#nuclear winter excerpt

[sledbedar]

In case you want to familiarize yourself with The Brobecks song A Letter that's getting redone for IDKHOWs new record

The first ever iteration of the song, at the time called "Globular", it was just a test track with Matt Glass reading out of an encyclopedia but man its vibes are immaculate.

An early demo of A Letter, this ones far closer to the final product and is a personal favorite of mine. (And, if you're wondering. The spoken word segments are as far as I'm aware completely made up of excerpts from a letter an ex wrote Dallon. Or possibly it's the full thing. When asked why he said "spite" lol.)

and finally the finished version of A Letter that appeared on The Brobecks album Happiest Nuclear Winter, this is one of the songs that made me fall in love with the band and it really pulls that alum together. Not a lot of indie bands out there were bold enough to try things like this, especially on a sophomore album hot off the heals of a successful first release. words can't describe how much i'm looking forward to hearing the IDKHOW version of this track, Matt Glass (the original voice of these songs) was in the studio for the album so you know this will be amazing.

[dontforgetukraine]

Remember, Winter is almost HERE

Energy experts warn that a combination of cold weather and strikes on nuclear infrastructure could leave Ukrainians without electricity for up to 20 hours daily. Since October 2022, Russian Armed Forces have struck more than 1,000 times at Ukrainian energy infrastructure facilities. In late August alone, Moscow launched over 200 missiles and drones at power facilities, destroying eight power plants and more than 800 heat supply facilities. “The situation is critical,” says Viktoriya Gryb, who heads the parliament’s energy security subcommittee. A senior US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, warns that “people will die in their homes because Russia is taking out the energy infrastructure.” —Excerpt from "Politico: Ukraine faces up to 20 hours without electricity a day in winter"

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Inside Climate News:

The future is bright for a little known yet highly efficient method of heating and cooling, a new report by the U.S. Department of Energy concludes.  

Ground source heat pumps could heat and cool the equivalent of 7 million homes by 2035—up from just over 1 million today, according to the report. 

Such widespread use would reduce peak demand on the country’s electric grid by 12 gigawatts in the summer and 40 gigawatts in the winter, according to the report. That’s equivalent to keeping dozens of coal- or gas-fired power plants offline during such periods of high demand.

“There are really large potential grid savings and benefits when these systems get adopted at scale,” Jigar Shah, director of the agency’s Loan Programs Office, said during a Thursday event on the report.

Ground source heat pumps harness low-temperature geothermal energy to heat and cool homes. The devices are similar to the more widely deployed air source heat pumps, which work like air conditioners, using fans and compressors to draw heat out of buildings in the summer. Unlike air conditioners, heat pumps also work in reverse, pulling heat into buildings to warm them in winter.

When outdoor air temperatures spike in the summer or plummet in the winter, air source heat pumps have to work harder, making them less efficient. However, ground source heat pumps typically draw heat from underground wells drilled several hundred feet down, or fields of pipes buried just beneath the surface of the earth, where temperatures are approximately 54 degrees Fahrenheit year round. This makes them a highly efficient source of heating and cooling throughout the year. 

“They essentially offer this cost-effective solution for heating and cooling, and the reason that matters is because a significant portion of U.S. energy consumption, of global energy consumption, goes towards space heating and cooling,” said Lauren Boyd, head of the Energy Department’s Geothermal Technologies Office.

The report, released last week, is among the Liftoff Reports the agency has published since 2022 as part of a larger effort under the Biden administration to accelerate the deployment of clean energy technologies to the point where they achieve “liftoff” or widespread commercialization. Prior reports have focused on advanced nuclear, clean hydrogen and offshore wind energy, among others.

High capital costs, including the expense of drilling wells and laying pipes underground, pose a challenge to wider ground source heat pump adoption. While the devices’ high efficiency pays off over time, installation costs for the typical residential system are $19,000 after tax incentives, according to the report.

[balaenopterazolo-blog]

Reading list Dec 2024

On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society by Dave Grossman. It is required reading at the FBI Academy, the DEA Academy, the US Air Force NCO Academy, and other law enforcement agencies and military schools around the US. The book is based on S.L.A. Marshall's theory that the majority of soldiers in war do not ever fire their weapons due to an innate resistance to killing.

Hadji Murad by Leo Tolstoy. One critic said of the book "[it is] my personal touchstone for the sublime of prose fiction, to me the best story in the world." Written 50 years after its events, the story is about a real-life Avar rebel commander. Tolstoy described Murad as "the leading dare-devil and ‘brave’ of all Chechnya".

The Old Words by kvikindi/@septembriseur A Helmut Zemo & Winter Soldier (MCU) fanfic. Content warnings: discussion of violence, suicide, war crimes including death, child death, sexual assault. The author notes she is clear Zemo did not rape, but looking back, that is ridiculous.

Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster by Svetlana Alexievich, Nobel Laureate, originally published in Russian in 1997 as Chernobyl Prayer, 9 years after the disaster. She interviewed more than 500 eyewitnesses, including firefighters, liquidators (members of the cleanup team), politicians, physicians, physicists, and ordinary citizens over a period of 10 years.

Daughter of the Tigris by Muhsin Al-Ramli. A beautiful urbane woman marries a sheikh so she can travel Iraq searching for the corpse of her father. Sequel to The President's Gardens which was longlisted for the IPAF, known as the "Arabic Booker".

Chasing the Flame: One Man's Fight to Save the World by Samantha Power, Pulitzer Prize winner, a biography of Sergio Vieira de Mello. De Mello worked for the UN for 30 years, and was positioned to be the UN Secretary-General, before his 2003 death in Iraq. A profile in courage and humanity--and an unforgettable meditation on how best to manage the deadly challenges of the twenty-first century. His career involved peace negotiations in post-invasion Lebanon, the repatriation of Cambodian refugees, and the cease-fire talks in Bosnia, among others.

Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin. A reporter in 1959 darkens his skin and travels around the American South to document racism. He later worked with Civil Rights leaders like Dr Martin Luther King Jr.

The Women in Black by Madeleine St John. The author has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. A 'meringue' of a novel about several Australian women working for a department store in 1959 Sydney, contrasted with some Continental (European) refugees. Has a movie and an upcoming TV series.

Lee Lockwood: Castro's Cuba: An American Journalist's Inside Look At Cuba, 1959-1969 by Saul Landau This volume includes Lockwood’s photographs of Cuba and Castro, many insightful observations, and extensive excerpts from the legendary Lockwood-Castro conversations. Between 1959 and 1969, photojournalist Lee Lockwood documented Cuba and Fidel Castro with unprecedented freedom and access, including a marathon seven-day interview with Castro himself.

Daring to Drive by Manal al-Sharif Memoir of a Saudi woman known for leading the #Women2Drive movement challenging the ban on women driving in Saudi Arabia. Also covers other topics including Saudi prisons, female genital mutilation, author's marriage.

Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah #1 “Language, even more than color, defines who you are to people.” #2 “The way my mother always explained it, the traditional man wants a woman to be subservient, but he never falls in love with subservient women. He’s attracted to independent women. “He’s like an exotic bird collector,” she said. “He only wants a woman who is free because his dream is to put her in a cage.”

Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski Hilary Wainwright, widower, poet, intellectual, returns after the war to a blasted and impoverished France in order to trace a child lost five years before.

A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel Described by septembriseur as the book that had the most impact on them. Hilary Mantel won the Booker Prize twice.

Sing and Shout: The Mighty Voice of Paul Robeson by Susan Goldman Rubin Biography of a singer, actor, and activist. What I found interesting was his positive attitude of Europe compared to America regarding their treatment of him as a black person.

[lothrilzul]

“Thank you for informing me about your findings,” Danse said somberly. “The Brotherhood will honor their memory.”

“Don’t you want to investigate further?” Winter inquired.

“I do,” he sighed, “and I have orders to do so as well.” He paused for a moment before continuing. “But it’s not the time for that,” he shook his head sorrowfully. “We’ll continue this investigation when reinforcements arrive. But for that, we need to contact them first,” he added. “How much time do you think you’ll need for your mission, General?”

Nuclear Winter -- Chapter 2

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Five Fics Friday: July 8/22

Happy Friday, everyone! It’s been a rough one for me, and I’ve a busy weekend ahead. Hopefully I’ll be able to chill sometime this weekend and get to enjoy one of these fantastic new fics on my MFL list. 

Hope you guys enjoy!

SIGNAL BOOSTING

Genius is a Star Whose Light (is Soon to Sink in Endless Night) by LoloLolly (M, 3,400+ w., 1/10 Ch. || Canon Compliant Through TFP, Aftermath of Serbia, Alternating POV,  Established / New Relationship, Parentlock, Explicit Torture, Mentions of PTSD, Mentions of Human Trafficking, References to Child Abuse, Violence, Kidnapping, Captivity, Angst with Happy Ending, Fluff, Case Fic, BAMF John, Sherlock Whump, Mycroft and John Work Together) – Sherlock had buried the past. Shut Serbia away in the attic of his mind palace. Muddy footprints at a heinous crime scene, however, have led him right back to old enemies. And right back to captivity. For God’s sake, Mycroft. Part 2 of the Earthly Pomp (Is But a Dream) series

RECENT MFLs

Out of the Shadow of Missed Chances by MargueriteSomebodyoranother   (T, 1,132 w., 1 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Post TRF / TEH Fic, Reunion, Idiots in Love, Mutual Pining) – He’d had eighteen months - it seemed like a goddamned eternity at the time - and he never uttered a word.

Family by bluebellofbakerstreet (G, 1,919 w., 1 Ch. || Art Fic / Text in Images, Parentlock, Mycroft POV, Fluff, Background Mystrade) – Mycroft Holmes keeps an eye on Rosie Watson. Strictly for the sake of security. Excerpts from a confidential file.

