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spoonhacks · 4 years

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My Fibro Journey and How I Came Back from Rock Bottom

This not advice. But this is a true story, and it’s time I shared my Fibro journey. I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia just as college was ending. This is not to say it began then, but it came to head enough to finally get an answer. This came about a year and a half after my Interstitial Cystitis diagnosis, and I was in BAD shape. I was 90 lbs, deteriorating, and everything winded me. The pain was constant and completely overwhelming. I had thrown every last drop of my energy into finishing my college thesis and graduating from a school I had worked SO hard at. When it finally commenced, I felt lost. I was depleted from the effort and it was 2011 and the economy was in shambles. Having nowhere else to go, I moved into my dad’s spare room in Massachusetts, miles away from the state I had always called home, my precious Florida warmth, and the love of my life. I was, unsurprisingly, miserable, and my health tanked immediately. I was cold all the time. No amount of blankets helped because I wasn’t generating my own heat. I remember spending Thanksgiving eve in the emergency room because an Interstitial Cystitis flare had caused a UTI to back up and give me yet another kidney infection and I had a soaring fever. Things were toxic with my dad. His cure for everything is to get up at 6am and be busy busy busy and I was in desperate need of rest. When it became obvious to me finding a job was not happening, I started an Etsy shop for my crafts with the limited energy I had. It pulled in maybe $200 a month but it felt good to be doing one small thing. A few months later the love of my life arranged to follow me to New England and secured a place for us in the apartment above his father’s house. We were together again but things were tense, his dad is occasionally a monster, and it wasn’t long before we were moving again. My health was awful and we were broke as a joke. I was sleeping 12 hours a day and spending the rest of my time trying to figure out what kind of life I was going to be able to have. I was severely depressed. We moved to an absolute shit-hole of a apartment in a bad neighborhood. Rent was $850/month for 280 square feet. We could barely afford it, and mostly lived off of my partner’s disability check and food stamps. My small savings was gone. We fought about money a lot. The Etsy shop brought in maybe $300 now, but it was clear this was not going to cover everything for a long time, if ever. My health only continued to decline and I felt utterly useless. Some days I was too sore to even get out of bed. The stress was unbearable as I watched everything in my life spiral. I honestly felt like if something didn’t change and soon, I was going to die. I thought back to the last thing I’d done right: my college thesis at art school. It took me forever to choose what medium to do the project in as there were a few I’d been practicing proficiently. I kept asking myself: “What am I the best at? What am I the best at?” and got nowhere. Finally I asked myself “What am I the worst at? What medium am I absolutely shit at that I would love to do but never learned how?” And the answer was pen and ink. A few months later I graduated with a pen and ink portfolio with one of two A’s in my professor’s senior class. So here I was, applying to design jobs and retail jobs and anything else I thought I might be good at with 0 responses for months on end. Then, instead, I asked myself what I was the worst at-- manual labor! After all, grocery shopping would knock me out until the next day. I realized this was insane to even consider and I might literally die. But I was so low it didn’t matter. If I continued wasting away like this I was going to die anyway. I knew this in my heart. Having cared for horses as a kid I started applying for barn jobs in the area. I remember straightening myself up and forcing myself to look energetic and animated for the interviews. I finally got a job. I was terrible at it. Shoveling for hours and pushing around a 300lb wheelbarrow, imagine! I could not lift a hay bale (they are about 65 lbs). But, I got up at 4:45 in the morning and drove to work in the snow before the plows came and always got to work on time. I worked only weekend days and by Sunday night I would have to make sure there was a crockpot meal going because I knew I would collapse at the end of the day. I cried in the car on the way home every single shift. My body was on fire. Mondays I could not get out of bed. The pain was immeasurable and I spent most of the day crying and had my partner help me to the bathroom. I spent the whole week recovering and patching myself up enough to get to my next shift on Saturday. But I promised myself something: that I would never complain, not to anyone at work, and not even to myself in my head. I imagined myself as a monk. Chop wood, carry water. I got fired. Then I got another barn job and got fired. Then I got another one and got fired again. The 4th job was still hard, but I did not get fired. I could now lift the hay bales. I gained 20 lbs (entirely muscle) and my body was completely different. Instead of being carried to the bathroom on Monday, I could transport myself to the couch and do basic self-care activities. I could do my crafts during the week again and between the two income streams I could afford my half of living expenses and was very slowly socking away a tiny, tiny nest egg that would eventually become the start up capital for my business. Two years had passed since mucking my first stall. My Fibro was not cured by any means but my IC was somewhat in remission and I was doing much better. Daily life got easier. After all, compared to hay bales, lifting the pasta pot while making dinner was less of a big deal. I eventually left the barn job and got a job doing landscaping and construction-- more manual labor! My new boss was disabled too and used a walker on the job site. He was also a Buddha in a blue collar. After having kept my illness a secret for 2 years of barn jobs I could finally tell a boss the truth and it was a relief. He understood me and always gave me the jobs I could flourish at. I learned a lot from him, did legitimately good work, made slightly better money, and moved out of the shit-hole apartment to an art community, which was an important step forward on the path toward opening my own business and doing art full time. During the second year of running my shop I realized I didn’t need a second job anymore and that it would be the first year in the last 5 where I wouldn’t have to dig any holes.

