#corporate self defense training

[kalisikaransweden]

Website : https://www.kalisikaran.com

Address : Nygardsv. 18F, 433 32 Partille, Sweden

Kali Sikaran International specializes in the Filipino Martial Art of Kali Sikaran, offering a comprehensive self-defense program. The art, rooted in ancient Southeast Asian martial traditions, emphasizes functionality and adaptability in self-defense, covering various techniques including empty hand combat, stick fighting, knife defense, and more. The academy provides a phased training program, online courses, and seminars, catering to different skill levels from beginners to advanced practitioners.

Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/kalisikarangoteborg/

Twitter : https://twitter.com/kalisikaran

Youtube : https://www.youtube.com/@KaliSikaranInternational

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[kravmagasrilanka]

"Pink Warriors" - self-defense awareness program

Sheraton Kosgoda turtle beach resort “Pink Warriors” – self-defence awareness program

[shyocean]

Offloading responsibility from destructive organizations to individual choices

the context for this is that I am listening to the firesides at the end of Arc 2 for the Wizard, the Witch, and the WIld, Worlds Beyond Number, my favorite piece of media in the world. (If you also got sniped by the small talk comment, hear me out.)

It's making me think about the way that corporate and governmental structures actively hide and displace responsibility for the massive number of death, exploitation, suffering they craft onto individuals. The way that we dehumanize and pathologize victims, while the perpetrators of crimes are the leaders of society. The way that we have a diagnosis for drapetomania, for leukemia, but no dx for the kind of mind who enslaves people or commits mass, slow murder through environmental poisoning.

So in the Fireside, they are talking about Suvi, the Citadel Wizard, seeing herself as the only who cares about human death. That when the others acted to free the Great Spirit the Citadel had imprisoned, and was torturing and exploiting, Ame made the choice to sacrifice the Citadel wizards imprisoning him to save his life. There were the soldiers, and townsfolk, who died when his furious wife came to rescue him.

And I think this is a perfect example of the way that we totally misunderstand who ultimately holds responsibility.

The Citadel Wizards, Morrow in particular, were responsible for everything that Orima did to free her husband. They were committing a horrific wrong that dragged nature out of balance. To blame Orima, or the spirits, is to blame an abuse victim for self defense.

All the towns lost, all the lives in those towns, the blight on Port Talon and its fisherfolk, (all the animals!) all the soldiers, the people in the tidal wave, all of those deaths, the economic destruction and displacement: all the direct consequences of the Citadel engaging in horrific torture, abuse, and environmental depredation.

But it's hard to see, because the weight of the organization meant that no one person made the decision. Becaue cause and effect are spread over time and place.

Ame actively decided that the Great Spirit should not die, and that if someone had to, it should be the torturers imprisoning him. Further, the impact on the world long-term if the Ocean Spirit was lost from it? Incalculable. not just his wife's wrath, but that spirit had taken care of the people of Port talon, the fish, the weather, everything, AMe saved so many people by saving him.

Fundamentally, the Citadel as a militarized corporation does not care about people. It doesn't care about life. It doesn't care about the environment, or well-being. Those things don't show up on balance sheets. It cares about control, gain, prestige, pride, power, war, the ability to impose its will on others and the world. And that's what Suvi cares about.

Ame and Ursulon saving The Ocean Spirit saved countless lives, across generations and in the present.

Suvi doesn't care about people. She care about power, and the 10 people whose name she knows that she considers her equal. She cares about a war because she cares about her side winning, because her side is the only side, and because she is fucking a soldier. She's a neoliberal, a centrist, a miltarise, and a trained killer.

But she gets to lie to herself and say she is the only one who cares about human. She lives in a world where all the costs are hidden. The justification machine is so good.

Here's the Point

This is the way that English-speaking world's corporations and governments function. It's how the British starved something like 100 million people over the course of a few hundred years.

It's how current corporations are permanently destroying our ecosystems, making the planet unlivable, forcing 5 year old to work in mines, sweeping the poor into prison slavery.

And we are pointing the finger at individual choices. And people flying on planes, wearing leather, and palm oil. Usually in ways that damage the poor, disabled, and marginalized disproportionately. I am tired of people conflating the culprits and originators of harm to those responding, or to those who simply fail to be able to stop it.

People aren't the problem. But things like the CItadel, the East India Company, our corporations, our governments--they are set up to systematically hide reponsibility, to strip of agency, to make us helpless to change and coerce our support for evil.

(Galani is clearly a sweet and good person. Steel is such a great mom.)

Our language, our culture, our institutions, our beliefs structures are all carefully built to prevent us from seeing, and upon seeing, to make us helpless to change things. So really, the first step is seeing and naming, right?

Also, Suvi and Steel are still meaningfully, substantially better for the planet and the spirits and the people than people like Morrow. Please vote Blue, for fucks sake.

Anyway, I love this show. It's actually the best. Same episode, BLeeM sniped me between the eyes to ask me to get better at small talk lol.

[plethoraworldatlas]

In what case litigants are calling the first time an American jury has held a U.S. corporation legally liable for atrocities abroad, federal jurors in Florida on Monday found that Chiquita Brands International financed a Colombian paramilitary death squad that murdered, tortured, and terrorized workers in a bid to crush labor unrest in the 1990s and 2000s.

The federal jury in West Palm Beach, Florida found the banana giant responsible for funding the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) and awarded eight families whose members were murdered by the right-wing paramilitary group $38.3 million in damages.

EarthRights International, which first filed the case—Doe v. Chiquita—in 2007, called the verdict "a milestone for justice."

"The jury's decision reaffirms what we have long asserted: Chiquita knowingly financed the AUC, a designated terrorist organization, in pursuit of profit, despite the AUC's egregious human rights abuses," the group said.

"By providing over $1.7 million in illegal funding to the AUC from 1997 to 2004, Chiquita contributed to untold suffering and loss in the Colombian regions of Urabá and Magdalena, including the brutal murders of innocent civilians," EarthRights added. "This historic verdict also means some of the victims and families who suffered as a direct result of Chiquita's actions will finally be compensated."

One of the plaintiffs in the case called the verdict the "triumph of a process that has been going on for almost 17 years, for all of us who have suffered so much during these years."

Plaintiffs' attorney Agnieszka Fryszman said that "the verdict does not bring back the husbands and sons who were killed, but it sets the record straight and places accountability for funding terrorism where it belongs: at Chiquita's doorstep."

The U.S. labor reporting site More Perfect Unioncalled the verdict "an unprecedented win against corporate violence, which could [be] the first of many."

A Chiquita spokesperson toldFruitnet that the company plans to appeal the verdict.

The AUC was formed in 1997 via the union of right-wing paramilitary groups battling leftist guerrillas—mainly the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and National Liberation Army (ELN)—in the South American nation's civil war. Closely linked to Colombia's U.S.-backed military, the AUC—some of whose members were trained by Israelis—was designated a terrorist organization in 2001 by the U.S. State Department, which cited its "massacres, kidnappings of civilians, and participation in the trafficking of narcotics."

[isara0408]

Megami and Kaga had a lot of potential than just being Kaga stalking Megami and pretty much being her stalker/creep that Yandere Dev made himself.

Instead of that, why didn't Yandere Dev make them childhood friends? Kaga's parents work in Saikou Corp. I'm sure Kaga would have met Megami during his youth whenever Megami had to leave the Corporation for her training, so why didn't he chose that path for them and have Kaga be the first male that Megami trusted? Kaga fits the criteria that the Saikou family is looking for (sure, he's at the bottom of the list, but he's there)

Kaga is quite intelligent and very talented at a very young age. Maybe if Saisho was able to see that, maybe he would have wanted Kaga close to Megami.

"If this boy is close to Megami and Megami trusts this boy, he can be a useful tool for Saikou Corp in the future."

Ichirou doesn't go against his father's decision. He never really argues with him either, so Ichirou has to follow his father's orders on keeping Kaga close to Megami. They will have to keep a close eye on him. If he ever did find out the dark secrets of Saikou Corp, Kaga would be killed by the orders of Saisho. (Just like Saisho did with Fungirl, but actually killed him rather than using a machine)

Saisho would keep a close eye on the two children whenever they were close to each other or hanging out.