By the Rivers of Babylon by verdant_fire (T, 3,359 w., 1 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Post HLV Canon Divergence, Love Declarations, Exile, Pining Sherlock, Longing, Angst, POV Sherlock, Reunions, First Kiss) – Sherlock goes back to Serbia, and endures exile, boredom/torture, and a certain chemical defect, for the sake of one person and three improbable words.

Winter to Spring by standbygo (E, 19,416 w., 10 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Post S4, Post-Nuclear War, Parenthood, Danger, BAMF Sherlock, Whump, Angst with Happy Ending) – Sherlock is babysitting Rosie when the ultimate disaster strikes London. There will be fear, there will be danger, there will be despair - but in the end, there will be love.

[darkacey]

Find the Words

Tagged by @saphoblin and tasked to find the words haunted, hear, haste, horror, and health in one of my works. I chose some long excerpts, so everything's under the cut. (Excerpts are a mix of unpublished original stories and works that are or soon to be on AO3.)

Not tagging anybody in particular, but if you want to play, I challenge you to find these words: sheepish, storm, soft, switch, and sing.

Haunted, Zach and Nav (placeholder title), unpublished original work

Zach followed close behind and Deyval pulled up in the rear. While their shoes crunched over ice, Zach muttered, “This place is giving me the creeps. What happened here?”

Deyval glanced up at a long line of thick icicles as they crossed beneath them. “Global nuclear winter, maybe?” 

Zach looked aghast. “The whole planet can’t be like this, can it?” 

“Some are,” Markus said.

“I’m picking up a signal.” Alphie began pulling up information about the planet on Zach’s glasses and translating it. “Standby. Connection speed is poor due to insufficient trans-galactic transmission points.” 

Zach didn’t like the sound of that, but he continued walking while he read through everything Alphie found him. The area they had landed in specifically had been ravaged by a war with AI some decades ago, forcing the organic inhabitants to flee the area, but the region had always been cold. It was now considered a no-fly zone and illegal to trespass. 

“So this place is haunted.” Zach pulled Deyval’s coat tighter around himself. 

Hear, Amber Giant (placeholder title), unpublished original work

When the sun dipped below the horizon, Arlo cupped his hands together and made a wisp light. It rose off his palms, and he guided it to float near his waist, on his left side. It bobbed slowly while he continued walking and calling out Rhys’ name. 

After a few more minutes, Arlo heard Rhys answer, “Over here!” 

“Oh!” Arlo quickly turned towards his voice. “I hear you! Keep talking!” 

“Be careful coming over here.” Rhys’ voice sounded strained, like he was in pain. “There’s a ridge under the ivy that’s steeper than it looks.” 

“Okay. What happened?” As Arlo neared the area, he slowed down and made a second, bigger wisp light. He tossed this one ahead to illuminate the ivy. 

“I fell and fucked up my ankle.” Rhys held up his hand to shield his eyes from the wisp’s light. “Is Eren with you?”

“No, I left him at camp.” Arlo carefully navigated the slope. He could see why Rhys missed it. Fallen trees lay underneath the ivy, creating the illusion of more land for just an arm span. 

Haste, Who Remembers a God, Chapter 9: “How much can you fit into those pockets?”

As Lucas polished off one of the jars of turnips as a meager lunch, having slowed to walk, he began to feel rather silly for taking the trouble to come out here. Ari was clearly a very capable ranger after all, just as Scarlett had assured him. Lucas could not imagine he would be of any useful assistance against the creatures they so easily banished. 

All he could reasonably offer, Lucas supposed, was guidance through the cavern itself. The labyrinthine interior had taken him a good deal of time to navigate. His experience could possibly hasten Ari’s passage. Furthermore, he realized he had failed to mention where exactly he had awoken inside the caverns. Surely that would be necessary information. 

Lucas narrowed his eyes, wondering if it was possible to speed up his travels and close the distance between him and Ari. Eliza had said Return worked in two parts, creating the anchor and then returning to it. When he used his teleportation skill, however, he had simply looked at the object, envisioned where he wanted it, and then… moved it. Just not with his hands or the runes within him that powered his spells.

The more Lucas thought about it, the stranger it seemed. What exactly was he using to teleport objects? It was not his hands or runes, and yet it was still some invisible, incorporeal part of himself. He knew because he had a distinct sense of proprioception when he used the trick, impossible as it seemed. Like an extra limb, almost, except nothing so simple and singular in purpose.

Horror, Go Off the Deep End, Chapter 4: “Why don’t you try meeting someone new?”

When they neared the surface, Silas froze. In the mess of broken wood and tangled ropes floated the face-down bodies of humans.

“What…? Oh, gods.” Gale stopped beside Silas. “Are they all dead?”

“I… I don’t know.” Silas shook his head disbelievingly, eyes picking through the wreckage. He swallowed hard and continued swimming up. “Help me look.”

