#harvest afghanistan

[postcard-from-the-past]

Grape harvest in the valley of Koh Daman, Afghanistan

Afghani vintage postcard

[transgenderer]

That characteristic has made ephedrine-containing medications tightly controlled in North America and Europe. Even in Afghanistan, which has no such restrictions, it is difficult for drug producers to obtain enough of the chemical for the large-scale production of crystal meth. For them, the ephedra plant has been a game-changer, providing a cheap, local, and naturally abundant source of ephedrine. In turn, Afghanistan’s cities — and even its impoverished rural areas — are seeing a flood of crystal meth use and addiction.

Early on, this development garnered little sustained attention, either from law enforcement or international drug experts. But in a 2019 report on Afghanistan’s crystal meth industry, a team led by David Mansfield, an independent consultant and former fellow at the London School of Economics who has studied Afghanistan’s narco-economy for more than 20 years, outlined the far-ranging effects of ephedra’s new role. “The conditions are right for this industry to become deep-rooted,” Mansfield said in a recent interview.

Exploiting the plant’s natural abundance in certain areas of the country and the absence of central government control, ephedra is harvested and shipped by truck to open-air markets that are now dedicated to supplying the surging demand, according to the LSE report. Although the effects of ephedra harvesting in Afghanistan are still difficult to gauge, Mansfield suggested that in terms of scale and value “it is quite possible for the ephedra and meth industry to equal that of the opium and heroin economy.” The opium and heroin trade in Afghanistan is worth as much as $6.6 billion per year, according to a 2018 report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

presumably this is far from the only source of meth but pretty interesting

[artbyblastweave]

Happy New Year! Looking for comic recommendations, which are your favorites? Genre doesn't matter very much, I was raised on the original run of Amazing Spider-Man

Happy new year! Some fun ones from the last couple years-

Rock Candy Mountain by Kyle Starks and Chris Schweizer- Fantasy-americana post-WW2 madcap about an unbeatable hobo on a quest to find the titular Big Rock Candy Mountain, and the washed-up screenwriter he drags along for the ride. Two volumes.

We Only Find Them When They're Dead by Al Ewing and Simone Di Meo- space opera about mining crews who work harvesting tissues from dead galactus-like entities. Unlike most of these it was an ongoing I haven't caught up with and thus the only one I can't vouch to have stuck the landing. Great imagery though. Galactus Whalefall

Dead Body Road by Justin Jordan and Matteo Scalera- Elmore Leonard/Donald Westlake inspired crime-revenge-rampage/maguffin hunt thing. Actually anything Justin Jordan writes but I took some effort to prevent this entire list becoming Kyle Starks and Justin Jordan books 20th Century Men by Deniz Camp and Stipan Moran- Alternate history where the USA and USSR deploy nationalized superhumans to Afghanistan during the 1980s.

Daybreak by Brian Ralph. Zombie apocalypse story with the gimmick of being told entirely from a first-person perspective.

Frontiersman by Patrick Kindlon and Marco Ferrari- a 60-something Green-Arrow analogous superhero who's gone bush is coaxed out of hiding by environmentalists to do a tree sit protest, only for all hell to break loose as all the superhuman contacts he left hanging track him down to settle their accounts. He Will Not Leave The Tree. This was supposed to be an ongoing but I think it only managed one volume.

Hard Boiled by Frank Miller and Geoff Darrow- Gonzo retrofuturistic self-parody of Miller's usual fare, about a hard-as-nails guntoting unstoppable IRS agent whose choppy Noir narration reads like a stroke-in-progress. Rife with Miller's typical derangements about women, and carried in many respects by the visual buffet of Darrow's interiors, it nonetheless convinced me that All-Star Batman and Robin might have been written that way as a deliberate gag instead of out of a complete lack of self-awareness.

Ultimate Spider-Man by Bendis and Bagley- the progenitor of the original Ultimate Marvel Line, and also the progenitor of the Bendisian house style that would eventually eat the rest of Marvel's output for the 2000s and 2010s due to how popular it was. I got about 110 issues in until I got wrenched away from it by life developments a couple months back, but throughout that run it cemented itself as basically the cohesive take on Spider-Man for me.

[eretzyisrael]

by Phyllis Chesler

How could so much rabid and vulgar Jew-hatred suddenly erupt everywhere? Did someone flick a switch that unleashed millions of haters programmed to disrupt public meetings, graduation ceremonies, legislative sessions, and singing and athletic contests? To block streets, schools and bridges? To smash windows, deface synagogues and kosher or Israeli restaurants, and publish false narratives about Israel and the Palestinians all over the world?

I’ve been asking myself this question ever since Oct. 7. Today, I may have something of an answer.

This worldwide non-stop attack on the world’s Jews did not happen when the U.N. passed its infamous resolution equating Zionism with racism in the 1970s. It did not occur after Palestinian terrorists bombed synagogues, hijacked planes and murdered Israeli athletes at the Olympics. Nor when Arab countries launched attack after attack on Israel, subjecting it to countless wars.

It did not even happen when Palestinian terrorists blew up Israeli civilians on buses and stabbed, car-rammed and shot Israeli civilians to death on Israeli streets. Nor did it happen after Iranian proxies launched rockets at the Jewish state, sent flotillas of armed assassins in the name of “peace” and declared their intention to exterminate the Jews once and for all.

Despite incredible losses, Israel rose triumphantly each time.