I’d risked it all, every last drop of my health. It could have killed me. And the agony was indescribable, but I would do it again. My body is changed forever and even years since I have last worked manual labor I am still improved for it and much more active than I was in those dark years right after college. Everything I have now I owe to that one, insane decision I made at rock bottom. This is not advice. Take what you will from my story. I still despise people who say “exercise will cure Fibro if you just tried harder :) :) :)” or some stupid shit like that. None of them know how dangerous this was or how much suffering I endured. It could have easily gone the other way. There were days my partner saw the condition I was in and begged me to stop. I told him with a roar in my voice if I didn’t keep going I was going to die. I don’t regret it. I have less pain now, consistently, than I did before I went through all that and I still try to keep up my fitness level so I never go back there. Thank you for reading my story. I can’t recommend my path, but if you come away with one thing from this, just know that there is a path forward, somewhere, and perhaps in the most unlikely of places.

#fibromyalgia #chronic pain #personal #chronically ill #disabled

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bountyofbeads · 5 years

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Trump Focuses on Economy at Davos, Seeking a Counter to Impeachment https://nyti.ms/36cm7JC

Trump is with his “people” at Davos-the wealthy one per cent who are responsible for crippling recessions and the group who will not put their ample resources to work to make a difference in the huge challenge of climate change. They represent money but not wisdom and responsibility. Davos is a “ see and be seen “ opportunity not a forum for serious solutions to the world’s problems.

Also, what's not to love about Trumpnomics? More subsidies to big industries, less taxes for the rest of us and to social welfare programsw; shifts the federal tax burden from business to their employees and customers; rebalances regulations to favor business over employees, customers and the environment. Never mind that the National Debt grows more than the economy (GDP), even as infrastructure decays and more people are disconnected from the benefits of economic growth. Never mind the cost to society and the planet...

TRUMP TAKES A VICTORY LAP AT DAVOS, CROWING ABOUT THE U.S. ECONOMY AND IGNORING IMPEACHMENT

By Anne Gearan and Toluse Olorunnipa | Published Jan 21 at 7:46 AM EST | Washington Post | Posted Jan 21, 2020 |

DAVOS, Switzerland — President Trump trumpeted what he called "America's extraordinary prosperity" on his watch, taking credit for a soaring stock market, a low unemployment rate, and a "blue-collar boom" in jobs and income, in a presidential turn on the world stage also meant to make impeachment proceedings against him in Washington look small.

Trump ran through economic statistics with a salesman's delivery, crowing about growth during his three years in office that he said bested his predecessors and defied his skeptics.

“America is thriving; America is flourishing, and, yes, America is winning again like never before,” he told an audience of billionaires, world leaders and figures from academia, media, and the kind of international organizations and think tanks for whom his “America First” nationalism is anathema.

Trump is making his second visit to the World Economic Forum, which for its 50th anniversary this year is focusing on climate change and sustainability. A sign at the entrance to the press center notes that paint for this year’s installation was made from seaweed, and carpets from recycled fishing nets.

Trump, who has called climate change a hoax, did not directly address the theme during his 30-minute address here, although he did call for rejecting “the perennial prophets of doom and their predictions of the apocalypse” and later said he is a big believer in the environment.

He also made no mention of impeachment or U.S. politics, although he took a swipe at “radical socialism,” his term for Democratic ideas about health care, education and other issues. The Senate impeachment trial was set to open hours after he spoke.

In response to questions from reporters after his speech, Trump called the impeachment trial a “hoax” and a “witch hunt” that has been “going on for years.”

Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the forum, thanked Trump “for injecting optimism” into the discussion.

“We have many problems in the world, but we need dreams,” he said.

Trump received a polite but not enthusiastic reception in the hall. A few in the audience slipped out well before he wrapped up.

Even as Trump faces impeachment, his trip to Davos offers him an opportunity focus on his economic message. The U.S. economy has continued to notch solid growth and maintain a low unemployment rate, and the stock market has reached record highs in recent days. Trump signed a partial trade deal with China last week, easing global tensions over his use of tariffs.

But the president faces continued questions about his approach to foreign affairs. His decision to order a strike that killed Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani earlier this month — and his threat to impose a 25 percent tariff on European cars over a foreign policy dispute — have created more tumult in the Middle East and in the transatlantic relationship between the United States and its closest allies.

Trump was billed as the keynote speaker for the annual business-themed confab in this Alpine ski town, but the main attraction was Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, 17, who has sparred with Trump on Twitter.

Last year, Thunberg blamed world leaders at the forum for not doing more to combat climate change. She has since echoed that message while rallying teenagers worldwide to skip school and pressure global leaders to take stronger action to address the existential threat.

In December, Trump insulted the teenager and Time magazine “Person of the Year” as “so ridiculous” and suggested that she “work on her anger management problem.”

Thunberg was quick to respond, updating her Twitter biography to describe herself as “A teenager working on her anger management problem.”

Trump had not yet arrived in Davos when Thunberg gave her first address Tuesday morning, saying that “without treating this as a real crisis, then we cannot solve it.” He was expected to skip her main speech later in the day.

Trump is an outlier at the forum for his views on climate change. The president has publicly criticized global efforts to combat warming temperatures and has made ridiculing energy-efficient products a key part of his reelection stump speech.

Ahead of Trump’s address, Schwab told the gathering that “the world is in a state of emergency” and that the window to address climate change is closing. Speaking ahead of Trump, he also reminded the audience that “every voice” heard at the forum deserved respect.

Trump was accompanied here by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow, and a delegation including his daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Also present is adviser and speechwriter Stephen Miller, whose hard-line stance on limiting immigration and denunciations of “globalism” infused Trump’s address to the United Nations in September.