“Are you serious?” Gale looked horrorstruck. “Silas, even if any of them are alive, what are we supposed to do?”

“I don’t know!” Silas stopped beneath one man, but put his hand over his mouth against the urge to throw up. The man’s throat was slit open. Tearing away his gaze, Silas darted to another man. His neck was also cut. One of his earlobes was torn as well, as if someone had ripped out an earring. The third man he found was stabbed through the chest. As he continued checking each body, he said, “All of them were killed.”

“Holy shit.” Gale watched Silas at a distance, unable to make himself go near the dead bodies. “We shouldn’t be here. Sharks are going to smell the blood.”

“Then keep an eye out for them.” Silas circled the wreckage again as he finished looking over the bodies. His initial horror was fading to pity. There were no survivors. This was not his first time encountering the remains of dead humans, but he had never seen them so fresh. Silas inclined his head. Putting a fist over his heart, he murmured a prayer to Kazima to guide their spirits and help them find refuge with her in the abyss. He didn’t know if humans who died on land went to the same place as merfolk, but he couldn’t fathom them going anywhere else if they died at sea.

When Silas finished his prayer, he turned back to Gale. “Come on.” He began swimming down. “There’s probably stuff in the sand beneath them.”

Health, Who Remembers a God, Chapter 21: “If it means I get to know you better, it’s worth it.”

“Not all threats are life-threatening,” Scarlett said. “Some are merely warning signs of a greater issue. Consider this example: if I pointed out litter along the river, what would you think?”

“Uh, that somebody was being a jerk? Or that maybe the wind blew it into the water upstream?”

“Both are possibilities. If it is the former, it is our responsibility to track down the perpetrator and put a stop to it. However, the cause isn’t always that simple.” Scarlett faced the road ahead, a distant look coming across her expression. “My father taught me how to gauge the health of your home by looking at small signs. Cracks in sidewalks may point to infrastructure issues, which relate back to housing and taxation or neglectful city employees. As rangers of SEED, we have little authority to affect change in those areas, but still, we can bring attention to those issues to our public stewards.

“Litter can reveal a different kind of story,” Scarlett continued. “Paper scrap is almost always accidental. The wind catches it easily. Heavier items like bottles and cans are usually the result of lazy park-goers or people who can’t locate a convenient public receptacle, which again relates to public stewardship. Alcohol bottles in scenic areas are usually the result of a party, but if they’re in secluded areas, it suggests someone may be struggling with housing insecurity. If we can locate that person, we can potentially help them or get them in contact with specialized services.”

“That makes sense, I think,” Ari said, a bit amazed that someone would pay that much attention to trash. It explained why Scarlett was so obsessed with details, though, if she got it from her father. Also made it a bigger shame that Ari would never get to meet him.

[mariacallous]

Moldova’s president: Our democracy’s survival depends on joining the E.U.

Maia Sandu is a woman on a democratic mission in a war-torn neighborhood — the first honest president that Moldova has elected since breaking away from Russia in 1991. After a series of pro-Russian oligarchs enriched themselves at the expense of this small former Soviet republic, Sandu, a 50-year-old former World Bank employee and education minister, formed her own political party in 2016 to fight corruption. She was appointed prime minister in 2019 and elected president in 2020. Now, instead of focusing fully on criminal justice reforms, she is navigating the shock waves of Russia’s war against neighboring Ukraine and the impact of Russian cutbacks on gas sales to Europe. The Post’s Lally Weymouth sat down with Sandu this week in the presidential offices in Chisinau. Edited excerpts of their conversation:

Weymouth: How do you see the war in Ukraine going?

Sandu: We have condemned the Russian aggression against Ukraine from the very first day. One year ago, none of us would have thought we would have a full-fledged war in Europe. Ukraine is fighting for the free world and is also defending us.

Do you expect the war to go on for a while?

We all want this war to end as soon as possible and Ukraine to recover its territories.

How do you see President [Vladimir] Putin’s actions — his conscription, driving people to flee from Russia to avoid being drafted and his nuclear threats?

We have condemned the actions Russia has been taking. The war has created a lot of pain for Ukraine, but Moldova has also been affected significantly. Our analysis shows that the risk of Russia using nuclear weapons is small, but it should not be excluded.

You’ve spoken about your need to move your country away from its traditional neutral status.

Unfortunately, Russian propaganda has been trying to mislead people in Moldova that neutral means you should not have a defense sector or you should not invest in your defense sector, which is not true. In the constitution it says that we are a neutral country. At the same time, it says that the country should have an army and the army should be able to defend the country. So we are saying that because of the war in Ukraine, we should be more concerned about our security and should invest more than we invested in the past in our defense sector.

What’s the most important thing to you personally?

I do believe that our chance to survive as a democracy — and democracy is very important to us — is to integrate into the European Union. We want to stay part of the free world.

How [else] has Moldova been affected by the war?