Here’s what’s different now:

First, back then, the well-funded and well-organized media and university assault on Israel had not yet indoctrinated three or four generations of Westerners.

Second, on Oct. 7, perhaps for the first time, Israel looked genuinely vulnerable. This rendered both Israelis and Jews everywhere fair game.

It’s as simple as that.

Once the terrible sight of Israeli blood, of charred and/or raped Israeli corpses, was broadcast the world over, the haters knew it was possible to chase the Jews down, to try to destroy us yet again. Who would protect us? The IDF was under the most profound siege on Israel’s northern and southern borders and in its historical heartland in Judea and Samaria.

Diaspora Jewry was seen as safe because Israel was militarily, economically, culturally, scientifically and technologically strong. Israel led the world in counterterrorism and was the only country in the Middle East that protects all religions, not just Judaism.

Israel’s strength meant that left-wing Diaspora Jews who loudly criticized Israel’s every imperfection and failure, and right-wing Diaspora Jews who kept supporting Israel no matter what, were safe because Israel existed. Israelis who excel at dissenting politics and are geniuses at criticizing their government were also kept relatively safe because Israel was and was seen as strong. Without this, we would all be subject to the historically endless pogroms and persecutions that have characterized Jewish existence in both the Muslim and the Christian world.

Things have changed. Israel looks vulnerable and the Jew-haters have been emboldened as a result.

So, if Diaspora Jews and our Christian, Hindu, Sikh and Muslim friends the world over want to help both the Jews and the West to defeat barbarism, they must strengthen the IDF in every way. These precious young men and women are on the front line fighting for civilization. However imperfect Israeli and American leaders and political systems may be, they are far better than those of Iran, China, Russia, Turkey, Afghanistan and North Korea.

Now is the time to act. I am urging you, imploring you, to do so.

Send money to the IDF and Israel’s ambulance and medical services. Volunteer as physicians and physical therapists, nurses, harvesters, fruit pickers and compassionate caregivers. Stand with pro-Israel demonstrators. Attend your local city council meetings, write articles for and letters to newspapers. Sue schools for harassing and chasing Jewish students away. Work to end the poisoned curriculum that has turned students into Jew-hating zombies.

This work may take decades to complete. Begin it today. And whatever you choose to do, never stop.

The fate of the world is in your hands

[camisoledadparis]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … December 21

1804 – Benjamin Disraeli (d.1881) was a British Conservative politician, writer and aristocrat who twice served as Prime Minister. He played a central role in the creation of the modern Conservative Party, defining its policies and its broad outreach. Disraeli is remembered for his influential voice in world affairs, his political battles with the Liberal leader William Gladstone, and his one nation conservatism or "Tory democracy". He made the Conservatives the party most identified with the glory and power of the British Empire. He is, as of 2015, the only British Prime Minister of Jewish birth. Disraeli was born in London. His father left Judaism after a dispute at his synagogue; young Benjamin became an Anglican at age 12.

Together with his sister's fiancé, William Meredith, Disraeli travelled widely in southern Europe and beyond in 1830–31. The trip was financed partly by a novel, The Young Duke, written by Disraeli in 1829–30. The tour was cut short suddenly by Meredith's death from smallpox in Cairo in July 1831. Despite this tragedy, and the need for treatment for a sexually transmitted disease on his return, Disraeli felt enriched by his experiences. He became aware of values that seemed denied to his insular countrymen. The journey encouraged his self-consciousness, his moral relativism, and his interest in Eastern racial and religious attitudes.

After several unsuccessful attempts in which his opposition accused Disraeli of practicing "Eastern love", i.e. homosexuality, Disraeli entered the House of Commons in 1837. When the Conservatives gained power in 1841, Disraeli was given no office by the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel. In 1846, Peel split the party over his proposal to repeal the Corn Laws, which imposed a tariff on imported grain. Disraeli clashed with Peel in the Commons. The Conservatives who split from Peel had few who were adept in Parliament, and Disraeli became a major figure in the party, though many in it did not favor him. When Lord Derby, the party leader, thrice formed governments in the 1850s and 1860s, Disraeli served as Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons. He also forged a bitter rivalry with the Liberal Party’s William Gladstone.

Upon Derby's retirement in 1868, Disraeli became Prime Minister briefly before losing that year's election. He returned to opposition, before leading the party to a majority in the 1874 election. He maintained a close friendship with Queen Victoria, who in 1876 created him Earl of Beaconsfield. Disraeli's second term was dominated by the Eastern Question—the slow decay of the Ottoman Empire and the desire of other European powers, such as Russia, to gain at its expense. Disraeli arranged for the British to purchase a major interest in the Suez Canal Company (in Ottoman-controlled Egypt). In 1878, faced with Russian victories against the Ottomans, he worked at the Congress of Berlin to obtain peace in the Balkans at terms favourable to Britain and unfavourable to Russia, its longstanding enemy. This diplomatic victory over Russia established Disraeli as one of Europe's leading statesmen.

World events thereafter moved against the Conservatives. Controversial wars in Afghanistan and South Africa undermined his public support. He angered British farmers by refusing to reinstitute the Corn Laws in response to poor harvests and cheap imported grain. With Gladstone conducting a massive speaking campaign, his Liberals bested Disraeli's Conservatives in the 1880 election. In his final months, Disraeli led the Conservatives in opposition. He had throughout his career written novels, beginning in 1826, and he published his last completed novel, Endymion, shortly before he died at the age of 76.