Megami and Kaga begin to talk almost every day, which Saisho allowed. As time went on, the two became very close friends. Kaga was there for Megami whenever she needed him, and Megami was there for Kaga whenever he needed her.

The two continued to stick by each other's side throughout their years. Even after Saisho died, Megami made sure that Kaga stayed by her side if Ichirou had ever tried to separate and break their friendship, or if Kencho ever tried to set a trap to break their friendship.

Kaga would be a threat to Ayano if she killed him before and during Megami's week. Even if Kaga is her suitor, Kaga is someone important to Megami. If Megami loses him, who knows what she will do to put Ayano behind bars for his death.

So, let me give you guys some headcanons for this universe :>

They first met when they were 5.

Megami was quite distant at first because of how strict her family was until Saisho, himself, allowed her to see him and hang out with him.

Kaga was there for her during the tragic event of her murdering her hamster. (Megami's mother sneaked him inside) That day, Kaga promised her that they'll buy a hamster and take care of it together when they got older.

On her 13th birthday, Kaga made her a bracelet with his own hands to represent their friendship. He made one for himself, too. (And Aoi once she came into the picture) Megami hides her bracelet under her sleeves of her student council uniform.

Aoi and Kaga didn't get along well at first, but they slowly got close to each other and became friends. (Kaga is still scared of her)

Megami was slightly shorter than Kaga when they were children, but during the years and puberty, Megami grew taller.

Kaga would show Megami his new gadgets, invention ideas, etc. Megami would sometimes help him with building those inventions/gadgets (with a lot of protection, of course). That's how her love for science became.

Megami has a small robot that Kaga made himself and gave it to her to keep her company when they first met. She still has it in her room.

Megami forced Kaga to take self-defense classes. (It didn't end very well)

Kaga is basically Megami's cheerleader. He will cheer for her as much as possible to show that he is by her side and she can count on him.

Whenever Kaga gets hurt by an experiment, Megami will immediately take him to the best hospital in Japan and would be there for him unless she had training to do.

Kaga's parents feel uneasy having Megami close to their son. They know how strict the Saikou family is. They don't want their son harmed in any way. With time, they began to trust Megami. (Only her)

Once they enter Akademi, they are known as powerful friendship. The daughter of the richest and most powerful man in Japan and a mad scientist who is very talented and made the impossible possible. together? Power duo!

Megami has witnessed many competitions that Kaga has been in and won first place for. She tries to be there with her bodyguards and would take Kaga out to celebrate for his accomplishments with the permission of his parents, of course.

Whenever Kaga did his crazy smile or laugh when he got a new idea in his mind, Megami would smack him (gently) to make him quit, or shaking her head and say, "No."

Megami only lets Kaga show her affection (holding her hand, pecking her cheek, hugging her, etc). It makes him happy, and the way he shows love.

Kaga's parents sometimes tease Kaga about, one day, ending up liking Megami as more than a childhood friend. Kaga rejects this every time (but they were right in the end)

Kaga ended up catching feelings for Megami when they entered Akademi. At first, Kaga was confused at first on how his body was reacting to having Megami close to him or showing her affection, which is something he always did. Kaga never fell in love with anyone or saw anyone in a romantic way, so it was all new to him. With time, Kaga finally admitted that he caught feelings for his childhood friend. (His parents had a nice " I told you so." victory 😌)

Megami caught on to this. She's not blind. It's quite obvious from Kaga's body language.

Kaga never had the courage to confess because of many guys trying to win Megami's hand in marriage until the last year of Akademi, that's when he confessed his feelings to her under the cherry tree.

Megami did develop feelings for Kaga, but it took her more time to realize those buried feelings.

Kaga admires Megami a lot for her achievements, bravery, determination, and her hard work.

Megami would carry Kaga if he was ever too fatigued to move (after not resting for a certain number of days). Kaga found it annoying at first but got used to it.

Whenever Megami has free time (it's rare), Kaga would use this opportunity to go to the town with Megami to spend time together as much as they can.

Kaga would protect Megami from any guy who would flirt with her or look at her inappropriately. Megami would tell him to let her handle it and to calm down.

Megami is brutally honest with Kaga even if it hurts his feelings. She will say what she thinks and feels. (This is a headcanon I have as them as a couple )

If Kaga is killed, Megami will make sure to put Ayano behind bars. She knows she did it. After that, she will mourn for Kaga's death.

If Megami is killed, Kaga will find the person who caused her death and mourn for Megami's death.

This is probably something that would happen in another timeline not in the canon one, but it's a nice idea and interesting friendship :D

[coochiequeens]

The Seoul Metro recently announced plans to pilot an AI-based gender detector.

The first pilot program is slated to begin at the end of June in a subway station women's restroom.

The preventive measure follows a fatal subway stabbing incident that occurred last year.

Following a fatal stabbing that took place last year in a Seoul subway restroom, South Korea plans to use AI-based technology to detect men entering or leaving women's bathrooms. 

The Seoul Metro announced its plans to pilot an AI-based gender detector program it developed, per South Korean outlet KBS as reported on April 20. 

The plan is slated to begin at the end of June and last for about six months, starting with the women's restroom in Sinseol-dong Station. Plans for expansion will only begin once the reliability of the program is confirmed, the Seoul Metro said, per KBS.

The AI-based gender detector is able to automatically detect a person's gender, display CCTV images in pop-up form, and broadcast announcements, KBS reported, citing the Seoul Metro.

According to KBS, citing the Seoul Metro, the system is able to distinguish gender based on body shape, clothing, belongings, and behavioral patterns.

Taking into consideration that most subway station restroom cleaners are currently women, the corporation will be putting the installation of the program in men's restrooms on hold, per KBS.

But some people are skeptical about the program.

"Do you think all women look exactly the same? Are you asking male-passing women to not use the restroom?" reads a tweet.

"Can installing this at the women's restroom really stop men from coming?" another tweet reads. 

According to KBS, the program was built as a preventive measure in response to a murder that took place in a metro station bathroom.

On September 14, a Seoul Metro employee fatally stabbed a 28-year-old female coworker in her 20s in the women's restroom at Sindang Station. The man has been sentenced to 40 years in jail, per BBC.

Members of the public paid their respects to the victim with handwritten Post-it notes at the entrance of the restroom where the incident took place. 

"I want to be alive at the end of my workday," reads one. "Is it too much to ask, to be safe to reject people I don't like?" reads another, per BBC.

Following the incident, the Seoul Metro has been implementing various safety measures, including self-defense training for its workers and separating men's and women's restrooms in renovated public buildings, per KBS.

I’m usually opposed to increased surveillance but at least South Korea is trying something to protect women

[blackhistorychatgpt]

Black inventors

From Perplexity:

Famous black inventors have significantly contributed to various fields, from everyday household items to groundbreaking technological advancements. Here are some notable figures:

George Crum (1824-1914): A chef who is credited with inventing the potato chip in 1853[1].

Frederick McKinley Jones (1893-1961): Developed refrigeration equipment for trucks, trains, ships, and planes, receiving over 40 patents. His invention, the Thermo King, revolutionized the food and medical transport industries[1].

Granville T. Woods (1856-1910): Accumulated almost 60 patents, improving railroad functioning. Notably, he invented the induction telegraph system for train communication[1].

George Washington Carver (1864-1943): An agricultural chemist who developed 518 products from peanuts and sweet potatoes, including ink, dye, soap, and synthetic rubber[1].

Madam C.J. Walker (1867-1919): Became the first African American woman self-made millionaire by creating a line of hair products for African American women[1].

Garrett Morgan (1877-1963): Invented the traffic signal and a safety hood that served as a prototype for the gas mask[1].

Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner: Patented the sanitary belt in 1957, a significant advancement in women's health and hygiene[1].

Thomas L. Jennings (1791–1859): The first African American to receive a U.S. patent, for a dry-cleaning process[4].

Patricia Bath (1942-2019): Invented a laser cataract treatment, becoming the first African American female doctor to receive a medical patent[4].