It has caused the energy crisis which is affecting Moldova. Because of this war, we have high inflation and todayMoldovans pay a price for gas seven times higher than last year. We are also paying a higher price for electricity. Moldova is not a rich country, which means that in people’s budgets, the share of spending on energy and on food is very high.

[Russia’s state-owned energy company] Gazprom threatened to cut off Moldova’s gas supply on Oct. 1. They did not cut off the supply entirely but reduced it by 30 percent. Will you turn to the open market?

The problem is the price. There is still gas on the market, but the prices are very high. They are 10 times higher than last year. Before, we had 100 percent of gas provided by Gazprom. … We will be able to buy gas on the Romanian market, but the question is whether we will be able to afford such prices.

So the gas supply for this month is taken care of?

It is for this month. We will have to see how things develop in the next few months.

People say that your citizens will spend 50 percent of their money on energy and electricity this winter.

The government will try to compensate those with low incomes. The government has some (gas) reserves but not [enough to last] long.

People say that Ilan Shor, a Moldovan oligarch who was convicted in a Moldovan court in 2017 of stealing over $1 billion, is living in Israel and working with the Russians to undermine your government.

He was involved in a banking-sector fraud, which was a significant scheme [involving] a $1 billion fraud of three banks, one of which was a state bank. He left the country when we were elected because he and the other crooked oligarchs realized we are serious when we talk about justice-sector reform and strengthening the independence of the anti-corruption institutions. Now they have been working together with pro-Russian political parties in Moldova, trying to undermine our efforts.

Do you intend to retrieve the money stolen by Mr. Shor and the others?

We need the big countries, including the U.S., to help us stop the movement of dirty money from one country to another and to recover the money that was stolen. People who paid taxes had their money stolen from the state budget. They feel the injustice.

How many pro-Russian parties are in Moldova?

There are two political parties which are in the parliament, one of which is openly pro-Russian. Another is not openly declared as pro-Russian but has close ties to Russia.

How is the reform of the justice system going?

We are making progress in reforming justice and prosecution. But building institutions takes time.

Are you satisfied by the pace of reform?

We would like it to happen sooner, but we need to respect the conditions of the E.U.

You hear people complaining that the reforms are too slow.

If you wait too long to enact reforms, it may be difficult to explain to people who gave us their support to fight corruption.

You have managed to achieve E.U. candidate status for Moldova in record time.

To us, E.U. integration is very important. This is probably the only way for us to be able to save and consolidate democracy in this difficult region.

I hear that you hate to talk about yourself.

This is not about me, this is about Moldova and its people.

But you’re the president of Moldova.

I know, but there is an entire team trying to help. And we’ve got to thank the Moldovan people. When some of these corrupt people tried to impose an authoritarian regime, they went to the streets to protest. We appreciate democracy no matter how difficult it is economically.

Do you live here [in the presidential offices]?

There is a house that the former president lived in, but I don’t want to spend people’s money on my electricity consumption, so I stay in my apartment and pay for my own electricity.

I don’t believe [I am making] a sacrifice. It is a sacrifice for some of our ministers who left jobs which paid 10 times higher. We have to go through this because we have to change the situation.

Is the president paid the same as the ministers?

My salary is less than 1,000 euros a month. It’s a poor country.

What made you believe you could do this?

The choice was that I either leave the country or try to change things. I never planned to become a politician, but seeing so many corrupt people in politics, and [seeing] corruption seeping into state institutions, there was no future for this country.

What made you think that it wasn’t hopeless?

I just felt it was my duty to try. I love this country.

[talkinfanfic]

Episode 207 - Talkin’ with Elise_51 - Catchup and Comics

Listen here, or find us on your favorite podcast platform including Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, etc. etc. 

@storyshark2005​ and @elise-51-blog�� catch up and talk about what they’ve been reading (angsty ‘Toy Story’ teen romance! Wincest in the world of ‘Tremors’ ! fake-marriage-scifi! Jason Todd/Dick Grayson!) ; what they’ve been writing (Batfamily! Green Lantern GuyKyle space husbands!) ; and Laura talks about her recent adventures in DC Comics land, where among other things, Guy Gardner of Space Sector 2814 gets KO’d by Batman, and tries to take his prospective girlfriend to a porno. And also why you should love Guy Gardner.

Contact and Credits:

Tumblr: talkinfanfic.tumblr.com 

Instagram: @talkinfanfic

Email: talkinfanfic@gmail.com 

Intro/Outro Music: Kyle Laurin "In the Air Tonight" (Twitter: @cobrakylemusic)

Background music for reading excerpt: "White Horses on the Beach"  by NaturesEye (Pixabay) 

Episode References

"A Moonlight Sonata" by DarlingJenny (Schroeder/Lucy) 

"The Elko County Adventure" by Candle_beck  (Sam/Dam, SPN&Tremors Crossover)

"Under the Table and Dreaming" by hollycomb (Andy/Sid, Toy Story)

“Theories About Nuclear Winter” by hollycomb (Calvin/Susie, Calvin and Hobbes)