“This is the wreckage I was elected to clean up,” Trump said of the “bleak” economic landscape he inherited.

He praised himself repeatedly, saying that his actions saved the global economy from the brink of recession, rescued the American manufacturing industry and reshaped the rules of international trade to reflect a fairer system.

He occasionally strayed from the facts as he tried to paint a picture of an economy in a shambles before he took office.

He described the 4.7 percent unemployment rate before he took office as “reasonably high,” even though it was well below the average unemployment rate in the United States over the past 70 years. He also took credit for additional funding that has been approved for historically black colleges and universities, saying inaccurately that the funding “saved” the schools from ruin.

He took a swipe at the Federal Reserve for its interest rate policies, saying his economic achievements came despite the rate-setting body. Although his attacks on the Fed have become common, the once-taboo practice seemed to startle some in the audience here.

Trump is using his day-and-a-half visit to lobby corporate chieftains for greater U.S. investment and to meet with leaders including Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, Iraqi President Barham Salih and Kurdish leader Nechirvan Barzani.

Although climate change and environmental stewardship lead the agenda here, a survey of chief executives released Monday shows that they do not count climate change as among the top 10 threats to business growth.

The financial services group PwC said climate change and environmental issues are ranked as the 11th-biggest threat to their companies’ growth prospects, the Associated Press reported. Trade conflicts and lack of skilled workers ranked higher.

The survey also found that 53 percent of CEOs predict a decline in the rate of growth this year, nearly double the percentage who said the same last year and a mark of how the trade conflict between the United States and China has soured business confidence.

Trump, however, painted a sunny picture Tuesday and invited global investment in the United States. He suggested that other nations would benefit from his approach to deregulation, but said, “You have to run your countries the way you want.”

He said he had confronted “predatory” Chinese trade practices and asserted that his tariffs, denounced by many of the CEOs and economists in the audience, have worked exactly as intended.

“No one did anything about it except allowing it to keep getting worse and worse and worse” before he took office, Trump said.

He said that the U.S. relationship with China has never been better, and that his personal bond with Chinese President Xi Jinping is a big reason.

“He’s for China, I’m for the U.S., but other than that we love each other,” Trump said to chuckles.

He received louder applause when he announced that the United States will join an initiative begun here to add 1 trillion trees worldwide.

Trump’s 2018 visit to the World Economic Forum came just days after he signed a bill lowering the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent — a move that will save businesses billions of dollars.

He largely steered clear of discussing domestic political issues during his speech to the forum in 2018, instead using his remarks to tout his accomplishments and encourage business leaders to invest in the United States. He did take a brief swipe at “the opposing party,” pointing out that “some of the people in the room” supported Democrats over him in 2016. He also drew a smattering of boos when he attacked the news media as “fake.”

This year, two leading contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sens. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), have sparked growing alarm among the global elite with calls for a major restructuring of the economic system that they say has been skewed to benefit the wealthy.

Trump, who has made attacking “socialism” part of his reelection message, could find a receptive audience as he seeks to defend capitalism and tout his economic record to a group of business leaders. The president has regularly credited his administration with boosting the bottom lines of the country’s largest companies, occasionally bragging to top executives that he had made them very rich. More than 100 billionaires are on the official attendee list for the World Economic Forum, and Trump plans to meet with the heads of several multinational companies during his brief stay in Davos.

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Heather Long contributed to this report.

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Climate Change Takes Center Stage in Davos

With businesses under pressure to act, solutions are emerging, but not fast enough, some participants fear.

By Stanley Reed | Published Jan. 20, 2020 | New York Times | Posted January 21, 2020 |

Even before catastrophic fires broke out in Australia in late fall, climate change was at the top of the list of priorities at the 50th anniversary of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this week.

But those fires — preceded by others in California — along with rising sea levels, flooding and supercharged storms, are putting more pressure on the politicians, business executives, financiers, thought leaders and others who attend to show they are part of the solution to one of the world’s most pressing challenges.

In a nod to a younger generation most at risk and demanding action on climate change, Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teenager who has become a prominent environmental activist, is scheduled to appear. In a column this month in The Guardian that she wrote with other environmental activists, they demanded an end to investments in fossil fuels.

“Anything less than immediately ceasing these investments in the fossil fuel industry would be a betrayal of life itself,” they said. “Today’s business as usual is turning into a crime against humanity. We demand that leaders play their part in putting an end to this madness.”

Daniel Yergin, the oil historian and a regular attendee at the Davos forum, agreed that “climate is going to loom larger than ever before.” And Ian Bremmer, founder and president of the political risk firm Eurasia Group, said: “These issues are becoming more real, more salient every day, whether you are talking about Venice or California or Australia or Jakarta. These are real events with enormous direct human and economic costs.”

But an overriding question as the Davos gathering gets underway is: Will all the talk matter?

Mr. Bremmer, who plans to attend, said the forum could help force change because it brings together big players, like chief executives of banks, money management firms and hedge funds, who are rethinking their investments. Gradually — some say too gradually — financial firms are directing money away from oil companies and others associated with carbon-dioxide emissions blamed for environmental damage.

Financial institutions “see the future coming, and they are changing the way they invest,” Mr. Bremmer said. “That is going to require multinational corporations to act differently; it will lead to new corporations that will do better.”

While thinking on climate change may be shifting, by some metrics the corporate elite that always makes up a large contingent at Davos still has a lot of work to do. According to a study published in December by the Davos organizers, only a quarter of a group of 7,000 businesses are setting a specific emissions reduction target and only an eighth are actually reducing their emissions each year.