Mark Dean (1957-present): Holds over 20 patents, including contributions to the creation of the color PC monitor and the first gigahertz chip[4].

Elijah McCoy (1844-1929): Known for his invention of the automatic lubricator for oiling steam engines, leading to the phrase "the real McCoy" to denote something authentic[4].

These inventors have left a lasting impact on society, demonstrating ingenuity and perseverance in the face of challenges.

Citations: [1] https://www.oprahdaily.com/life/work-money/g30877473/african-american-inventors/ [2] https://www.parents.com/kids/education/world-changing-black-inventors-that-every-kid-should-know-about/ [3] https://www.black-inventor.com [4] https://www.biography.com/inventors/g46697619/famous-black-inventors [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African-American_inventors_and_scientists

From Gemini (formerly Bard):

20 Famous Black Investors with Short Descriptions:

Dr. Shirley Jackson: First Black woman to earn a doctorate in nuclear physics, invested in research and development for the U.S. Department of Defense.

Robert F. Smith: Founded Vista Equity Partners, a private equity firm with over $85 billion in assets under management. Known for his philanthropic endeavors.

Oprah Winfrey: Media mogul and investor, known for her investments in cable channels, production companies, and Weight Watchers.

Udayan I. Lekhraj: Founded CMG Partners, a private equity firm specializing in healthcare investments. Advocate for diversity and inclusion in venture capital.

Catherine Hughes: Founded Urban One, a media company serving the African American community. First Black woman to chair a publicly traded company in the U.S.

Rodney Bryant: Co-founded JUST Capital, a firm that measures and incentivizes corporations to prioritize stakeholder capitalism.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: Former President of Liberia, Nobel Peace Prize winner. Focused on economic development and investment in her country.

Ronald Lauder: CEO of Estee Lauder Companies, known for his investments in the beauty industry and philanthropic work.

Charles R. Bronfman: Chairman of The Seagram Company Ltd., invested in various industries including entertainment, real estate, and philanthropy.

John Rogers Jr.: Founded Ariel Investments, a mutual fund company with over $28 billion in assets under management. Advocate for responsible investing.

Marc Morial: Former mayor of New Orleans, currently president of the National Urban League. Focused on economic empowerment of Black communities.

Ronald Watkins: Founding CEO of Watkins Investing Group, invests in real estate and businesses within the Black community.

Melody Hobson: President and CEO of Ariel Investments, known for her work on financial literacy and diversity in boardrooms.

Aisha Evans: Founded BE Capital, a venture capital firm focused on Black and Latinx tech entrepreneurs.

Kevin Hart: Comedian and investor, known for his investments in production companies, streaming platforms, and sports teams.

Jay-Z: Rapper and entrepreneur, known for his investments in music streaming, sports teams, and venture capital funds.

Will Smith: Actor and investor, known for his investments in production companies, media platforms, and venture capital funds.

Serena Williams: Tennis champion and investor, known for her investments in venture capital funds focused on women and diverse founders.

Rihanna: Singer and entrepreneur, known for her investments in beauty brands, fashion lines, and technology startups.

LeBron James: Basketball player and investor, known for his investments in media companies, production companies, and technology startups.

Please note: This list is not exhaustive and can be debated in terms of individual importance and impact.

Reading List on Black Inventors:

Black Inventors: Lives That Mattered by Darlene R. Medford

Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly

Lifting the Veil: Celebrating the Unsung Heroes of Black History by Michael Hill

Lost Genius: The Forgotten Black Inventors Who Changed the World by Dennis Freeman

Pioneering Women in American Mathematics: From Agnes Scott to Emmy Noether by Pamela Prochazka

Black Inventors in Science and Technology by Shirley J. Smith

A Colored Man's Reminiscences of James M. Whitfield: With Recollections of the Early Struggles of Colored Men in Boston by Wilbur H. Siebert

Inventing the Future: Black Inventors in Science and Technology by Geneva Gay

African Americans in Science, Math, and Invention by Darlene R. Medford

Black Inventors in the United States by Darlene R. Medford

This list offers a variety of books covering different periods and areas of innovation by Black inventors. Consider exploring further based on your specific interests.

I hope this information is helpful!

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Dave Granlund

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

April 10, 2024 (Wednesday)

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

APR 11, 2024

Prime minister Fumio Kishida of Japan and his wife, Yuko Kishida, are in Washington, D.C., tonight at a state dinner hosted by President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden. The dinner is part of a state visit, the fifth for this administration.

Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have worked to strengthen ties to countries in the Indo-Pacific to weaken the dominance of China in the region, and Japan is the key nation in that partnership. “We celebrate the flourishing friendship between the United States and Japan,” Dr. Biden said Tuesday. “Our nations are partners in building a world where we choose creation over destruction, peace over bloodshed, and democracy over autocracy.”

During talks today, Biden and Kishida committed to strengthening the defense and security frameworks of the two countries so they can work together effectively, especially in a crisis. The new frameworks include intelligence sharing, defense production, satellite cooperation, pilot training, cybersecurity, humanitarian assistance, and technological cooperation. Affirming the ties of science and education between the countries, the leaders announced that two Japanese astronauts would join future American missions and, Biden said, “one will become the first non-American ever to land on the moon.” 

That cooperation both takes advantage of and builds on economic ties between the two countries. In a press conference with Kishida on Wednesday, Biden noted that Japan is the top foreign investor in the U.S., and the U.S. is the top foreign investor in Japan. Microsoft, Google, and Amazon have announced investments of $2.9 billion, $1 billion, and $15 billion respectively in Japan over the next several years, largely in computer and digital advances. Japanese corporations Daiichi Sankyo, Toyota, Honda Aircraft, Yaskawa Electric Corporation, Mitsui E&S, and Fujifilm announced investments in the U.S., primarily in manufacturing.

In a press conference, Kishida told reporters that “[t]he international community stands at a historical turning point. In order for Japan, the U.S., the Indo-Pacific region, and, for that matter, the whole world to enjoy peace, stability, and prosperity lasting into the future, we must resolutely defend and further solidify a free and open international order based on the rule of law.”

“This is the most significant upgrade in our alliance…since it was first established,” Biden said. While he noted that lines of communication with China remain open—he spoke with Chinese president Xi Jinping last week—the strengthening of ties to Japan comes in part from concern about the Chinese threat  to Taiwan, a self-ruled island that the Chinese government considers its own. Leaders are increasingly concerned that the Republicans’ refusal to fund Ukraine has emboldened not only Russia but also China. 

Tomorrow, President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., of the Philippines will join Biden in a bilateral meeting before Marcos, Biden, and Kishida join in the first trilateral meeting of the three. Kishida will also address a joint session of Congress.

Kenneth Weinstein of the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank, suggested today that Japan “has quietly become America’s most important ally,” “playing a central role in meeting our nation’s principal strategic challenge: the threat posed by the People’s Republic of China, especially the defense of Taiwan.” Weinstein also notes that Japan’s longstanding engagement in Southeast Asia means it has “forged relations of deep trust” there among countries that often eye the U.S. with deep distrust. 

Outside of news about the Japanese prime minister’s visit, U.S. news today was consumed by reactions to yesterday’s decision by the Arizona Supreme Court to permit the enforcement of an 1864 law that is currently interpreted as a ban on all abortions except to save the mother’s life. 

President Biden issued a statement condemning the “extreme and dangerous abortion ban,” calling it “a result of the extreme agenda of Republican elected officials who are committed to ripping away women’s freedom.”

“Vice President Harris and I stand with the vast majority of Americans who support a woman’s right to choose,” he continued. “We will continue to fight to protect reproductive rights and call on Congress to pass a law restoring the protections of Roe v. Wade for women in every state.”

Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to Tucson, Arizona, on Friday to respond to the ruling. According to Hans Nichols of Axios, she had been planning to travel to Arizona anyway but quickly shifted her visit to make it a campaign trip, allowing her to comment more freely on Trump and the Republicans who were responsible for the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the imposition of abortion bans since. 