"underneath your skin (let me in)" by Sandrine Shaw (Sandrine) Captain Cold/The Flash, CW’s ‘The Flash’ ) 

“Planet of L” by Jakowic (Jason Todd/Dick Grayson, DC Comics)

“Jealous Guy” by Elise_51 and Storyshark2005 (Guy Gardner/Kyle Rayner, DC Comics)

"Even the Losers" by Elise_51 (JayDick Summer Exchange 2021) 

Comics Biblio

Justice League International Volume 1 (Trade Paperpack)

DC Wiki - JLA Vol 1 #28 - "A Date with Destiny" or, Guy Takes Tora to a Porno 

Guy Gardner: Year One - Chuck Dixon (Four issue arc,  'Guy Gardner' issues #11-14)

LUTHOR  - Bermejo/Azzarello, DC Comics (TP, Black Label Edition) 

Forever Evil - Johns/Friend/Finch , DC Comics (TP)

Under the Red Hood - Loeb/Winick/Starlin, DC Comics (TP)

"Under the Red Hood" [Animated Feature Film on HBO Max]

BATGIRL: STEPHANIE BROWN VOL. 1 - Brian Q. Miller, DC Comics (TP)

BATGIRL: STEPHANIE BROWN VOL. 2 - Brian Q. Miller, DC Comics (TP)    

Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors - Tomasi, DC Comics (TP)

Green Lantern Corps Vol 1: Fearsome - Tomasi, DC Comics (TP)   

[seaquestions]

obsessed with the nuclear winter at the end of kingdom. like Ahh The Colour Has Returned~! but the world is still so incredibly fucked up and cold cold cold and everyone is Dead dead dead. nuclear winter apocalypse time. Optimus You Fucked Up! also the hugeass statues are just goons? rlly thought they’d do like a transformers madara & hashirama thing. also made me think abt this excerpt frm a wip i hadnt worked on in a while:

[fatehbaz]

In the neighborhood of Pine Ridge and Wounded Knee, major mining companies and the US federal government are apparently using the pandemic to strong-arm quick approval of uranium mining in the Black Hills, while Lakota organizers confront the project(s). After all of the historic gold mining at the Black Hills, and in spite of the tourism industry at Badlands National Park and Wind Cave and “Mount Rushmore” and nearby “Devil’s Tower” and Deadwood, Pine Ridge remains ignored, containing one of if not the poorest counties in the US. By the end of 2018, the contiguous US had only 5 uranium mines, and, in 2019, a lobbying group of major resource extraction companies interested in uranium asked for help from the US president’s office. In April 2020, the president’s Nuclear Fuel Working Group released a report passionately advising revival of uranium mining, and the US president announced a 2021 budget granting over $150 million to purchasing uranium mined within US borders. In April 2020, during pandemic, the major Keystone XL oil pipeline was beginning construction; carrying Alberta oil, its route crosses directly through the Rosebud Sioux reservation land immediately next to Pine Ridge. At the same time, in April 2020, worldwide stock price of uranium surged as Canadian and US corporations now discuss their targeting of the Black Hills as a coveted sit. A Canadian company plans a 10,600-acre uranium mine, expecting to extract millions of pounds of the ore, as Lakota organizers pursue legal cases under the shadow of the desecrated Six Grandfathers.

Excerpt, from Grist, 10 May 2020:

Paha Sapa, also known as the Black Hills. [...] The Lakota call Paha Sapa “the heart of everything that is.” [...]

Today, [Regina] Brave and other Lakota elders are staring down yet another encroachment on their historic lands: a 10,600-acre uranium mine proposed to be built in the Black Hills. The Dewey-Burdock mine would suck up as much as 8,500 gallons of groundwater per minute from the Inyan Kara aquifer to extract as much as 10 million pounds of ore in total. Lakota say the project violates both the 1868 U.S.-Lakota treaty and federal environmental laws by failing to take into account the sacred nature of the site. [...] A legal win for the Lakota would represent an unprecedented victory for a tribe over corporations such as Power­tech, the Canadian-owned firm behind Dewey-Burdock, that have plundered the resource-rich hills. And it could set precedents forcing federal regulators to protect indigenous sites and take tribes’ claims more seriously. The fight puts the Lakota on a collision course with the Trump administration, which has close ties to energy companies and is doubling down on nuclear power while fast-tracking new permits and slashing environmental protections — even using the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to further roll back regulations. All of this makes Black Hills mineral deposits more attractive than they’ve been in decades. [...]

-----

By 1890, the Great Sioux Reservation, which had once covered about half of South Dakota, was fractured into six parcels constituting less than one-third of the area that many Lakota still consider their rightful “treaty territory.” The United States had seized the Black Hills. [...] When the gold rush petered out, mining companies pivoted to silver, tungsten, iron, and limestone. In 1951, uranium was discovered. Within 20 years, there were more than 150 uranium mines centered on a small boomtown called Edgemont, in Paha Sapa’s southern foothills, where the Oglala once made their winter camp.