1944 – Michael Tilson Thomas, the American conductor, was born today. A conductor, pianist, composer and director of the San Francisco Symphony, Thomas has become in a relatively short time one of the most prominent American conductors of his generation. Perhaps most significantly, he is the first Gay conductor to achieve such prominence without masking or hiding his sexuality.

Tilson Thomas does not discuss his sexuality or his personal life with the public, but his dedication to creating and presenting music that explores the Gay experience confirms his importance as a Gay conductor.

Not only has he impressed audiences with his musical vision, talented conducting, and prolific number of recordings, but he has also used his position to commission works by Gay composers that use the medium of classical music to represent Gay life and Gay history.

To this end, he organized the American Mavericks music festival in San Francisco in June 2000. The festival highlighted the works of such composers as Lou Harrison, Lukas Foss, Earle Brown, Steve Reich, David Del Tredici, and Meredith Monk. Tilson Thomas has similarly pushed audiences to rethink the relationship between classical music and homosexuality by celebrating openly Gay composers such as Harrison and by commissioning works from Del Tredici and others that explicitly explore the experiences of Gay men and Lesbians. Although Gay men and Lesbians have long been present in the world of classical music, both as performers and as audience members, they have often remained invisible. Tilson Thomas has taken bold steps to change this.

In May 2001, Tilson Thomas conducted the premiere of Del Tredici's Gay Life, a series of pieces he commissioned that are based on poems by Allen Ginsberg, Thom Gunn, and Paul Monette. The work both explores the experiences of Gay men in America and also delves into the challenges that Gay men have faced in their struggle to survive the AIDS epidemic.

In addition, two of Tilson Thomas' own compositions have added to the small but growing classical music repertoire focused on Gay subjects. Three Poems by Walt Whitman, written for baritone and orchestra, and We Two Boys Together Clinging, for baritone and piano, use Whitman's poetry to explore intimacy between men.

1947 – Dr. Steven Watson, born on this date, is a cultural historian who is particularly interested in the dynamics of the twentieth century American avant-garde.

His 1991 book Strange Bedfellows: The First American Avant-Garde was called "a chapter in our national biography" by Stefan Kanfer for the Los Angeles Times and "a marvelous group portrait of a band of cultural renegades" by Publishers Weekly. Watson has written five books about 20th century American avant-garde and counterculture movements, curated two exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery ("Group Portrait, The First American Avant-Garde" and "Rebels: Painters and Poets of the 1950's"), and served as consultant curator for the Whitney Museum exhibition "Beat Culture and the New America".

Watson grew up in the suburbs of Minneapolis, Minnesota and graduated from Mound High School. He majored in English at Stanford University and participated in anti-Vietnam War protests, including a guerrilla theater piece called Alice in ROTC-Land, co-starring with Sigourney Weaver.

After graduation, he founded an alternative elementary school called KNOW School in Auburn, California. He studied psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he received his Ph.D. in 1976, and he worked for nineteen years as the staff psychologist of the Putnam County Community Mental Health Clinic.

In 1976, Watson also began writing articles for the Village Voice, New York Newsday, Soho Weekly News, and Gaysweek. His work on gay culture included the first major article about Marsha P. Johnson, an early extended interview with Sylvia Rivera, and a book about the transgender figure, Minette. At the same time, he began writing books about key circles of the twentieth century.

He currently lives in New York City.

1958 – Andrew Lear is a Classicist and scholar of gender history and the history of sexuality. His research focuses on concepts of gender and sexuality in ancient Greek poetry and art. His book on male-male erotic scenes in ancient Athenian vase-painting Images of Ancient Greek Pederasty: Boys Were Their Gods, was positively reviewed: it greatly expanded the number of known scenes and proposed a sophisticated framework for their interpretation.

He has written articles on topics including gender ideals in the work of Greek poets Anacreon and Theognis, as well as book reviews for Classical World. Lear is seen as an expert on the comparison between ancient and modern views and practices of gender and sexuality. His poems and translations have appeared in such journals as Persephone, the Southern Humanities Review, and Literary Imagination. He has taught at Harvard, Columbia, Pomona College, and NYU.

In addition to his academic career, Lear designs and leads educational tours on topics related to his research. In 2013, he founded Oscar Wilde Tours, the first tour company focused on LGBT history. Oscar Wilde Tours gives "gay secrets" museum tours that illuminate the history of homosexuality hidden in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, and London's National Portrait Gallery. It also offers multi-day tours in Europe focused on gay history and art. Oscar Wilde Tours won the Travvy silver prize in 2016 for best LGBT tour operator.

In 2016, Lear expanded this line by founding Shady Ladies Tours, a tour company focused on women’s history. Their Shady Ladies tour of the Metropolitan Museum presents depictions of royal mistresses and courtesans in the collection, and the Nasty Women tour is about pathbreaking women from Pharaoh Hatshepsut to Gertrude Stein.

1965 – Andy Dick is an American comedian, actor, musician and television/film producer. He is best known as a comic but is also known for his eccentric and controversial behavior. His first regular television role was on the short-lived but influential Ben Stiller Show. In the mid-1990s, he had a long-running stint on NBC's NewsRadio and was a supporting character on Less than Perfect. He briefly had his own program, The Andy Dick Show on MTV, and he is also noted for his outlandish behavior from a number of Comedy Central Roasts. He also landed in 7th place on the 16th season of Dancing with the Stars.