Harris has been out front on the issue of reproductive rights, meeting more than 50 times with groups in at least 16 states since the Supreme Court handed down the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in June 2022, overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that recognized the right to abortion. This year, on the January 22 anniversary of the Roe decision, she announced a “Fight for Reproductive Freedoms” tour. 

“Extremists across our country continue to wage a full-on attack against hard-won, hard-fought freedoms as they push their radical policies,” she said. “I will continue to fight for our fundamental freedoms while bringing together those throughout America who agree that every woman should have the right to make decisions about her own body—not the government.”

Yesterday illustrated what the overturning of Roe v. Wade has wrought. The Republicans who were celebrating that overturning two years ago are now facing an extraordinary backlash, and they are well aware that Arizona is a key state in the 2024 presidential election. Former president Trump has boasted repeatedly that he was responsible for nominating the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe, supported a national abortion ban, and even called for women who get an abortion to be punished. 

But today he swung around again, telling reporters that he would not sign a national abortion ban if it came to his desk. To be sure, as Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo notes, there’s no reason to think he wouldn’t sign such a bill, but the fact he is denying that he would and is running away from the issue shows just how much it hurts the Republicans with voters. 

Harris’s trip, along with Biden’s constant travel, shows a willingness to crisscross the country to meet voters that dovetails with new statistics out about the Biden-Harris campaign. While Trump has largely stayed at Mar-a-Lago, has fewer than five staffers in each of the battlefield states, and has closed all the offices that made up the Republican National Committee’s minority outreach program, the Biden-Harris campaign has 300 paid staffers in 9 states, and 100 offices in regions crucial to the 2024 election. 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[leftistfeminista]

Yair Klein’s Gifted Student

From December 1987 to May 1988, Klein, a retired Israel Defense Forces (IDF) lieutenant colonel, trained fifty men at a “school for assassins” in the Magdalena Medio, just three hours away from Medellín. Operating with an official Israeli government license, Klein trained his students to carry out drive-bys in cars, assassinations by bombs and sniper fire, and door-to-door attacks on entire towns. Klein has since alleged that the CIA recruited him to train the Colombians and that he met with the now dissolved Colombian intelligence agency, the Department of Administrative Security (DAS), upon arriving in the country. “The Americans have the problem of public opinion, international image. We don’t have this problem,” one Israeli working for Klein’s Spearhead mercenary corporation said of the operation.

Five months later, Klein’s trainees Fidel and Carlos Castaño, Alonso de Jesús Baquero, and thirty other men carried out a massacre in the mining town of Segovia. There, Rita Ivon Tobón Areiza, a young woman from UP, had won the 1988 mayoral race by an overwhelming margin. Working with the US-backed Colombian Armed Forces, Jesús Baquero, one of the Castaño’s paramilitary chiefs, headed the massacre. His targets were suspected supporters of the UP.

On November 11, the day of the massacre, the military removed its checkpoints ordinarily positioned at the town’s entrance. According to an Amnesty International report, “regular garrisons of the police and military stood by while the killers moved freely through the town for over an hour.” Jesús Baquero’s forces, armed with a list of targets, carried out door-to-door killings of suspected UP supporters and an assault on the town square, killing forty-three people and wounding more than fifty others. “Yair Klein always considered me a gifted student,” Jesús Baquero would later recall.An Israeli firm sent three thousand assault rifles and 2.5 million rounds of ammunition to the AUC — arms they used to massacre leftists and displace thousands.

The Castaños would eventually form the United Self-Defense Forces (AUC) paramilitary. In 2001, Human Rights Watch determined the AUC was effectively a division of the Colombian military and, according to author John Lindsay-Poland, “the worst violator” in a conflict that claimed 262,197 lives in six decades. In 2002, GIRSA, an Israeli firm in Guatemala tied to the IDF, sent three thousand assault rifles and 2.5 million rounds of ammunition to the AUC — arms they used to massacre leftists and displace thousands.

[usagirln12003]

Zenitsu Agatsuma: Hogwarts AU

Zenitsu Agatsuma is a Half-Blood wizard was born on the 3rd of September 1975 and started attending Hogwarts on the 1st of September 1987, being sorted into Gryffindor House.

He has a Red Oak wand with a Unicorn Hair core.

His Patronus is Non-Corporeal.

His favorite subject is Divination and his least favorite is Defense Against the Dark Arts.

He was a Chaser for the Gryffindor quidditch team from his second year onward.

Zenitsu is cowardly, nihilistic, weak-willed, and anxious, often claiming that he doesn't have long to live due to the danger of the Fourth Wizarding War. He has rather low self-esteem despite his talent and strength, even considering himself useless. This was evident when he couldn't believe he had defeated a dark wizard in a duel and tricked himself into instead believing that it was Shoichi, even though the latter was a young child who hadn't started at Hogwarts yet. Zenitsu is in a constant state of fear, and he frequently tries to run away at the sight of danger, claiming he wants to live a modest, normal life instead of that of a wizard. Due to this, Zenitsu screams and shouts a lot, much to the annoyance of the people around him. He is also shown to be pessimistic at times, especially during Defense Against the Dark Arts lessons, where he lashed out at Tanjiro and Inosuke for viewing the lessons positively.

In spite of his weaknesses, Zenitsu desires to live up to the expectations others have set for him and will try his hardest when he needs to. He holds great respect and admiration for his comrades and his deceased grandfather, Jigoro Kuwajima, and his inner focus and drive to avenge him help to wash away his cowardice and second thoughts when he is in a pinch. Zenitsu also hates himself for how cowardly and incompetent he is, despite genuinely striving to better himself.

Zenitsu is also shown to be something of a wannabe womanizer, stemming from a desire to not be single should he be killed. He tends to hit on girls who he thinks are cute and asks them to marry him, much to their annoyance. This womanizing nature is shown to override his docile and quiet personality, particularly when he believes his comrades are "flirting" with cute girls; he would snap and go on long hysterical rants and complaints. Zenitsu is shown to have a strong attraction to Nezuko, openly expressing his affection for her and always rushing to protect her as if on instinct. During these times, he is also shown to become physically aggressive, lashing out at people in frustration. Though, despite his shallow behaviour in this regard, Zenitsu does show respect for women, telling Daki to let go of a girl that Daki nearly tore the ear off of and later demanding that she apologize, showing no fear at all in front of the enraged vampire.

In spite of his cowardly demeanour and somewhat pathetic attempts to gain the attention of women, he has shown level-headedness on rare occasions, becoming annoyed by his comrades' shenanigans, such as Tanjiro's kind naivety, Inosuke's bombastic personality, Kyojuro's boisterous and loud character, and Tengen's self-glorifying proclamations. As such, he typically squabbles with Inosuke when the latter goes on with his loud demands and boasts. Additionally, as the only one to have grown up in the city, Zenitsu is the most street-smart of the trio, being the most familiar with urban environments and Great Britain's industrialization. As such, he became frustrated with his partners' lack of understanding, namely Tanjiro and Inosuke's inability to recognize a train.

At the end of his sixth year, Zenitsu gives off a different, more serious impression, as if he is focused on something important, even disregarding Tanjiro's worries for him as he claims there is something he must do by himself. This development occurred after receiving a letter from Chuntaro, which revealed his grandfather's death and his adopted brother Kaigaku's role behind it. During his duel against Kaigaku, Zenitsu is stern and becomes enraged, causing him to angrily yell at him for disrespecting their grandfather who had taken them in after being orphaned due to the Third Wizarding War. His sudden change surprises his former brother, as Zenitsu shows a more mature persona compared to his usual cowardice.

[shadeops21]

Ruby Team

9th Fighter Squadron, 2nd Air Division of the Royal Valean Air Force.

While the unit's name predated her transfer into the squadron, it is certain that the impact that Flight Lieutenant Ruby Rose had during the unit's involvement during the Second Great War has etched both her name and her unit's into the history book.

It was observed through the latter stages of the war that her mere presence in an airspace or over a battlefield directly affected the morale of all involved, either for the good or bad.

