive change.

Addressing the climate crisis in Nigeria demands a comprehensive and multi-faceted approach. A swift and just transition to renewable energy is imperative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and ensure energy access for all. Investing in sustainable agriculture, including agroforestry and water-efficient irrigation practices, is crucial for bolstering food security and resilience. Ecosystem restoration, such as reforestation and mangrove rehabilitation, can help mitigate climate impacts and protect biodiversity. Early warning systems for extreme weather events are essential for saving lives and minimizing economic losses. Finally, investing in climate education and awareness is indispensable for building a climate-resilient society.

Nigeria stands at a critical juncture. The choices made today will shape the nation's future for generations to come. By embracing sustainable development, investing in climate solutions, and fostering a culture of environmental stewardship, Nigeria can transition from being a victim of climate change to a leader in climate action.

[feotakahari]

In a thread on Spacebattles, I said I find the Legion from Fallout: New Vegas to be a more satisfying villain faction than the Institute from Fallout 4. The Legion kills people for its (stupid) ideology, while the Institute kills people because it’s too apathetic to overcome its own bureaucratic inertia. Someone replied that he prefers the Institute because apathy and bureaucratic inertia are why governments kill people in real life. I think about that a lot.

[simply-ivanka]

America’s Future Depends on DOGE

Wall Street Journal

If Trump and Musk don’t succeed in showing the bureaucracy who’s boss, it’s likely no one ever will.

Critics view the Department of Government Efficiency’s emails asking federal employees for evidence of productivity as chaotic, arbitrary and even cruel measures to impose on a devoted civil service. But Elon Musk is simply bringing normal private-sector standards to a government that desperately needs them. Since the Pendleton Act of 1883 introduced merit-based selection and civil-service job protections for federal workers, the administrative state has proliferated without sufficient checks and balances from the president or Congress.

The federal bureaucracy has ballooned from a few agencies to more than 400, many of which are “independent” of the president. Americans often view the president as responsible for the actions those agencies take. The system nudges new presidents to give up and go along. And that’s exactly what they’ve done. No president—not Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan—has cracked this nut. Most reforms have made the administrative state larger, not smaller.

As we’re seeing now, substantial opposition awaits anyone who challenges the bureaucracy. Unions are powerful. Intimidation from those with institutional knowledge can be overwhelming. Fear of the media has also been a deterrent to action. Every president has been at least somewhat fearful of the intelligence agencies. Industry leaders who have captured the agencies, including many campaign donors, have been too powerful to unseat or control.

Countless cabinet secretaries come and go with the intention of changing the system. They get big offices, a nice portrait and social status, but the bureaucrats know that the political appointees are temporary and easily can be ignored. Frustrated by institutional inertia, the appointees often leave outwitted, outgunned and demoralized.

Meanwhile, the American people feel increasingly oppressed, taxed, regulated, spied on, browbeaten, hectored and harassed. Voting never made a difference because the politicians no longer controlled the system. The bureaucracies rule all. We’ve come to know this in our gut, which is why voters’ trust in the system has eroded as agencies’ power has built up.

The Biden years underscored this point. We didn’t even need a conscious or active president, only a figurehead. Behind the scenes, institutions ran everything.

How can the U.S. deal with this problem? President Trump alone figured it out in his last term: He simply took charge of agencies in a limited way with selective firings, which he believed he had the legal authority to do. This unleashed howls of horror and whispers of plots from his critics, including in the media. Entrenched administrators hatched clever schemes to thwart his plans and show him who was boss—not the democratically elected president but the bureaucracy.

The message from today’s civic elites is that the president’s job is to pretend to be in charge while doing nothing meaningful. Shut up. Don’t disturb the administrative state. Let it keep doing its thing without oversight or disruption, and you’ll get your library and bestselling memoir.

Mr. Trump refuses this deal. In his second term, he’s determined to slay the bureaucratic beast he knows all too well from his first term and the Biden years. DOGE’s efforts are epic, breaking more than a century of acquiescence to the deep state. The Trump team is courageously confronting the problem head-on, come what may. Mr. Trump’s allies know that they must act quickly and with some degree of ferocity, even recklessness, lest we default back to the status quo of leaders who pretend to be in charge while the embedded “men of the system”—to adapt a phrase from Adam Smith—run things behind closed doors.

It’s critical that this bureaucracy-gutting effort succeeds. There might never be another chance.

[ask-de-writer]

About SEA DRAGON’S GIFT :

Part 58 of 83, A World of Sea tale

@mordenheim​ READ, LIKED and

REBLOGGED

SEA DRAGON’S GIFT : Part 58 of 83 ,

A World of Sea tale to

@nevermord​ who commented :

Mostly Kurin is learning that the Grandalor has been not merely taking the Worst of the Worst but rather has been saving many who were simply inconvenient to others in positions of power.

If you mean the Arrakan indenture sales, as Tanlin pointed out, it was completely legal and proper in the Arrakan fleet. The only thing that made it look shady was taking in all those people and simply not saying what happened to them.

Every Gathering, each ship hands in a copy of their log for the Gathering past. That is about four hundred log copies. Normally those are simply archived. IF THEY HAD READ the Grandalor's log copies, they would have known of it for about twenty years!

Nobody bothered because they did not expect the Grandalor's logs to be honest. Barad just relied on bureaucratic inertia keep the trade hidden.

[narukorankofan]

This is 'Murica, not Russia, it doesn't take much courage to fly the rainbow flag in public, even with Khuylo's purported BFF in charge, and a few spooked corporate bureaucrats ending/winding down/toning down real or imagined DEI/gay rep don't change that. You really should've more trust into your country's institutions or at least their inertia.

[cmpsim]

Chanakya Mandal Pariwar's MPSC Classes in Pune

Another day, another thousand souls drifting aimlessly in the bureaucratic fog. They yearn for purpose, for a crack in the concrete jungle of endless forms and meaningless regulations. And then, a flicker of hope – Chanakya Mandal Pariwar. Now, I'm not one for herding bright young minds into the very system I despise, but if the beast must be fed, it's better to arm those who enter its belly with sharp teeth and a cunning mind. These "MPSC Classes in Pune," as they call them, seem to offer more than just rote memorization. They claim to instill a spirit, a fire to actually do something amidst the inertia. You, the hopeful caught in the web of "MPSC Class in Pune," listen closely. Forget the dusty tomes and the droning lectures that promise nothing but another cog in the machine. Seek out what truly prepares you, what sharpens your intellect for the battles ahead. Look for "MPSC Classes near me" that understand the terrain, the pitfalls, the rare opportunities to actually make a damn difference. The MPSC itself? A labyrinth designed to test your patience and crush your spirit. But perhaps, just perhaps, within the walls of this Chanakya outfit, you'll find the tools to navigate it, to emerge not as a compliant bureaucrat, but as someone who remembers why they started this arduous climb in the first place. Pune, a city teeming with ambition, might just hold the key in this Pariwar. It's a gamble, sure, but stagnation is a guaranteed defeat. So, if you're going to play the game, play it with fire. Turn that aspiration into action, and maybe, just maybe, the system won't swallow you whole.