Dick was born in Charleston, South Carolina and he was adopted at birth. Dick appeared in numerous theater productions during his high school years and was elected homecoming king his senior year in 1983. While in high school, Dick tended to use his name as a joke; and one day, he dressed in a homemade superhero costume and presented himself at school as "Super Dick". Dick graduated from Joliet West High School in 1984, and is a close friend of actor Anthony Rapp, whom he had known since childhood.After graduating from high school, Dick joined Chicago's Second City.

Dick was married to Ivone Kowalczyk from 1986 to 1990, with whom he has a son, Lucas (b. 1988). He also has a son and a daughter with Lena Sved.

!n 2005, Dick stirred controversy in Edmonton, Alberta, at Yuk Yuk's comedy club when he dropped his pants and exposed his genitals to the audience. Amid the uproar, he was ushered off the stage and the second night was cancelled.

In a 2006 interview with the Washington Post, he stated that he was bisexual.

On January 23, 2010, Dick was arrested about 4 a.m. at a bar in Huntington, West Virginia, on charges of sexual abuse after reportedly groping a bartender, and a male patron. He was released from jail after pleading not guilty and posting $60,000 bail. On June 29, 2011, Dick was formally indicted by a Cabell County Grand Jury for two counts of first degree sexual abuse. Dick pleaded not guilty during a formal arraignment in Cabell County Circuit Court in Huntington on July 29, 2011. After receiving the not guilty plea, the judge set a trial date of January 17, 2012. After several delays, on May 21, 2012, Dick was given a six-month pre-trial diversion. An assistant prosecutor has said that the agreement states if Dick stays out of legal trouble for six months, the criminal charges would be dismissed.In January 2012, the two alleged victims filed a civil suit against Dick for unspecified damages.

1969 – Jack Noseworthy Jr.  is an American actor, whose most visible movie roles were in Event Horizon, U-571, Barb Wire and Killing Kennedy.

He was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, and graduated from Lynn English High School in 1982 and attended Boston Conservatory, where he earned a BFA.

 He appeared in Bon Jovi's music video "Always", with Carla Gugino and Keri Russell. He co-starred with Meryl Streep in the Public Theater's 2006 production of Mother Courage and Her Children.

He starred in a short-lived MTV drama series, Dead at 21. In December 2005, he originated the role of Armand in the musical Lestat during its pre-Broadway run at the Curran Theatre in San Francisco, but left the production during its first week of previews. He is also the only male actor to play Peter Pan on Broadway, in the revue Jerome Robbins' Broadway.

Noseworthy made his debut as a nightclub performer in September 2006 at the Metropolitan Room in New York City in "You Don't Know Jack!".

In 2013, Noseworthy played Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy in Killing Kennedy, a made-for-television movie aired on National Geographic Channel.

In 2018, Noseworthy joined the Canadian production of Come from Away, in the role of Kevin T. and others.

Noseworthy has been in a relationship with Tony-winning choreographer Sergio Trujillo since 1990. They married in 2011. Noseworthy and Trujillo have a son born in 2018.

2007 – Nepal Supreme Court orders the end of anti-LGBTQ laws and creates new laws that safeguard LGBTQ people.

2009 – Mexico City legalises same-sex marriage and adoption by same-sex couples (effective March 2010)

[radical-revolution]

Bowing to Reality

When I was young, I tried to escape the madness of my world by imagining a better future. Now that I'm old, I seek that refuge in nostalgic memories of the past. It still doesn't work. I can dwell in the present for hours on end while practicing meditation, but when I turn on the evening news I just want to cry. How pathetic we are... how laughable... we sing about the angels, but we are programmed with the law of the jungle.

I wonder how many of us would be content to just earn a decent living, raise a family, and give our kids a good education? Most of us, I think... but throughout all of history we have been cursed with a ruling class that is never content... never satisfied! No matter how much we give them, it is never enough.

In colonial America, we fought a revolution to escape that sort of tyranny... but then we turned around and stole an entire continent from its native inhabitants. It seems to me our revolution was a fraud... we merely replaced a royal aristocracy with a corporate aristocracy based on tobacco, alcohol, cotton, and slave labor. We threw the King's tea into Boston Harbor, and then picked a president who used slaves to brew Rye Whiskey. Our founding fathers were so proud of their drug trade that they decorated the Capitol Dome with tobacco leaves.

Somehow our Christian forbears convinced themselves that their genocidal transgressions were God's gift of 'Manifest Destiny'. Not even Donald Trump could have imagined such a scam! We signed treaties with the Cherokee, Choctaw, and Seminoles, and then marched them off to die on the Trail of Tears. Some of us took asylum in Texas and then stole it from Mexico. We pretended to fight a Civil War to emancipate the slaves, but only gave free black men a fifth of a vote! Then we allowed Jim Crow slavery to flourish for centuries. Our wives didn't even get a fifth of a vote until 1917.

We created puppet dictators in Central America to enslave the native 'Indios' so our corporations could grow cheap bananas, sugar cane, and pineapple. Those illegal Indios are still harvesting our fruits and vegetables in the Imperial Valley even as Trump plans to deport them. And what has all that hypocrisy accomplished for us? Unsurprisingly, we have all become the economic slaves of a few elite families holding 90% of all the wealth in the world. And yet we go on telling ourselves that we live in a democracy where all men are created equal!