If so, they are making a major strategic error, according to Mark Carney, the departing governor of the Bank of England who planned to be in Davos. Companies that work to bring their emissions to zero “will be rewarded handsomely,” Mr. Carney said in a recent speech. “Those that fail to adapt will cease to exist.”

Some people in the financial industry said that environmental issues were being given greater weight in investment decisions despite setbacks like President Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of the Paris agreement on climate change. The president, who shunned the gathering in Davos last year, said he would go this time.

The number of people who are talking about fossil fuels as a real concern “has increased dramatically over the last 12 to 24 months,” said Jeff McDermott, chief executive of Greentech Capital, an investment bank focused on low-carbon technologies. “They are both looking at the risks of high-carbon companies and industries as well as the returns available from low-carbon alternatives.”

Mr. McDermott said that Davos was a good venue for sifting through such ideas. The conference organizers are also pushing an environmental agenda that supports an ecologist’s notion of persuading the world to plant a trillion trees to soak up carbon dioxide and prodding companies to announce ambitious targets for lowering their emissions.

Potentially, enormous sums could be used to influence corporate behavior. For instance, Climate Action 100+ said investors with around $35 trillion in assets had signed on to its program for pushing companies toward greater disclosure and action on emissions.

“I believe we are on the edge of a fundamental reshaping of finance,” wrote Laurence D. Fink, chief executive of BlackRock, which has nearly $7 trillion under management, in a letter vowing to put sustainability at the core of the firm’s investment approach.

Many likely targets of investor and environmental initiatives may be available at the gathering at the Swiss resort. Among them are the chiefs of the world’s major oil companies, including Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Chevron and Saudi Aramco, who are expected to attend.

In recent months, some of these companies, especially those based in Europe, have been responding to the concerns of investors and other constituents with commitments to reduce their emissions or make investments in other environmentally friendly technology.

Repsol, the Spanish oil company, pledged last month to cut its emissions to zero by 2050 through a combination of actions, including more investments in renewable electricity like wind and solar and, possibly, reforestation. And BP, the London-based oil company, said it was forming a business with other companies for recycling a type of plastic known as PET that is used in soft drink bottles and packaging. In the latest of these pledges, Equinor, the Norwegian company, said it would reduce emissions from its oil and gas fields and plants in its home country to near zero by 2050 by using electricity in its operations and other measures.

Mr. Yergin, who is also vice chairman of IHS Markit, a research firm, said that “energy transition” would be the “two most spoken words at Davos” about the sector.

Marco Alverà, chief executive of Snam, an Italian natural gas company, plans to talk about recent experiments in mixing hydrogen, a fuel that does not produce carbon emissions, with the natural gas that the company delivers to users, potentially lowering their climate impact. Mr. Alverà said he was going to Davos because he thought it would be a “powerful forum” to make his points.

“I don’t think we will solve the climate challenge with taxes or a radical change in consumer behavior,” he said. “I think we can only solve it with business ideas that make business sense.”

The chemical industry, another sector that is integral to modern economies and a target for environmentalists, also plans to make its case at Davos.

A group of about 20 large chemical companies is working on low-carbon technologies, like making chemicals from carbon dioxide and biomass, said Martin Brudermuller, chief executive of the German chemical company BASF.

Mr. Brudermuller also said another large coalition in the sector was working on the plastic waste problem, with BASF turning discarded plastic into raw materials for its plants. Mr. Brudermuller cautioned that such problems, which involve not only new technologies but also organizing the collection and sorting of waste, are so complex and globe-spanning that only an effort of similar scope will succeed in solving them.

“A collaborative effort of companies, governmental and nongovernmental organizations as well as civil society is necessary to address the global challenge of mismanaged waste,” Mr. Brudermuller wrote in an email.

Awareness of these issue may be growing, but with global emissions continuing to rise governments are falling short on tackling them, according to a pre-conference report issued by the World Economic Forum. Many businesses, too, are failing to set effective targets, the report said. In 2006, Nicholas Stern was the chief author of a seminal study for the British government that set out the case for acting on climate change. More than a decade later, as he prepared to attend the 50th gathering in Davos, Lord Stern, chairman of the Grantham Institute at the London School of Economics, said there were reasons to be encouraged and to worry.

He said that the costs of wind and solar technology had fallen much more rapidly than anticipated. Electric vehicles, he said, were also making more rapid progress than expected, with most automakers talking about the end of the era of the internal combustion engine.

Such advances, he said, are opening attractive opportunities for investors and creating jobs.

He also said the growing activism of young people was crucial in pushing their elders to enact change. “Business people really feel that,” including those who attend Davos, he said, adding that he hoped such pressures would push companies into making commitments on emissions reduction at the meeting.

On the other hand, he said that the world had been slow to act and each report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations agency that tracks emissions, was more worrying than the last.

“I am really optimistic about what it is possible to do,” he said. “But I worry deeply about whether we will.”

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IN DAVOS, A SEARCH FOR MEANING WITH CAPITALISM IN CRISIS

By Ishaan Tharoor | Published January 20 at 9:35 AM EST | Washington Post | Posted January 21, 2020 |

DAVOS, Switzerland — The World Economic Forum, the most concentrated gathering of wealth and power on the planet, will begin once again amid a natural fortress of snow and ice in the Swiss Alps. President Trump is jetting in for a scheduled address Tuesday. Dozens of other world leaders are in attendance; a who’s who list of CEOs, fund managers, oligarchs and a smattering of celebrities will join the throngs cramming the pop-up pavilions and swanky hotel parties of the otherwise sleepy mountain town.