"That jet; we called it the Burning Rose, for the flames it left behind were akin to falling petals." - Separatist Atlesian POW

(Rafale M of the RVAF's 9th FS, serial 0148-011, dubbed "Crescent Rose")

Originally based out of Beacon AFB, located just outside of Vale's capital district, the 9th FS specialized in precision ground attack and tactical strike operations. Trained for interdiction, tactical bombing, precision and maritime strike, as well as the capability to self-escort to and from a target area, these pilots were renowned for their accuracy and tenacity.

However as the Second Great War progressed, Ruby Team found themselves at the spearhead of offensive and defensive operations across the theater of war. Ruby Team were also only one of the few from a handful of squadrons across both the Royal Valean Air Force and Royal Valean Navy's Maritime Air Arm to escape the fall of Vale to friendly territories.

"I swear, you could hear the confidence of the troops skyrocket when those four were seen overhead. You could be on your last magazine, but hearing those four sets of engines made you feel you could take on an entire armoured column." - Valean Army 'Hunter' operator.

(Rafale M of the 9th FS, flown by FLTLT Weiss 'Ice Queen' Schnee. Ruby Team's #2)

Few actually know of the four pilots of Ruby Team beyond their names, ranks, and posting at the time of the Second Great War. Part of that was attributed to the loss of records as a result of the Fall of Vale, but anecdotal stories from allies and onlookers alike show that whilst not aloof the members of Ruby Team did tend to stay out of the limelight and out of view whenever they were on the ground between missions.

One common trait was clear though, remaining consistent regardless of whoever was interviewed about their encounters with the Burning Rose:

She inspired others with little more than a smile and a 'follow me'.

"If you were on the same [frequency] as them, you wouldn't have known it. They were at the level where merely a few words needed to be exchanged before each pilot moved to act. It was as if they had telepathy or something. And to watch them fly was just awe-inspiring." - Senior Lieutenant Wukong, 10th Fighter Squadron of the Mistral Aerospace Forces

(Rafale M 0240-009, "Gambol Shroud". Flown by Ruby Team element leader, FLGOFF Belladonna)

Many theorised over the factors and reasons why Ruby Team performed as well as they did during the course of the war. They weren't the only squadron to have considerable impact on the war and it's progress, with many successful operations attributed to other units that formed up the Remnant Strategic Allied Forces (RSAF).

One key attribute that some have indicated may have been a factor was their composition of pilots: a young Valean prodigy born from renowned ace pilots; the daughter and prospective heiress of one of the largest mega-corporations on Remnant; a reformed activist looking to right wrongs done in the past; and a free-spirited yet loyal daredevil who never gave up even in the worst of odds.

"Ruby Team saved our lives, both personally and collectively. When things were at their darkest, they were the ones who said 'Fuck that, we aren't dying here. Let's go.' And I think that was what did it for everyone, once you cut out all the other bullshit." - FLTLT Arc, "Juniper" Team flight lead, 11th Fighter Squadron, 2nd Air Division, RVAF.

(Rafale M 0122-009, flown by Ruby Team #4, FLGOFF Xiao Long.)

Regardless of the anecdotes, the stories, and the varying pieces of news reporting from all sides of the conflict, it is undeniable that if it weren't for the efforts of Ruby Team, there may very well not be a Remnant left to live on.

Yet, despite their impact, once the fires were extinguished and cities were rebuilt, nary a trace of the The Four Beacons could be found. I personally would not blame them; they've more than earned their peace and quiet.

I just hope that their rest is not disturbed by another conflict.

Excerpts taken from "The Beacons, The Rose, and the Second Great War - An Account of the War from the tip of the spear", written by Oscar Pine.

------

Yeah, back on my crossover bullshit. Working on a whole series of skins of different aircraft and squadrons as "what if's" - Namely, what if RWBY was set in a world like Ace Combat.

Squadrons tend to follow matching paint schemes, and I also didn't want to give Ruby and her team a uber-distinctive and unoriginal livery like full black and red or something like that. I've kinda pulled inspiration from different Ace Combat titles and liveries of primary and secondary characters. It may not be visible on the renders above, but each aircraft has a personal touch, apart from the character's respective emblems located behind the cockpit:

Ruby: cursive "Crescent Rose" in red written below the cockpit in front of the right intake.

Weiss: a red arrowhead/dagger shape representative of her scar.

Blake: has the two lines seen on Gambol Shroud running along the spine of her aircraft from nosecone to tailfin

Yang: pin-up girl silhouette with the words "Ember Celica" flanking on either side, lower left nose in front of the intake.

I have an entire word doc with an order of battle drafted up, assigning each team of students and hunters to squadrons from specific air forces. I may post this up later if there's significant interest...

Anyway, thanks for getting to this point. Long post and different from the usual programming. Still fun to do this though!

[nickgerlich]

What's In Your Oven?

We have looked at corporate communication crises and missteps more than once this semester, and just this week, I messaged all of you to take a listen to my latest podcast episode about the same subject. It’s something that happens all the time. Just when you think you’ve got things figured out, you step in a massive dogpile.

But what about when the dogpile along your path did not appear because of something you said, but instead because of something perceived as political favoritism? This is an entirely different animal, and one that a Panera franchisee in California found himself having to clean his shoes, as well as the state’s Governor.

In case you missed it, there was considerable discussion this last week regarding the $20 fast food minimum wage law (up from $16/hour) that goes into effect in California on 1st April. It’s just that there was a glaring carve-out in the bill that allowed a California Panera franchisee to sidestep the higher wages, because it bakes and serves fresh bread. And just to make sure the beneficiaries were few, the bill was worded such that an eatery had to have been baking bread prior to 1st September last year. In other words, you couldn’t just go out and buy an Easy Bake Oven and declare yourself exempt.

How baking and serving bread could ever be construed as rationale for an exemption is beyond me. What’s bread got to do with it?

The problem is that one particular Panera franchisee—billionaire Greg Flynn—attended high school with Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom, and had made a donation to Newsom's campaign. If ever there were eyebrows raised over any potentially shady legal wrangling, this was the time. If the bread fits, eat it.

It doesn’t take a lawyer to look at this and conclude that the bill was written specifically to grant Panera a hall pass. But, the outcry was so loud that Newsom—acting in self-defense and trying to preserve his own image—intervened and said that his old school chum would have to pay up just like everyone else. Those Panera franchises can keep baking bread, but they’re going to have to shell out about 25% more of it in the form of hourly wages.

I know what you’re thinking by now. This a far cry different from the Bud Light controversy, or Target and its Pride Month merch. This is politics that from all appearances were engineered to benefit one person. It doesn’t matter if there was a conspiracy here…people already made that conclusion, and it’s hard to reel in a train that has already left the station.

There’s plenty of room for fallout here. The entire Panera chain was dragged into the crosshairs, even though it’s just one guy with 20 outlets. You never want this kind of news hitting the airwaves or social media, because you have no control whatsoever. Never mind that it was nothing of the corporation’s own doing.

And then there’s the Governor, whose name I have heard tossed around quite frequently lately as a future Presidential candidate, and in particular if the Democratic Party and/or President Biden would decide to go with someone new this year. Given the outcomes of Super Tuesday this week, I doubt that will happen in 2024, but there’s always 2028.

Skeletons have a way of lingering in closets, and reappearing at the most inopportune times, though. Governor Newsom does not need to be reminded of this were he to make a run for the White House, because it’s a bad look, even if he did come down and say California Paneras had to pay up.

Once again, there’s crisis being served for lunch. It’s just that this time it involved more plot twists and turns than when a company alone is goofing up. The result is the same, though, and egg on anyone’s face is not a good look. Good on Governor Newsom for making sure no one is exempt, even though he may well be remembered for cronyism.

As much as I love the smell of bread in the oven, these loaves stunk. It’s a good thing someone came to his senses before the dumpster fires those ovens had become could get any more out of control.

Dr “Make Mine Whole Wheat” Gerlich

Audio Blog

[hydine]

Istg ZoSan brainrot is the worst of my life

Modern AU (mind you, I don't have any clue about showbiz and/or modeling, so eh 💁🏻‍♀️ I'm taking some liberties)

Zoro and Sanji were besties at school. They also had a huge crush on each other neither one wanted to admit. One day, Sanji just disappeared. Zoro experienced the worst feelings of disappointment and betrayal because of that.