And how many American boys and girls have been sacrificed on that altar of false freedom? In 1917, we killed 116,000 of them in a war between Queen Victoria's relatives because one of Kaiser Wilhelm's submarines sank one of George V's ocean liners that had some Americans on board. In 1941, Roosevelt got the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor so he could declare war on Germany over the objections of America's isolationist majority. That war killed over 400,000 Americans, including my dad. In the 1970s, we killed fifty thousand more American boys while losing a war with Vietnam, and fifteen years later our corporations were making bluejeans and computer chips on those very same killing fields. In 1992, we gave Saddam Hussein chemical weapons to kill his Iranian enemies, and in 2006 we killed him over weapons of mass destruction that didn't exist. That Iraqi meddling cost us a trillion dollars and thousands of lives over a period of twenty-five years.

So many misadventures... there were the Philippines, and Israel, and Samoa, and Diego Garcia, and Afghanistan, and Lebanon, and Panama, and Cuba, and Sudan, and Yemen, and The Congo, and Nigeria, and Nicaragua, and Cambodia, and Korea. Oh, don't forget Korea... 36,000 dead Americans there, and another 24,000 guarding that no man's land to this day. And remember the Marshall Islands? No? Well, we claimed that territory after WWII without bothering to consult the native islanders. And how did we treat them? Well we removed the entire populations of Bikini and Enewetok so that we could test our atomic bombs on their Polynesian paradise. That's American democracy for you.

And despite all that death and destruction, America has not actually won a war since 1945. Only America's corporations can be said to win wars. They profit even when we surrender. Today, you and I are paying withering taxes so that America can maintain over 600 military bases around the world, and the military industrial complex pockets it all: $895 Billion more scheduled for 2025. Think what America would look like if we spent that on education!

And what is the corporatocracy planning for us now? They are being subsidized by our taxes yet again to build giant computer centers that will house an Artificial Intelligence Network so superior to our human networks that we will have absolutely no ability to resist our enslavement. Elon Musk predicts that our streets will be full of self-driving cars within two years, and shortly afterward our homes will be full of R2-D2 and C-3PO style humanoid robots. He predicts that these robots will become the defining product of our time, with each human owning several, and industry employing billions. And with so many robots building our world and doing our work, we won't need to earn money anymore. So much wealth will be generated that every human will have a universal basic income, and humanity's standard of living will surge beyond our wildest dreams. Well... certainly Elon's wealth will surge, but I'm not so sure about the homeless folks sleeping in the streets!

And because the robots will be smarter, faster, and stronger than us, Elon foresees humanity living in 'retirement'. Any activities we take up at that point will be in the nature of hobbies. We won't need to work anymore because it will be so much easier to tell the robots to do it. And you won't even need to speak your commands aloud. You won't even need a remote control. Musk is working on Neuralink Technology to connect those computer devices directly into your brain. Three human test subjects are already connected. So... if you really want to match wits with the robots, you will just need to use Elon's Neuralink so that your brain cells can tap into the robot's super-intelligence. Won't that be fun?

And there is yet more... Musk expects to send the first robot-crewed spacecraft to Mars in two years, with human-crewed ships to follow soon after. His goal is to build a self-sustaining colony on Mars, so that if some catastrophe wipes out humanity on Earth, our species will still survive. Of course, this begs the question; if robots are so superior, why bother to save a human? In fact, the most likely catastrophe on Earth will be the Armageddon brought on by robotic warfare. Every military on Earth is even now building AI and robotics into their weapons of war.

Back in 1942, Isaac Asimov published his famous 'Three Laws of Robotics'.

First Law: A robot cannot injure a human or allow a human to come to harm.

Second Law: A robot must obey human orders, unless those orders conflict with the First Law.

Third Law: A robot must protect itself, unless that protection conflicts with the First or Second Law.

One wonders how Asimov ever came up with such a ludicrous scenario. In a world ruled by Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Ali Khamenei, Benjamin Netanyahu, Kim Jong Un, Elon Musk, and Donald Trump, our robots will never be programmed with compassion. Like their makers, our robots will be programmed with the unvarnished law of the jungle. As I said... when I turn on the evening news, I just want to cry.

Not all who wander are lost,

༺ Ŧoƞpa Ɉoƞ

[koenji]

Children play with Damask roses during harvest, 2007, Province of Nangahar, Afghanistan. Photographed by Ursula Meissner. x

[ketrindoll]

"Putin's War", they tell me. *smirks and rolls eyes*

This Putin is one hell of a guy, I gotta say. He's more impressive than Santa Claus who delivers presents to all the kids around the world in the dead of night before sunrise on Dec. 25.

In addition to being the president of Russia, Putin is also a foot soldier booby-trapping an empty home in occupied Ukraine, a fire controlman on a Kilo-class sub in the Black Sea launching Kalibr cruise missiles at Odessa's grain warehouses, a pilot of a Tupolev bomber launching a Kh-101 cruise missile from Russian airspace at the children's hospital in Kyiv, a "camp counselor" at a "summer camp" near Vladivostok for kidnapped Ukrainian kids, a smug civilian from the Russian hinterland who's moving in as a squatter into an evicted Ukrainian's apartment in Mariupol, and a military doctor harvesting organs from Ukrainian corpses.

When will enough Westerners wake the fuck up and tell it like it is that the invasion of Ukraine since February 20, 2014 has been the Russians' war instead of some one-man-show called "Putin's War™"?

It bears repeating:

● No one calls the German invasions of the rest of Europe in WW II "Hitler's War".