This year’s conclave will be the 50th since it began in 1971, marking a fitful half century of political turmoil and economic boom and bust. For years, Davos — that is, the conference of global leaders for which it has become synonymous — has represented the apotheosis of a particular world view: an almost Promethean belief in the virtues of liberalism and globalization, anchored in a conviction that heads of companies can become capable and even moral custodians of the common good.

The disruptions and traumas of the past decade have sorely tested Davos’s faith in itself. The archetypal Davos Man — the well-heeled, jet-setting “globalist” — has become an object of derision and distrust for both the political left and right. Financial crises, surging nationalist populism in the West, China’s intensifying authoritarianism and the steady toll of climate change have convinced many that there’s nothing inexorable about liberal progress. A new global opinion poll of tens of thousands of people found that more than 50 percent of those surveyed now think capitalism does "more harm than good."

Each year, the forum is accompanied by an unsurprising airing of cynicism in the media. “It is [a] family reunion for the people who, in my view, broke the modern world,” Anand Giradharadas, an author and outspoken critic of billionaire philanthropy, said in a TV interview last year. Can Davos “keep its mojo?” the Economist asked over the weekend. “Once a beacon of international cooperation, Davos has become a punchline,” the New York Times noted.

Klaus Schwab, the forum’s octogenarian founder and executive chairman, is convinced that the current moment needs more Davos, not less. In the run-up to this week’s meetings, he announced a new “Davos manifesto,” calling on companies to “pay their fair share of taxes, show zero tolerance for corruption, uphold human rights throughout their global supply chains, and advocate for a competitive level playing field.” Such an ethos, Schwab contends, will go a long way to redressing the world’s inequities and may help governments meet the climate targets set by the 2015 Paris agreement.

“Business leaders now have an incredible opportunity,” Schwab wrote in a column published last month. “By giving stakeholder capitalism concrete meaning, they can move beyond their legal obligations and uphold their duty to society.”

Schwab’s extolling of “stakeholder” capitalism — a riposte to the profit-maximizing Western orthodoxy of “shareholder” capitalism — is supposed to be a call to action. Activists, though, may argue that it’s not enough.

In a study timed in conjunction with the World Economic Forum, Oxfam found the world’s billionaires control more wealth than 4.6 billion people, or 60 percent of humanity. “Another year, another indication that the inequality crisis is spiraling out of control. And despite repeated warnings about inequality, governments have not reversed its course,” said Paul O’Brien of Oxfam America in an emailed statement. “Some governments, especially the U.S., are actually exacerbating inequality by cutting taxes for the richest and for corporations while slashing public services and safety nets — such as health care and education — that actually fight inequality.”

And some Davos attendees concur. “The economic pie is bigger than it’s ever been before in history, which means we could make everyone better off, but we’ve chosen as a society to leave a lot of people behind,” Erik Brynjolfsson, director of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, told my colleague Heather Long. “That’s not just inexcusable morally but is also really bad tactically.”

Reading from a totally different script, President Trump is expected to wax lyrical about the success of his economic and trade policies. In the past, his bullying measures and fondness for tariffs have ruffled the Davos set.

“Although the president has been inconsistent in how he has carried out his worldview, he has made clear that he has no plans to back away from his strong-arm tactics even as they have increasingly antagonized American friends and foes alike, leaving the United States potentially more isolated on the world stage,” wrote my colleagues Anne Gearan and John Hudson.

Trump is also likely to be challenged in Davos by a growing cohort of climate activists and policymakers. On the same day of his speech, Swedish teen campaigner Greta Thunberg is expected to berate politicians and finance executives who still invest in fossil fuels. Although Trump almost certainly will not heed Thunberg’s call, representatives of major companies attending the forum are desperate to show how they are adapting their business models to accommodate climate concerns.

Two years ago, Schwab drew criticism for what was viewed as an awkwardly ingratiating speech to welcome Trump to the forum. Now, he’s more at odds with the U.S. president, not least on the urgency of the climate crisis.

“We do not want to reach the tipping point of irreversibility on climate change,” Schwab told reporters last week. “We do not want the next generations to inherit a world which becomes ever more hostile and ever less habitable.”

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Trump Focuses on Economy at Davos, Seeking a Counter to Impeachment

President Trump made his first appearance on the international stage since the House sent impeachment articles to the Senate, on the day his trial is set to begin in earnest.

By Annie Karni | Published Jan. 21, 2020 Updated 7:01 a.m. ET | New York Times | Posted January 21, 2020 |

DAVOS, Switzerland — Before the Senate impeachment trial began in earnest on Tuesday, President Trump was more than 4,000 miles away from Washington, in this glitzy Alpine village, driving a competing narrative — one that had nothing to do with pressure on Ukraine, abuse of power or obstruction of Congress.

In his first appearance on the international stage since Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent articles of impeachment to the Senate, before the senators who will decide his fate even arrive at the Capitol building, Mr. Trump addressed the World Economic Forum, focusing on the success of the global economy — and taking credit for it.

“America’s economy was in a rather dismal state,” Mr. Trump said. “Before my presidency began, the outlook for many economies was bleak.” In fact, the economy’s recovery after its plummet was central to President Barack Obama’s legacy.