The southern foothills are rocky and quiet, but just north, bikers and families in RVs clog the highways to visit abandoned gold mines, old-timey saloons, and the main attraction, Mount Rushmore, which was carved into a sacred mountain known to the Lakota as the Six Grandfathers. “We call it the Shrine of Hypocrisy,” says Tonia Stands, an Oglala Lakota who has been one of Pine Ridge’s most persistent voices against uranium mining. [...]

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Adding a layer of oddity to the whole situation, Powertech is so far a mining company only on paper. It has never produced an ounce of ore and can only keep litigating as long as investors remain convinced that footing its bills will eventually pay off. Powertech anticipates the mine will net about $150 million, yet it says it’s already sunk $10 million into the NRC license, not including litigation or staffing costs. Its parent company, Azarga Uranium, trades as an underregulated penny stock; investment firm Haywood Securities rates its risk factor as “very high.”

For years, it seemed like the Lakota could drag out the case long enough to make Powertech’s prospects no longer worth the fight. The price of domestic uranium was on a steady decline: The federal government already had vast stockpiles, and nuclear energy producers could import it more cheaply from places like Australia and Canada. By the end of 2018, all but five U.S. uranium mines had been shut down or suspended. Yet today, Powertech is just one of several companies applying to open new mines, anticipating that an administration bent on deregulation, and the appeal of nuclear power as a climate-friendly energy source, could increase profitability. In July 2019, after lobbying from uranium producers, President Donald Trump convened a Nuclear Fuel Working Group to devise policies that could throw a lifeline to the struggling industry. Released in April, the group’s report won applause from Powertech’s parent company by recommending renewed federal investment in uranium. Though many experts say the U.S. already has more of the mineral than it can use, Trump’s proposed 2021 budget would allocate $150 million to stock a new reserve with domestically mined uranium. The share prices of U.S. mining companies jumped after the report’s release, while factors related to COVID-19 caused the global price of uranium to surge throughout March and April.

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In Morgan’s view, settler heritage sites are commonly protected while tribes must fight “tooth and nail every step of the way” to win minor concessions as their sites are destroyed “at an astounding rate.” [...] “We’re talking about living, breathing nations of people,” says Morgan [...]. “Their medicine people still make the trek to these areas every year. The cosmology is intact, the cultural lifeways are intact, and we practice our ceremonies by going to specific locales within that concentric area” where Powertech wants to build a mine.

At the August hearing, the NRC argued that it had gathered as much information as it could without funding an “exorbitant” survey, while Powertech’s counsel decried the many years already spent, adding, “We fully support [the] NRC staff’s position.”Sounding exasperated, Morgan jumped in. “It’s our job to save as many of these sites as possible,” she said, “because they are finite. They are a map, and they tell a story. It’s a very sensitive personal thing to us as Lakota people.”

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After the hearing, Brave and Stands met in a nearby park with the other Lakota who’d driven from Pine Ridge. Sharing their huge pot of stew with homeless people there, most of the group concurred that their case looked strong. But the judges were unmoved: In December, they ruled that the NRC had satisfied NEPA’s requirement to take a “hard look” simply by making a “reasonable effort,” resolving the last objection to the license. “The system is set up to fail our people,” Stands says. [...]

In October, Brave spoke at Magpie Buffalo Organizing’s inaugural “No Uranium in Treaty Territory” summit, which offered a crash course on tribal sovereignty. The activists are closely tracking the various Keystone XL permits, which the Rosebud Sioux Tribe is challenging in court as a treaty vio­lation. As the threat of both uranium and gold mining looms, there’s talk of occupying land in the Black Hills [...].

[ciaran-beat]

Come check out my newest story, Say My Name, on Wattpad! So far only a chapter has been published. I have the entire story written in a notebook though. It's a book about what would've happened if WW2 turned South and ended up in a nuclear winter. It revolves around a Russian soldier named Arno Petrov and how even when there's nothing left to take, his enemies keep coming, coming, and coming. My Wattpad is ciaran-beat. Here's an excerpt to pique your interest:

Papa used to say, "Pain is the fire that forges our great strength, and keeps us warm in this godforsaken weather." He usually said the last bit after a long drag from a hand-rolled cigarette. The smoke would evaporate like the frozen vapor from my mouth, and he would turn the snow brown by crushing the stick beneath his boot.

That same snow, which had once been clean enough to roll syrup from with a stick, now turned into brown slush from the trains. Our little town, that had a population change from thirty to one hundred and fifteen men with red bands. Though some had been pulled from civilized life and branded with the mark that marked them anti-semitic, whether by choice or not, they were all the same scum to me.

I had once been in the same position. Wearing the same boots until the soles thinned and snow bit me blue. Holding the same rifle that undoubtedly waved a red banner. But even when everything was up against me, or news that the father of our great country had fallen over to them, I knew where my morals lay.