● No one calls the Japanese invasions of the rest of Asia in WWII "Hirohito's War" or "Tojo's War".

● No one calls the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 "Brezhnev's War"

● No one calls the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 "G.W. Bush's War".

● Even right now no one calls war in Palestine "Netanyahu's war"

Make it make sense how the Russian invasion of Ukraine since 2014 is "Putin's War"???

How come everyone else is collectively responsible, but not ruzzians who are committing horrible, incomprehensibly unhuman acts???

ALL RUZZIANS ARE GUILTY FOR GENOCIDE

ALL RUZZIANS ARE GUILTY FOR WAR CRIMES

ALL RUZZIANS ARE GUILTY FOR THIS WAR AND ALL OTHER IMPERIALIST LAND-GRABS

[starseedpatriot]

I got talking to an older Australian couple at dinner a couple of nights ago… the conversation turned, as it usually does, to the more difficult, less fluffy topics - without going into the nitty gritty, we both agreed that both sides of every major war (blood sacrifice) had been funded and directed by the same power, since at least the Napoleonic wars.

“War will continue so long as it is profitable” he quoted someone as saying. A younger, less tactful me might have gone on to add:

“and so long as the dark powers need the following:

- vast numbers of displaced children for their blackmail operations and AC harvesting

- blood sacrifice of soul-diers (“soldiers”) all dressed up in their occult symbolism covered Uni-forms

- the contracts to rebuild the countries they have just destroyed, now devoid of their original culture/ heritage and more easily modelled in the totalitarian, dystopian way

- the unaffordable war debt the people within these imaginary borders are forced to pay

- the black market profits on those enormous poppy fields or coca plantations (the Australian did know about the poppy fields of Afghanistan and the priority placed on their seizure when the U.S. et al. went in”

But thank goodness for a slightly maturer me and for the women at the table discreetly steering the conversation back to more palatable topics!

https://t.me/herosjourneyreturn

[lilithadomania]

Where would the twisted wonderland locations be in real world?

Has this post been done before..? I don't know.

Now, let's get the easier things out of the way.

Scalding sands are obviously somewhere in Arabic country. In the Wikipedia for Aladdin, it states that it is a middle Eastern tale.. The clothes seem similar to that of an Arabic country. Turquoise colour is however, often used in over here turkey, but... Turkey is not an Arabic country.. It is stated that Jasmine's clothes were inspired by South Asian clothing... In the wiki it states that Agrabah was also inspired by ottoman empire, the silk city's camel bazaar seems similar to that of an bazaar over here. Hm.. I think that it might be based off of Afghanistan, it isn't fun fitting at all, and I'm just throwing it off there, but it is definitely somewhere similar to there and ottoman empire.

City of flowers is, without a doubt, based off of France. Noble bell college is based off of the Notre-Dame de Paris, more specifically, île de la Cité, an island in the Seine River(this part was taken straight out of the Wikipedia article for Notre-dame de Paris). There isn't much more to say about it, as it was rather easy to find out about it.

Queendom of roses is probably based off of United Kingdom, as the original novel it is based off of was written in england(believe me I will have to do this. A lot.), in November of 1865. From what I was able to see in the manga, the architecture seems to be more modern, along with the clothes as well. That would make anyone from there... British, take that how you will.

Now.. Onto the trickier parts.

Sunset savana, it obviously takes place in.. A savanas. Savanas seem to be most common in northern Australia and probably in Africa, looking at the cards in the Japanese server, the clothes for the sunset savana seems to be resembling that of traditional African clothes, but I might be wrong on this I'm sorry, but I strongly believe that is the case! I am not too sure on the exact country though, probably somewhere similar to Nigeria as the clothes seem to be similar.

Coral Sea, I.. Genuinely don't know. I can't even track anything down aside from going with where the original tale of the little mermaid was written, which is probably Denmark? So... Danish fish mafia???? I don't know??? Azul's name means blue in Spanish and Portuguese, and Floyd means grey and grey-haired in Welsh???? I don't know, I'm confused now.

Shaftlands, it is.. Probably based off of either Germany or somewhere that speaks English, since Cater's last name is english and jack is either english or French, however, if I go off of where Snow White is written from, it's Germany, and the most memorable character from there is vil, who's last name is "schöenheit" which means beauty in German, so... It's probably based from Germany.

•harvest town is... Also in shaftlands, it's probably based off of a town in Germany, I don't know. Epel's last name, felmier, means farmer in Romanian and such, his first name epel sounds similar to the German word for apple, apfel.

Island of woe, another tone.. Where I just don't know. It is definitely based off of Greece for sure, as Idia's name means reserved, private and such, meanwhile his last name comes from the Latin word shroud, which is the name for a cloth that is used to cover over the face of the dead. Ortho means unharmed, safe and such, and plus, the name of the S.T.Y.X is probably based off of the Styx river in the Greek mythology that connects the earth to the underworld.

Briar valley, now.. Another one that is hard to settle for, however, if we go off with how daisomnia looks, it's probably somewhere in Gothic Victorian time, since daisomnia looks like a Gothic Victorian castle, going off of cars and such aren't used in Briar valley, it makes me fully believe that it is mostly based off of the Victorian era. The names... Malleus is the name of a well knows witchcraft, and his last name is, according to the fandom wiki, is deprived off of the words dragon or devil in Romanian and such. Gothic Victorian architecture seems to be most popular in Europe, we don't know much about the Briar valley sadly, but sleeping beauty the fairytale was originally written in.. French.