But Mr. Trump called the growth under his leadership a “roaring geyser of opportunity,” and proclaimed that “the American dream is back bigger better and stronger than ever before.”

In his 30-minute address in front of a global audience, Mr. Trump did not mention the impeachment trial back home. But he delivered what amounted to a version of his campaign speech minus the red meat to his base, speaking little of international alliances other than touting America’s supremacy in the world.

Mr. Trump highlighted the first phase of his trade deal with China and another with Mexico and Canada, accomplishments he thinks are being overshadowed by a focus on an impeachment trial he is trying to dismiss as a “hoax.” And the audience appeared receptive — to his face, at least — having warmed to him over the past two years because they have benefited from his policies.

“Lev Parnas is not a topic of conversation at Davos,” said Ian Bremmer, president and founder of Eurasia Group, a political research and consulting firm.

Mr. Parnas, an associate of Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, has been on a nonstop media tour over the past week, asserting that Mr. Trump was fully aware of the pressure campaign to force Ukraine to investigate Mr. Trump’s political rivals. Democrats have not ruled out trying to call him as a witness.

The open question, as always with Mr. Trump, was how much he would stray from his script and the escape offered by the world stage, and vent his grievances about his legal and political predicament at home. But in his morning address, he stuck largely to his prepared remarks, claiming that his approach was “centered entirely on the well-being of the American worker.”

The president also took a swipe at people demanding action on climate change, the lead agenda item at this year’s conference. Mr. Trump announced that the United States would join the 1 trillion trees initiative launched at the World Economic Forum. But he also declared that “we must reject the perennial prophets of doom.”

Former Vice President Al Gore, who attended Mr. Trump’s speech, declined to comment on his remarks.

It was not clear whether Mr. Trump would try to stage a surprise meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, who is also attending the international forum, even though officials said the optics of such a meeting would be unhelpful to Mr. Trump.

In Davos, however, Mr. Trump may find the right audience for support if he sticks with efforts to counter the impeachment narrative at home. There was less anxiety rippling through the one percent set about him on Tuesday than there had been when he first arrived at the annual forum two years ago, fresh off an “America First” campaign filled with promises to rip up international agreements and alliances.

This time, there’s more concern about some of the progressive Democrats running to replace him. Through regulatory rollbacks, tax cuts and the success of the global economy, the president who ran as a populist has benefited many of the chief executives gathered here, even those who have taken public positions against some of his policies.

“There are lot of masters of the universe who think he may not be their cup of tea, but he’s been a godsend,” Mr. Bremmer added. “It’s interesting to hear Mike Bloomberg saying he would fund Bernie Sanders’s campaign if he won the nomination. Very few people here would say that.”

Mr. Bloomberg, the billionaire former mayor of New York City, who is himself running for president, has said he is open to spending $1 billion to defeat Mr. Trump, whoever emerges as the Democratic nominee.

During Mr. Trump’s colorful career in New York real estate, entertainment and business, he never cracked the Davos set, whose Fortune 500 chief executives dismissed him as something of a gaudy sideshow.

But the balance of power has shifted. And with progressives like Mr. Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts emerging as top-tier candidates in the Democratic primary, a crowd that once rejected Mr. Trump is now more willing to consider him one of their own.

Mr. Trump has happily embraced them back. When he signed an agreement at the White House for the United States-China trade deal, for instance, Mr. Trump credited himself with helping big banks and business.

“I made a lot of bankers look very good,” he said, and told attendees to send his regards to Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase.

There are however, still major points of contention ahead during the love-to-hate-it conference for Mr. Trump, who plans to spend almost two days here in bilateral meetings with leaders of Iraq, Pakistan and the Kurdish regional government, as well as sitdowns with corporate chieftains. (The forum is also Mr. Trump’s first trip abroad since the drone attack that killed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, Iran’s most important military official.)

Global warming and climate change top the agenda items for the conference. A star speaker on Tuesday, alongside Mr. Trump, is the 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg, who has said she wouldn’t “waste her time” speaking to Mr. Trump about climate change.

Mr. Trump withdrew from the Paris Climate Accord, and his administration has expanded the use of coal, downplayed concerns about climate change and rolled back environmental protections.

The president mocked Ms. Thunberg, who has Asperger’s syndrome, a condition on the autism spectrum, after she was chosen as Time magazines Person of the Year. “So ridiculous,” Mr. Trump tweeted. “Greta must work on her anger management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Greta, Chill!”

Attendees at the conference said they fully expected Mr. Trump to take another whack at her while she was here.

In 2018, Mr. Trump was the first sitting president to attend the forum since President Bill Clinton did so in 2000. Last year, he abruptly canceled his plans to attend, citing a partial government shutdown.

This year, the administration delegation includes Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, as well as Robert Lighthizer, the trade representative. Other members of the administration who were expected to attend the forum were Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary; Elaine Chao, the transportation secretary, and Eugene Scalia, the labor secretary.

Mr. Trump was also expected to be joined in Davos by his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his daughter Ivanka Trump, both senior White House advisers.

*********

Ms. Thunberg is the only adult in the room speaking truth to power. Greta is not an extremist, although her demands will be portrayed as extreme. Unfortunately for all of us, she’s a realist. It’s past time to pay lip service to the problem of climate change and global warming, because, as Greta so often says, our house is indeed on fire.