They could take our children, and rape our women, but they could never strip away what we stood for. They had ruined our red, but never stained the gold that forged our hammer and sickle. For as long as I stood, I would embody what we had once been. Brave. And everything those Nazi pigs weren't.

[rjzimmerman]

What Tom Friedman is telling us in this New York Times Op-Ed is plausible. Some of the issues he raises are already starting. Excerpt:

Every so often the tectonic geopolitical plates that hold up the world economy suddenly shift in ways that can rattle and destabilize everything on the surface. That’s happening right now in the energy sphere.

Several forces are coming together that could make Vladimir Putin the king of Europe, enable Iran to thumb its nose at America and build an atomic bomb, and disrupt European power markets enough that the upcoming U.N. climate conference in Glasgow could suffer blackouts owing to too little clean energy.

Yes, this is a big one.

Natural gas and coal prices in Europe and Asia just hit their highest levels on record, oil prices in America hit a seven-year high and U.S. gasoline prices are up $1 a gallon from last year. If this winter is as bad as some experts predict — with some in the poor and middle classes unable to heat their homes — I fear we’ll see a populist backlash to the whole climate/green movement. You can already smell that coming in Britain.

How did we get here? In truth, it’s a good-news-bad-news story.

The good news is that every major economy has signed onto reducing its carbon footprint by phasing out dirtier fuels like coal to heat homes and to power industries. The bad news is that most nations are doing it in totally uncoordinated ways, from the top down, and before the market has produced sufficient clean renewables like wind, solar and hydro.

If you don’t have enough renewables but you want to go green, the next best thing is natural gas, which emits about half as much CO₂ as coal (as long as methane is not released in the extraction process). But there is not enough of this transition fuel to go around. So, everyone is scrambling to get more, which is why the European Union’s biggest pipeline gas supplier — Russia — is now in the catbird seat and prices are skyrocketing along with blackouts.

Don’t get me wrong. I am as green as ever. But I’m not a nice green. I am a mean green. Achieving the scale of clean energy that we need requires not only wind, solar and hydro, but also a carbon tax in every major industrial economy, nuclear power and natural gas as a bridge. If you oppose all those, you’re not serious about what scientists tell us needs to be done right now — put in place enough non-carbon-emitting fuels to manage the destructive aspects of climate change that have become unavoidable, so we can avoid those that would be unmanageable.

[theouterspaceplace]

The Scanners excerpt

Chapter 4.  

I was outside, the air tasted funny.  It had a burnt ionized scent to it, and tasted a little like  a garbage  fire but not quite.  It was  45 years after the nuclear fiasco,  

Most of the dust had settled and earth was doing its best to repair itself .  Only small mammals and some birds survived the deep freeze of the

Nuclear Winter. Anything larger than a coyote was long gone or so decimated that the survival of the species was nil. Except for some humans that had never entered the domes.  There were  also various  insects and  bugs that had survived somehow.  The mosquito had made it through the deep freeze as noted by the one that just bit me.  The earth was quieter than I remembered it., but it had been a while since I was outside the dome.  

The dome I resided in was in the Sirerra Nevada mountains nestled in a valley about  4,500 feetin  elevation.   I expected an audience of birds

chirping and animals dodging into holes at the sight of me.  I saw very few thing move and usually it was the wind that was moving it. It was spring

time in the mountains and you could hear the water from a river not to far off in the distance.  I headed that direction and would follow the river for

the next 32 miles.  I wondered if the road was now a trail or if it had been washed out completely by the river.  I would  find out soon enough.  I

hoped for the best and prepared for the worst scenario.  I had three days to get to the launch site about 75 miles.  The first 32 were going to be tough

going but after that it should level out and be relatively easy.  So I thought.

[lothrilzul]

Last Line Meme

Tagged by @mrninjapineapple implicitly.

Tagging: YOU.

My last line was 3 words, so I include the surroundings.

“Soldier?”

Suddenly he was back in his uniform.

What?

“Good morning, soldier. It’s 0700, time to get up.”

She looked down on herself, she had her Pebbles tee on, that she usually slept in.

It was just a dream, damn it. You thirsty moron.

[authorspress]

2022 Frankfurter Buchmesse | Author Virtual Interview | Cecily W. Kelln

Featured Book: Becoming the Admiral's Wife

 In this confessional memoir, Cecily Watson Kelln leaves the comforts of her childhood cackleberry farm to face womanhood fraught with struggles to find love and security. Divorce, rejection, and despair try to knock her down. But her mother's exemplary Christian faith keeps her full of hope. This true story involves travel and adventures, such as the Peace Corps, cold winter in a tent, and a psychedelic baptism. Becoming the Admiral's Wife is a beautiful testimony of the author's search to know God, and how she eventually finds him in several dramatic encounters with Jesus Christ. By God's mercy and grace, she ultimately meets the loving Christian man who becomes her husband. With inserted excerpts of his fast-track career in the early years of the nuclear navy, the audiobook illustrates the power of Christ-centered marriage and inspires listeners to patiently trust in God's divine plan for their own lives.