The final matches, this is all speculations on my part and this was for fun!

City of flowers-france

Queendom of roses-united kingdom

Sunset savana-africa, Nigeria

Coral sea-i... I don't know...

Scalding sands-an Arabic country/probably somewhere in South Asia, possibly Afghanistan

Shaftlands-germany

Island of woe-greece

Briar valley-france/possibly Romania, somewhere in Europe.

[henk-heijmans]

A farmer harvests wheat outside Kabul, Afghanistan, 2011 - by David Guttenfelder (1969), American

[mariacallous]

The synthetic opioid fentanyl was first synthesized in Belgium around 1960. With effects similar to those of morphine but a potency 100 times higher, it became widely used in surgeries and the treatment of chronic painful diseases. Meanwhile in the United States, unregulated and unprescribed fentanyl became a highly addictive and dangerous illegal drug—one that is 50 times stronger than heroin, with even a 2 milligram dose proving to be lethal to most people. But drug policy experts and government officials agree that there has not been a fentanyl crisis in Europe, its place of origin—at least, not until now.

In 2022, more than 70,000 people died in the U.S. of synthetic drug overdose, according to estimates made by the country’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. By contrast, in Europe, the latest data from the European Union’s drug monitoring agency shows that 137 people died of drugs of fentanyl’s ilk in 2021, with most of those deaths coming from diverted fentanyl medicines rather than illicitly manufactured substances. Last year, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency reported that it seized more than 79.5 million fentanyl-laced fake pills and nearly 12,000 pounds of fentanyl powder. Such confiscations in Europe, although rising recently, have been sporadic.

But European governments are increasingly fretting that fentanyl and similar synthetic opioids may grip the continent and plunge it into a U.S.-style crisis. Late last year, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told his European counterparts that they either have an undiscovered problem with fentanyl or may have one soon. And scattered signs that the lethal drugs may be starting to spread into the continent are now prompting governments to act.

There are several reasons for the rising fears about fentanyl in Europe. The European Union estimates that most of the roughly 1 million European consumers of illicit opioids use heroin. So far, almost all of that supply has come from Afghanistan. But beginning in April 2022, the Taliban banned “poppy cultivation and all types of narcotics,” and as a result, the area where poppy flowers—from which opium is produced—are grown in the country shrank by 95 percent last year, according to a November 2023 report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. This has drastically reduced the supply of quality heroin coming out of last year’s harvest.

Facing the shortage, criminal groups are expected to either start supplying heroin mixed with other synthetic opioids such as fentanyl to increase its strength, or to replace it altogether with fentanyl.

“The experience in North America with fentanyl overtaking heroin in major drug markets is illustrative of how a cheaper and readily available synthetic opioid can easily displace heroin,” wrote researchers in the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime report.

European authorities are already seeing signs that organized crime groups are eyeing the trade of these opioids in Europe. The Italian secret services found that the powerful Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta mafia, which has been flooding Europe with cocaine over the past decades, is testing the fentanyl market in the continent, senior Italian government official Alfredo Mantovano said in March.

Another major concern is that Europe has an existing lab capacity to produce synthetic drugs on its soil. Europol, the European Union’s police agency, said this month that synthetic drug production and trafficking has expanded from mainly Belgium and the Netherlands to Eastern Europe, including Ukraine. In 2021, European authorities dismantled 434 laboratories producing illicit synthetic drugs, according to the latest data published by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA). Officials conclude that if criminals wanted to produce fentanyl in Europe, they would have the capacity to do it—and, consequently, to trigger a crisis very quickly.

“To be frank, I don’t see how we can avoid it in Europe. I don’t see why criminal networks would avoid selling fentanyl in Europe. The question for me is not if it’s going to touch Europe; it’s when and how big the wave or the hurricane will be. European governments are fully aware of it,” said Pierre Lapaque, a board member of the International Narcotics Control Board, in an interview with Foreign Policy.

The European effort to prevent a potential outbreak of addiction to these drugs has happened on two levels. On the one hand, the continent is reinforcing and adapting its fight against producers and traffickers, including precursors (the substances used as ingredients in drugs). On the other, it is preparing on the health care front to prevent overdose deaths.

One key measure has been the creation of a new drug agency for the bloc, turning the EMCDDA into a full-fledged agency called the European Union Drugs Agency. This new EU-wide body, which becomes operational in July, will carry out health and security assessments on synthetic drugs, closely monitoring any developments across the bloc and helping with the adoption of countermeasures. The new agency will also monitor drug precursors and set up a network of laboratories to identify new substances and define possible trends in the synthetic drug market.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, also plans to speed up and broaden the way that drug precursors are scheduled in order to prevent criminal networks from finding new ways to get the chemical substances needed to produce illicit drugs. It is also seeking to improve checks at European ports. To this end, it has earmarked more than 200 million euros (about $214 million) to fund modern kits for scanning containers for hidden drugs or precursors.

“We are seeing what is happening in the U.S., and we are monitoring any development in the EU to make sure we can anticipate and disrupt any production or trafficking activities of these drugs,” said Claire Georges, Europol’s deputy spokeswoman. The EU police agency is working with the United States to get a better intelligence picture of which criminal groups may be involved.

“Those are the right responses,” said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “This is in striking contrast with what, until several months ago, was the attitude of many European drug policy experts, who would often say ‘Look, we are not going to have a fentanyl problem because we didn’t have the same initiation through pharmaceutical opioids.’ I was always very uncomfortable with that answer.”