Greta Thunberg’s Message at Davos Forum: ‘Our House Is Still on Fire’

By Somini Sengupta, Reporting from the World Economic Forum in Davos | Published Jan. 21, 2020 Updated 9:45 a.m. ET | New York Times | Posted January 21, 2020 |

DAVOS, Switzerland — Greta Thunberg on Tuesday punched a hole in the promises emerging from a forum of the global political and business elite and offered instead an ultimatum: Stop investing in fossil fuels immediately, or explain to your children why you did not protect them from the “climate chaos” you created.

“I wonder, what will you tell your children was the reason to fail and leave them facing the climate chaos you knowingly brought upon them?” Ms. Thunberg, 17, said at the annual gathering of the world’s rich and powerful in Davos, a village on the icy reaches of the Swiss Alps.

Her remarks opened a panel discussion hosted by The New York Times and the World Economic Forum. The full transcript is available here.

“Our house is still on fire,” she added, reprising her most famous line from an address last year at the forum. “Your inaction is fueling the flames by the hour.”

Her remarks came at a time when climate change and environmental sustainability rose to the top of the talking points of many of the executives and government leaders assembled at Davos.

Ms. Thunberg, a climate activist known for speaking bluntly to power, rebuked the crowd for promises that she said would do too little: reducing planet-warming gases to net zero by 2050, offsetting emissions by planting one trillion trees, transitioning to a low-carbon economy.

“Let’s be clear. We don’t need a ‘low carbon economy.’ We don’t need to ‘lower emissions,’” she said. “Our emissions have to stop.”

Only that, she said, would enable the world to keep temperatures from rising past 1.5 degrees from preindustrial levels, which scientists say is necessary to avert the worst effects of climate change. She and a group of young climate activists have called on private investors and governments to immediately halt exploration for fossil fuels, to stop funding their production, to end taxpayer subsidies for the industry and to fully divest their existing stakes in the sector.

Scientists have said emissions must be reduced by half in the next decade to reach the 1.5-degree target. The opposite is happening. Global emissions continued to rise, hitting a record high in 2019, according to research published in December.

Her address began barely an hour after President Trump’s speech at the forum, which barely mentioned climate change, except to implicitly describe climate activists as “heirs of yesterday’s foolish fortune tellers.” Ms. Thunberg did not address him directly, except to remind the audience that the United States will withdraw from the Paris climate agreement by the end of this year.

Ms. Thunberg took pains to distance herself from politics. “This is not about right or left. We couldn’t care less about your party politics,” she said. “From a sustainability perspective, the right, the left as well as the center have all failed. No political ideology or economic structure has been able to tackle the climate and environmental emergency.”

*********

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hanniiesuckle17 · 5 years

Text

Immune Heart; Chpt.1

The World Today

Prologue

15 years later....

The soft sounds of the forest drew me out of sleep. Opening my eyes, I was greeted with the sight of the branches of the trees covering up most of the dim gray sky. Turning to my left, I saw Jimin still sitting against the tree as he scanned the surroundings, where I left him hours before. He was all grown up now. His hair fell across his structured face, and his shoulders were more full than they were when we were young.

"What time is it?" My voice broke the silence and his gaze shifted towards me. "It's about four maybe." I sat up and rummaged through my backpack. Finding my water bottle, I took a small sip. "We can make it to Diaborough right before trading starts if we leave now." I say to him as I put on the jacket that was draped over me. Jimin nods and stands up, placing his rifle to the side of him. He stretches as I pack up and we put out the embers of our campfire. I slung my larger gun (I think it's an AR-15 or something) over my shoulder with my pack. Jimin picked up his rifle and carried it with him.

We walked in complete silence as the forest slowly got lighter around us. It wasn't uncommon for us not to speak. We trekked through the wilderness on high alert. Each time Jimin thought he heard something behind us, he would bring me a little closer. He was always more cautious than I was.

There was two hours of walking in silence before we broke through the tree line. It was a little brighter, but not much. The sky was usually in a constant overcast creating a dim gray light below the clouds. We could see the scattered buildings of Diaborough about two miles away. "About forty minutes to walk and then we can rest before the stalls open." Jimin said looking at the horizon. I nodded and then moved forward, Jimin following me. My mind wandered to trading as we walked.

On average there were going to be about seven stalls open. Most would be produce and extra materials. We would probably have to pay under the table for more ammunition or look in the black market. We have about ten batteries, four blankets, and probably some lose parts somewhere that could be worth something.

Since the Purification started the world has gone into shambles. Homes destroyed. Economy crashed. Everything shut down. Almost all electricity shut off and few people had running water. Some people stayed on the move, like us, and some stayed put and tried to brave the harsh times. A currency system went out the window and we had to trade and barter for most things now. A few big rebellion organizations still paid in money, but only if you were personally contacted.

"Tate. We're here." Jimin's arm draped itself across my shoulder. The touch brought me out of my thoughts. We walked through the streets of what used to be a town. A few people littered the streets, some setting up shop, some probably finishing up a night watch, and a few drunkards just wandering about. This was no unusual sight. Most places were like this now.

Jimin and I walked up to a vender who had already set up her wares. "Welcome to Diaborough. Although there is not much to welcome to. What can I do for you strangers?" The woman said. Her voice was raspy and her layered clothes, old and worn.

"What can we get for 3 batteries and ten pieces of scrap copper?" A bright smile set on her face. Jimin was busy scanning the area. He kept close by me while I made the deal. "I can give you two cans of food, a water spigot, and one loaf of bread." She presented her offering on the table. I nudged Jimin and motioned to the table. He scanned the objects and then looked at me. He motioned with his fingers and then whispered something in my ear, his hot breath fanning over my cheek. He quickly turned back away and continues surveying the crowd now beginning to form.