The thing is, Sanji is the third son of the big-ass Vinsmoke Corporation. He ran away from his blood relatives, because of abuse and neglect, especially after his mother died. When he ran away he was threatened to never make any claims to the Vinsmoke name. He then lived on the streets until Zeff took him in, and he could live a relatively normal life, as the Vinsmokes apparently just forgot about him.

But the peace didn't last. Reiju eventually reached out to Sanji. The Vinsmokes threatened to do something horrible to Zeff and his restaurant, and possibly anyone else who Sanji holds dear, if he didn't come back to the Vinsmokes. So he just went. No time to say goodbye to Zoro.

The next years, Sanji lived in a gilded cage. The Vinsmokes forced him into model training, so he could at least be of some use, while they were waiting for Charlotte Pudding, daughter of another big-ass company, to become legal for Sanji to marry, just so to seal a business deal between Vinsmoke and Charlotte. Sanji absolutely hated this life, but he did as he was told, so he could protect his loved ones.

Meanwhile Zoro started to express his feelings into song, and while he was still in school he gained some internet reputation on the side as a ghost songwriter/composer, and after he finished school he very quickly gained internet fame as a solo artist under his own name (who also happened to be a skilled kendoka and martial artist on the side, built like a Greek god and an absolute hit/eye-candy for both women and men 👀)

Skip forward to both Sanji and Zoro being quite famous, each in their own industry, and they know about each other only through media articles.

Sanji is not married yet - even though Pudding is approaching legal age, it would damage Sanji's/the Vinsmoke's reputation, if he were to marry someone who is barely legal - so the wedding will still have to wait.

One day, Zoro gets a business proposal for a promotion of a new product/franchise. They'd like his music, but since he's so good-looking, they also want him to model for promotional material. The catch? It's a collaboration with the Vinsmoke's most famous model - Sanji.

Of course, Zoro is reluctant, but in the end his curiosity wins out. He just wants to see Sanji again. And yes, he still has that crush on him. Meanwhile Sanji didn't have any choice, the Vinsmokes agreed to this proposal in his name. Sanji is conflicted about meeting Zoro again, as he also never overcame his crush on him and wants to keep Zoro far away from the Vinsmokes to protect him, but on the other hand, being close to the action himself might be his best chance at protecting Zoro.

So they eventually meet 👀 hot moments and drama and angst ensue, bc they realize they're very much in love with each other. But Sanji sure as hell doesn't come clean about the Vinsmokes, with what surveillance on his ass and all that jazz, and Zoro just doesn't know anything about it and is heartbroken about Sanji. That is, until Zoro's adoptive father Mihawk, another filthy rich corporate owner, tells him the grim machinations of the Vinsmokes in general. Zoro wanting to have a talk with Sanji, finds a limping Reiju on the run instead. She had overheard a conversation between Pudding and the Charlottes, about a plan to "kill the Vinsmokes after the business deal is through, and make it look like accidents and/or acts of self-defense" so that the Charlottes can take over the Vinsmoke business. Reiju is hurt (bullet grazed her) bc she was caught eavesdropping, and is now on the run. Zoro wants to take her to a doc, but Reiju wants to keep everything secret, as all of the Vinsmokes including Sanji, are now in immediate danger. (and authorities won't do shit, bc money) So Zoro goes briefly into hiding with Reiju, and she tells him everything about her family, the Charlottes, and Sanji. Zoro feels fucking bad about himself for not noticing Sanji's hardships earlier. Reiju begs him to at least save Sanji, as she herself believes the rest of her family deserves what's coming for them, but not her innocent baby brother.

So Zoro goes on a quest to get as much help help as he can; the strawhats making it possible to get Sanji out of Vinsmoke/Charlotte clutches, and hide him away, and Mihawk and his influence and money making it possible to wage a legal war against the Vinsmokes/Charlottes. The whole thing was a scandal in the media. Eventually Sanji gets the chance of making a public statement of denouncing and rejecting the Vinsmoke name, and officially and willingly ending his modeling career. Zoro never made an announcement, he just stopped being a solo artist and went back to ghost songwriting/composing instead. After the media attention died down, Zoro and Sanji, finally a couple, moved in together.

[autisticsupervillain]

FTF: Isekai Invasion

The show where we take a character and drop them into a different franchise at a random location to see if they can conquer the world.

This Episode....

Mary Jane Watson invades Mount Massive Asylum!

Conditions:

Insomniac Games's Mary Jane

MJ as of Spider-Man 2 with all her associated equipment.

MJ will be replacing Miles Upshur in the plot of the original Outlast with all the same goals. If she can escape the Asylum alive with all the evidence needed to bring Murkoff to justice, that will count as a win.

MJ cannot call in the Spider-Men or anyone else for help.

Scenario:

The same set up as Outlast but with MJ replacing Miles Upshur. Mary Jane Watson, reporter for the Daily Bugle, gets an anonymous email from a burner account about the atrocities being committed by Murkoff at Mount Massive and goes in to investigate. MJ speculates that the building has a jammer when she mysteriously losses all signal after getting in range, but she pushes on regardless. It is only after MJ can no longer get out the way she came in that she realizes the building has been overrun, leaving her no choice but to push in deeper.

Invader: MJ

Mary Jane Watson. One of the most iconic damsels and love interests in comic book history. Though iconic for her role as damsel in distress in the Rami movies, Insomniac's Mary Jane is more in line with her comic counterpart. She's a freelance reporter capable of kicking as much ass as her superhuman boyfriend sometimes and she'll do anything to unbury the truth.

She's surprisingly an expert in stealth and infiltration. She's snuck into the compounds of crime lords like Tombstone and Hammerhead, snuck past the international mercenaries of Silver Sable and her men, and avoided capture by Kraven the Hunter's mercenaries. Using her boyfriend's Spider Lures as a distraction, she's even managed to break into the Oscorp undetected.

While writing a book on the country of Symkaria, MJ got some self defense training from Silver Sable herself, as well as a fancy new taser that can drop a goon in one shook. She later upgraded this taser gun with Peter's gadgets, allowing it to shoot webs and shoot sonic blasts loud enough to ward off a symbiote behemoth. With these tools, she's able to take down Kraven's hunters, who are strong enough to kick down steel doors with a single kick snd survive rpg rockets exploding in their face. These are the same rockets that usually explode with an energy equivalent to 650 kilojoules.

Source:

What's more, MJ is fast enough to dodge arrows from a hunter's crossbow, which csn travel up to 350 feet per second or 106.68 meters per second.

Source:

Honestly, Mary Jane Watson is kind of a badass. She's escaped from being captured by Kraven's hunters, fought her way through a symbiote hive, outrun a Symbiote controlled Spider-Man trying to kill her, and managed to fight off the control of the Scream Symbiote, with some help from Peter.

This MJ is a far cry from the damsel in distress she's stereotyped as and she's just as vital a member of Spider-Man's team as the Spider-Men themselves.

Invaded: Mount Massive

The Murkoff Corporation could never be said to have had a sterling reputation. The company had an unofficial history of human experimentation and exploitation. Never on American soil, of course. Never anywhere that the American public would actually care about. Not until they bought out Mount Massive Asylum.

Because if there's one group that Americans care about less than foreigners, it's the mentally ill.

Murkoff wanted to exploit the theories of the retired Nazi Dr. Wernicke by diving into dream theory. The enlisted him in their Morphogenic Engine program, hoping to summon, empower, and control the nanotechnological ghost known only as the Walrider. To this end, the experimented on the mentally ill, physically and psychologically torturing them. Turning the compatible into human engines so their nightmares could fuel the god they wished to enslave while leaving the incompatible to rot and die. Even loyal members of the company, like executive Richard Trager and Father Martin Archimbaud, were used as test subjects at the earliest convenience. The variants, as they were called, begain to mutate and deform. Tumors formed over their bodies, clogging their mouths and block their eyes. Their hair begain to fall out and they emancipated into borderline skeletons.