The EU is also seeking to boost cooperation with China, a major producer of fentanyl and its precursors. Chinese representatives held talks in Brussels on April 23 on illegal drug production as well as the diversion and trafficking of precursors and other chemical substances needed to manufacture synthetic drugs.

Collaboration with China is crucial for both the United States and Europe. A 64-page report issued in mid-April by the U.S. House of Representatives’ select committee on China defined the country as “the ultimate geographic source of the fentanyl crisis.” The committee has further argued that China encourages the manufacturing and export of illicit fentanyl chemicals and other narcotics through tax rebates and holds ownership interest in local companies tied to drug trafficking. Additionally, its security services have failed to cooperate with the United States when law enforcement officials requested assistance, according to the report.

European countries are also taking measures at the national level. For instance, Italy has started to monitor the import and export flows of medicines containing fentanyl and the chemical precursors of synthetic drugs, as well as the retail market—including on the web—as part of a national plan against the deadly drug that Rome unveiled last month. At the same time, it plans to equip police officers with portable mass spectrometers to spot synthetic drugs and precursors, both during custom checks and while patrolling the streets.

The Italian Ministry of Health has instructed hospitals and pharmacies to strengthen the protection measures against the theft of fentanyl and similar opioids. It also instructed doctors assisting patients displaying a range of specific symptoms—such as respiratory depression, nausea, vomiting, and vertigo—to consider that they could be intoxicated by fentanyl and could be treated with naloxone, which is an opioid antagonist, or other medicines that can rapidly reverse an opioid overdose. Naloxone will also be provided to the police, who may need it as first responders facing an overdose or after inadvertently inhaling fentanyl during investigations. All ambulances will also be required to carry the medication.

In Spain, where there have been a few instances of drug dealers found with small amounts of fentanyl, some regional authorities are training drug users and emergency personnel on overdose reversal. The national government is also working to speed up the existing warning system on drugs by expanding free drug-checking programs across the country and the testing of wastewater to detect anomalies related to opioids, Joan Villabí, the official in charge of drugs and addiction at the Spanish Health Ministry, told Foreign Policy.

“We are monitoring in a very systematic way. When heroin hit Spain in the late 1970s, we were completely unprepared. It was a disaster,” Villabí said.

Universal medical care may have also protected Europe from a U.S.-style fentanyl crisis. In the United States, many people addicted to fentanyl began with prescription opioids, got hooked, and then when their prescriptions ran out, turned to the illegal market, where criminal rings provided them with the drug.

In the European Union, however, regulated and publicly funded health care systems have maintained a more limited access to prescription opioids, says Esther Gramage, a lecturer at the CEU San Pablo University in Madrid. The access to other procedures to alleviate pain also may have helped keep European patients away from painkillers. But there are growing reasons to fear that public health care won’t be sufficient to shield Europe.

[modernthumos]

Overlanding before it was cool. Afghanistan expedition using an International Harvester Travelall.

[warningsine]

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Lightning and heavy rains have killed at least 49 people across Pakistan in the past three days, officials said Monday, as authorities in the country’s southwest declared a state of emergency.

Some deaths occurred when lightning struck farmers harvesting wheat. Rains caused dozens of houses to collapse in the northwest and in eastern Punjab province.

Arfan Kathia, a spokesman for the provincial disaster management authority, said 21 people had died in Punjab, where more rains were expected this week. Khursheed Anwar, a spokesman for the disaster management authority in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, said 21 people died there.

Rain also lashed the capital, Islamabad, and killed seven people in southwestern Baluchistan province. Streets flooded in the northwestern city of Peshawar and in Quetta, the Baluchistan capital.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in televised remarks that he had ordered authorities to provide relief aid. Pakistan’s water reservoirs would improve because of the rains, he said.

Rafay Alam, a Pakistani environmental expert, said such heavy April rainfall is unusual.

“Two years ago, Pakistan witnessed a heat wave in March and April and now we are witnessing rains and it is all of because of climate change, which had caused heavy flooding in 2022,” he said.

In 2022, downpours swelled rivers and at one point inundated one-third of Pakistan, killing 1,739 people. The floods also caused $30 billion in damage.

Meanwhile, heavy flooding from seasonal rains in Afghanistan killed 33 people and injured 27 others in three days, according to Abdullah Janan Saiq, the Taliban’s spokesman for the State Ministry for Natural Disaster Management.

More than 600 houses were damaged or destroyed while around 200 livestock died. The flooding also damaged large areas of agricultural land and more than 85 kilometers (53 miles) of roads, he said.

He said authorities in Afghanistan had provided aid to nearly 23,000 families, and that flash floods were reported in 20 of the country’s 34 provinces.

[darthmelyanna]

So occasionally when I’m procrastinating I’ll go into a random tag and report all the porn bots that have started posting. (You can do a search and filter results for link posts only. Link posts are pretty rare so you can scroll back six weeks in a couple minutes.) The tag blocks on these posts are always hilarious because they’ve just randomly harvested a couple dozen. It’ll be fandoms and hobbies and actor names and then a line from someone’s tag ramble in the middle of it. Like #luke skywalker #avengers fanfiction #knitting #space shuttle #stephen king #too bad she died in afghanistan

[koenji]

Children harvesting poppies in Kunduz, Afghanistan. Early 2000s.