The variants pre-existing conditions worsened. At best, they became catatonic and unresponsive to the outside world. At worst, they became violent and murderous.

And then they found a subject fully compatible with the Walrider. Able to sustain it, control it, and survive as its host. Billy Hope. As soon as he was in control, all hell broke loose. The Variants broke out and happily took their revenge on their tormentors. Scientists and security alike were butched like pigs, heavily armed soldiers were impaled on pikes. And the Walrider was set free.

Notable Variants include the likes of Eddie Glusken, a misogynistic serial killer who was only made worse by the Morphogenic Engine. Granted superhuman strength by the treatments, he was now strong enough to lift a full grown man off the ground with one arm. "Doctor" Richard Trager was now strong enough to cut off limbs, decapitate his victims, and cut open the gates to the elevator with his giant scissors. And every varienty in the build was now strong enough to bash down doors and kill reporter Miles Upshur, who survived a massive explosion that blew him out a window. An explosion thst generated an energy equivalent to 11,840 kilojoules.

Source:

But the most dangerous Variant in the entire building was Chris Walker. Once a simple war veteran suffering from severe PTSD, Chis became a killing machine with an enhanced sense of smell, hearing, and sight that could let him track down his victims even in the dark. Obsessed with containing the threat of the Walrider, Chris's judo skills and military training make him a veritable beast, capable of easily ripping Miles's head clean off with one hand and bashing down reinforced steel doors.

But even he is still just a man next to the Walrider. A futuristic marvel of nanotechnology that feeds off the dreams of its host to survive, the Walrider can fly, go through walls, go through your pores and rip you apart from the inside, and is nigh-invisible to the naked eye, only complely visible on night vision cameras or during the day.

The only issue, however, is that the Walrider is completely submissive to the will of its perfect host, reliant on them to survive. And if its host is not perfect, as Miles Upshur turned out to be, they will be reduced to a walking corpse overtime by the possession.

Mount Massive Asylum represents one of the biggest atrocities committed in the name of corporate greed. A warcrime that even drew the digust of the Nazi forced to work on it. No one cares about "a building full of forgotten lunatics". Let it burn, I say.

Throwdown Breakdown:

The stats on this one are rather interesting. Miles Upshur is 11x more durable than the goons MJ can one-shot, meaning every single thug in the building is going to be strong enough to rip MJ apart if they get their hands on her, seeing how Miles is almost completely helpless against them.

But, none of the Variants have ever demonstrated superhuman speed, meaning they're absolutely never catching MJ, who can move fast enough to dodge subsonic projectiles. Sure, Chris Walker is fast, but MJ is faster than a speeding car. If he doesn't get the drop on her or corner her, he's not getting his hands on her.

Then there's MJ's other gadgets. Her sonic blasts will likely have no effect, as they're specifically designed to fight Symbiotes and ordinary humans are unaffected. At most, I could see them potentially stunning Chris Walker due to his advanced hearing. MJ's noise devices could be a good distraction, but her taser could likely be tanked due to how much stronger the Variants are. On the flipside, I don't see any of the varients breaking free of her webbing. This is the exact same webbing Peter regular uses to lift cars and restrain his supervillains. That's a bit out of the league of most Variants. Meaning she could probably skip Trager's whole segment by webbing him to the wall, which is admittedly funny.

This is compounded by MJ's far superior stealth. Walker might be a military veteran, but MJ's snuck past some of the best international mercenaries on the planet. It's no contest on that front, even with Chris's enhanced senses.

It's with the Walrider that this becomes tricky.

The Walrider isn't invisible or intangible in the same way, say, a ghost is. It's basically a cloud of microscopic nanites. It's difficult to spot and touch because it's a very thin cloud. For most people in most circumstances, it's difficult to spot until it's basically right in front of you, at which point it's too late to escape. This means that I'm pretty confident in it getting through MJ's webs, even if some of its components get stuck.

The issue is how damn fast MJ is. The second it appears in her face, she's gone halfway down the hall. It doesn't help that it prefers to throw its victims around before killing them, which would only give MJ the opportunity to escape.

I think the Walrider could easily end MJ's run if it got the drop on her. Which it very well could. It got the drop on Miles several times and he actually has the means to see it coming in less than optimal conditions, something MJ wouldn't without a night vision camera.

But, this is where MJ's superior stealth comes into play. With a sneaking ability far superior to Miles and a speed that the Walrider can't keep up with, MJ could avoid getting ambushed by the Walrider by never getting found by it in the first place.

There are plenty of scenarios where MJ gets ripped apart or, worse, possessed by the Walrider. But there are more where MJ uses her superior stealth and speed to avoid it long enough to complete her mission. And once she kills Billy Hope, whose sitting helpless in a tube at this point, the Walrider wouldn't be able to make her a new host to survive due to her just being too fast for it to catch.

Overall, I think Ms. Watson has all the skills she needs to get the scope she's after.

This Throwdown's Winner is...

Mary Jane Watson!

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: David Randall

Published: Oct 3, 2023

In the Wall Street Journal, Mahzarin Banaji and Frank Dobbin recently published “Why DEI Training Doesn’t Work—and How to Fix It,” a defense of implicit-bias research in the guise of a critique of current corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion trainings. Banaji is one of the two inventors of the concept of implicit bias, and of the related implicit association test (IAT). She and Dobbin hope to acknowledge the flaws of DEI trainings while preserving implicit-bias research—and the associated program of political activism. The authors lament that DEI trainings elicit shame in their subjects, and that they are largely being used to bolster workforce-management policies against possible litigation. Their problem with DEI trainings is not that they are discriminatory, but that they do not strike the right tone:

Reminding managers that they can use these tools to suss out problems and nip them in the bud helps them to feel capable of managing biases and microaggressions. When managers use these skills, they retain women and people of color for long enough to come up for promotion. . . . training isn’t designed to blame people for their moral failings. Instead, it’s galvanizing them to support organizational change by arming them with knowledge.

The problems with DEI trainings are not in their tone, however, but in their substance. The implicit-bias theory (also called unconscious-bias theory) on which these trainings are based has no scientific basis, as years of examinations have consistently demonstrated. Lee Jussim puts it politely in his “12 Reasons to Be Skeptical of Common Claims About Implicit Bias,” but the Open Science Foundation’s archive of Articles Critical of the IAT and Implicit Bias renders a harsher verdict. In 2011, Etienne LeBel and Sampo Paunonen reviewed evidence that measures of implicit bias possess low reliability. In other words, when you test for implicit bias multiple times, you rarely get the same result. Their conclusion was that some part of “implicit bias” is really “random measurement error.” In 2017, Heather Mac Donald’s intensive examination of the theory and its empirical basis (or lack thereof) concluded that the “implicit-bias crusade is agenda-driven social science.” And Bertram Gawronski’s 2019 review of the scholarly literature on implicit-bias research also concludes that there’s no proof that people aren’t self-aware enough to know what’s causing their supposedly “implicit” or “unconscious” biases; and that you can’t prove that there’s any relationship between how people do on the test and how they behave in the real world.

As far back as 2009, Hart Blanton and colleagues reexamined research data on implicit bias. They found that 70 percent of whites who supposedly displayed implicit bias against blacks actually discriminated in favor of blacks.

It’s not just that there’s “insufficient evidence” that implicit bias doesn’t matter. There’s even evidence of a negative correlation between “implicit bias” and actual behavior. So we shouldn’t just be “skeptical” of implicit-bias theory. We should scoff at it.

In 2023, Jason Chin and colleagues noted that the entire field of behavioral-priming research has been largely discredited, which, in turn, eviscerates the basic framework justifying the argument that implicit-bias training reduces prejudicial behavior. As for the implicit-attitude test, Edouard Machery’s scathing 2022 article concludes: “We do not know what indirect measures measure; indirect measures are unreliable at the individual level, and people’s scores vary from occasion to occasion; indirect measures predict behavior poorly, and we do not know in which contexts they could be more predictive.”

Banaji and Dobbin’s article also fails to reveal how crucial implicit-bias theory has been in support of the legal imposition of such trainings, whether labeled as DEI or not. Since 2007, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has “encouraged” employers to adopt diversity trainings preemptively to protect themselves against legal liability for “unconscious bias.” In government, the trainings have been imposed by presidential executive order, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Education, the Department of Justice, the Office of Science and Technology Policy and Office of Personnel Management, the State Department, and the states of California, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, San Francisco, and Washington.

Moreover, “implicit bias” is an essential tool by which progressive activists have worked around federal antidiscrimination law’s requirement of proof of discriminatory intent. The implicit-bias standard allows lawyers to seize on the law stating that a “hostile environment” is an actionable offense under antidiscrimination law. Implicit-bias doctrine allows any inequity to be treated as evidence of bias, and hence of a hostile environment. Implicit-bias theory is the prerequisite for dispensing with intent in anti-discrimination law.

It would be hard to establish in a court of law whether instilling shame was the goal or just a byproduct of DEI trainings. It would be desirable if the DEI advocates could produce trainings that did not have that effect. But Banaji and Dobbin ultimately oppose eliciting shame not primarily because it is wrong but because it will hamper the political activism they favor.

Professional critiques of implicit bias have shown, politely but repeatedly, that there is nothing there. Activists and scientists who think that science should serve political objectives want to believe in the existence of massive systemic bias to justify their goals of imposing “equity” by law and by litigation. Implicit bias is a pseudoscientific theory made to order for this purpose. It’s a house of cards, and governments and the private sector should terminate every program based on it.

==

Call it "Grievance Dowsing."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowsing

Dowsing is a type of divination employed in attempts to locate ground water, buried metals or ores, gemstones, oil, claimed radiations (radiesthesia), gravesites, malign "earth vibrations" and many other objects and materials without the use of a scientific apparatus. It is also known as divining (especially in water divining), doodlebugging (particularly in the United States, in searching for petroleum or treasure) or (when searching for water) water finding, or water witching (in the United States).

A Y-shaped twig or rod, or two L-shaped ones—individually called a dowsing rod, divining rod, vining rod, or witching rod—are sometimes used during dowsing, although some dowsers use other equipment or no equipment at all. The motion of such dowsing devices is generally attributed to the ideomotor phenomenon, a psychological response where a subject makes motions unconsciously. Put simply, dowsing rods respond to the user's accidental or involuntary movements.

The scientific evidence shows that dowsing is no more effective than random chance. It is therefore regarded as a pseudoscience.

[multi-muse-transect]

Mortal Kombat OC Update Bio: Conner Cage

Name: Conner K. Carlton or Conner Cage

Nicknames:

War Cage

Older bro (by Cassie)

Sonya’s Pet Assassin

Affiliations: 

Blue Dragon 

Special Forces (under contract)

Biography:

Conner Cage was born to Michelle Danvers aka Megan Kidman who was a pureblood cryomancer clone after a one night stand with Johnny Cage. He grew up in a semi-happy life despite having no father with his mother teaching him how to use his powers correctly and using them for self-defense while revealing who she was to him. The pair traveled all the time out of fear that the Lin Kuei would discover who they were as Megan feared that her son would be used as a weapon. Megan later gained a job as a waitress at a diner in LA and would let Conner finish his homework there before heading home. His life would later change when the Outworld invasion happened as he bore witness to the massacre while his mother told him to run as she faced off against Baraka, Kotal and Mileena.

He hid in a dumpster as the fighting between them raged on to the point he feared that his mom was gonna lose but as soon as silence fell, he came out and found a frozen wasteland with all four gone. Conner was left alone in the invasion alongside dozens of orphans on the streets. He later ran off to a supermarket where he hid with dozens of survivors who came under the influence of a religious fanatic who claimed that the Outworld invasion was god judging them and so sacrificed a Special Forces soldier who was protecting the group to Tarkatans. Conner watched helplessly and isolated himself in the back hearing the pleas of people being sacrificed until he had enough and tried to them with Sonya Blade intervening as he ran away.

Conner spent the latter half of his childhood in a shelter for orphans who lost their parents during the invasion. There he befriended Jocelyn, a girl with musical talents, and regarded her as somewhat of an older sister to him. He later left the shelter when he became a teenager…

In his teen years, he used his powers to steal food from camps of Special Forces and later became a drug addict until he came to his senses during a robbery gone wrong when he was in his early 20′s. It was here that Kuai Liang spotted the young Cage and recruited him to the Lin Kuei. Conner trained with dozens of his students and while proficient in hand to hand combat alongside engineering, was known for his extraordinary marksmanship with firearms. He entered into a sexual relationship with Frost, one of Kuai Liang’s pupil, and the two had happy memories. Conner felt like he was seeing his life slip away fast and so he left the Lin Kuei despite the pleas of Frost.

After becoming a rising indie actor known for being in indie horror movies that got him Oscar nods, Conner was met by a recruiter named Naomi Stryker who offered him a position in a PMC outfit that was made up of disenfranchised Special Forces, Lin Kuei, and Black Dragon who formed the PMC known as Blue Dragon. This military outfit is privately hired by many corporations on the rise by trying to gain resources from Outworld and the result was them gaining tech on par with Special Forces. Conner accepted the offer as Blue Dragon gained the attention of Special Forces who later became their client and his path crossed with Johnny Cage, his father. Per the recommendations of CEO and commander, Cole Young, Conner was recruited into Cassie Cage’s team much to his chagrin. 

Personality:

Conner is known for his no nonsense and mature attitude akin to Sonya Blade yet also has a quiet demeanor and obeyed orders constantly while also placing walls on himself to keep others at bay alongside sharing some of Johnny’s dry humor as well albeit much darker and has a drone-like body language. He is described to be the assassin of the team and is known for his stealthy prowess thanks to his active camo suit. Conner also has no respect for Johnny Cage and follows orders from Cassie, Takeda, Jacqui, Jax or Sonya who has great admiration for with him being a fan of Sonya and Jax. His relationship with Cassie was more professional but became closer when he realized that he is her half-brother. Sonya and Conner were also particularly close as Conner opened up his true identity to her first over Johnny and Cassie.

Him and Kuai Liang share a mixed relationship with Conner being one of Kuai’s star pupils but also fought dishonorably at the same time using firearms during training yet Conner regarded Kuai as a second father. This personality in his days may have led to Frost being attracted to him. Although Kuai Liang regards Conner with distaste now that that he’s essentially a mercenary though has gotten over that realizing that perhaps the Lin Kuei weren’t suited for him. Despite all of this, Conner remains loyal to Kuai Liang.

Conner, like every other child or invasion kids was orphaned thanks to the Outrealm invasion, has signs of PTSD and is always afraid of going into supermarkets due to his experience. This vulnerable side of himself scares him as he aims to eliminate it sometimes.

Like his father, Conner is a bit of a ladies man. It’s been rumored he had flings with Mileena, Frost, Nitara, Kia, Skarlet, Tasia, D’Vorah, Jataaka, Kira, Tanya, Ashrah and Khameleon. He also shares his dry humor as well and his sass at the same time. 

AU’s

Hazbin Hotel AU: Conner was killed in the new era during an engagement against Bi-Han and somehow ended up in Hell. He soon became a Sinner with his form resembling an Arctic fox and plans to get out so he can return to service. Currently he lives in an apartment where he continues his plans and sometimes goes to parties.

Scott Pilgrim AU: Back in high school, Conner began to date a mysterious girl named Ramona Flowers in his senior year. Ramona became one of the earliest people who knew his powers and the two were nearly close to hitting it off. That is until Ramona had to move due to her parents moving somewhere else. Years later, Conner was asked to join the League Of Seven Evil Exes but failed the training process cause he wasn’t “evil enough” and thanks to Kuai Liang, he realized that he didn’t need Ramona. Conner still keeps contact with her and became her best friend when things get dicey.

Fighting Style:

Bak Mei 

Muay Thai

Equipment: 

F2000 assault rifle

Modified MP7

Shao-50 revolver

Combat knife

Suit with cloaking tech

Mask w/voice scrambler 

Many other weapons made from ice