"Are you kidding? Do you know how rare copper is? We should at least be getting three cans of food for my price." She looked a little on edge that I wouldn't take her deal. "But young lady, that's why I gave you the water spigot. For travelers like yourselves it is very-" "Yes, we understand that, but this is the last of our copper and we know we can barter it for something more somewhere else." Jimin once again placed is arm protectively over my shoulder and we started to walk away.

"Wait!"

I smirked and turned back around with an innocent smile. "I'll give you two bags of rice and a single piece of information on anything you ask for." Jimin nodded to me. "We'll take your deal." She looked relieved. She put our suppiles in a burlap sack and Jimin took it and exchanged it for our promised price.

"Your friend sure doesn't talk much does he." She said glancing nervously at Jimin. "He is just very protective." She smiled lightly. "What do you want to know?" Jimin looked around and took note of the people near. Pulling me closer, he said in his low soft voice, "Where are Diaborough's underground venders?" A couple of heads turned our way and I reached for the knife under my jacket slowly. The woman brought us in closer. "Oh. The black market. Go down to the docks. Warehouse 47. Just don't tell anyone what you saw there. Nefarious things happen there and I don't want to be part of them."

We nodded and took our supplies. Jimin let go of me and we walked side by side. "You don't have to do that you know." I said quietly. He didn't look over at me, only ahead surveying the crowds. "Do what?" We turned down an alley way and I walked in front of him, leading the way. "You know what I mean. I'm not a child or some flower that needs to be preserved." I said stepping over trash.

With out warning, Jimin had me pinned against the wall. "Tate. We don't know that. What about what happened that night?" His brown eyes bore into me with urgency and concern. "Jimin, I don't want to talk about it." I said trying to get out of his grip. "Tate we will have to talk about it eventually. No one has ever been rejected by an Injector like you have. That means something, Tate." We held a stare for a minute and his grip softened, now gently holding my wrists. "Fine. Until we find out for sure. You can treat me like a damn daisy. Just don't baby me. I could kill you in your sleep." I gave him a smirk over my shoulder as I walked away. "Oh you wouldn't do that to your child hood bestfriend." His melodious laugh filled the small alley as he chased after me.

Soon after we reached the the docks. Rows of warehouses lined the cement strip that dropped off into the bay. "Come on. There is bound to be ammunition somewhere in here." Jimin said. We stood outside the bunker labeled 47. "It's a bigger city, so we don't know what we'll see. Just keep your eyes on ammunition." I nodded and opened the small side door of the warehouse. The stench came first, then the noise. We were surrounded by venders packed together in one large place. Every where I turned there was some table with some dangerous or illegal thing on it. There were four lifted platforms in the building. Each had about forty feet of clear space around them, for people to stand. Usually merchants auctioned large objects off on the stages. Anything from livestock to human labor.

I looked across the tables scanning for ammo and weapons. Maybe a fake ID or two. Those always come in handy. I found a table across from one of the platforms. It had bullets, shells, and a couple of good knives along with some dinky knick knacks.

Jimin was at another table close to me, looking at assorted metal objects. "How much ammunition can I get for thirteen pieces of brass scrap and 4 batteries?" The filthy looking man looked up at me. The sight must have been amusing. My almost small frame being swallowed by my beloved jacket and the pack on my shoulders. "Well, I can give you eleven rounds and two knives of your choice." My eyes fell to a rather decorated wooden box in the corner of the table.

"What's that?" The man cracked a chipped tooth smile. "Well it's an item quite rare nowadays. But for a pretty little thing like yourself, I'll substitute it for one of the knives." He motioned for me to see what was in the box. I picked it up gingerly an opened the lid. Inside were the most vibrant and juice filled strawberries I had ever seen. I couldn't even remember the last time I had fresh fruit. "Deal." The man chuckled delight and took my trade. I chose a knife and took my box, knife, and ammunition. I turned to find Jimin next to me casually listening to the auction.

"You never could resist something hidden or sweet." He said without looking at me. We walked to the edge of the crowd around the stage. "Well what did you get, Mr.Park." He chuckled as I turned to him. "I got a 'new' pot, a couple of razors, and I managed to find some luxury lady items you might need." He said the last part with a chuckle. I elbowed him in the side. "What kind of auction is this anyway?" I still faced him, as he started to hand me the bag of things he got, his eyes still on the stage. "I think it's human labor. Probably some poor souls they took off the streets forced to be sold." I turned to the stage and watched the auctioneer announce the next sale. "Next, another fine worker. He's a strapping young boy about the age of twenty two. His starting bid is 20 brass pieces. Come on, you piece of shit. Get up here."

The man dragged a boy with shaggy brown hair and tattered, old, dirty clothing up on stage. His hands were bound and his head hung low, but you could see the dirt and bruises that lay painfully on his face.

"20 brass pieces for human life, what is this world-"

A glint of silver dangling around his chest caught my eye. It wasn't as clean as I remembered but it looked an awful lot like the necklace that my brother wore the night we tried to escape. It couldn't be. The pendant must be similar, that's all. "Sale number seventy one: Kim Taehyung. Age: Twenty two-"

It seemed the whole room lost all sound after that name was called. My eyes could only be fixed on the figure wearing my brother's necklace. The boy lifted his tear stained face. No it can't be. I saw him flung into a tree. The force would have killed an adult let alone a child. Was looking at the beaten face of my brother?

"Taehyung....."

Masterlist

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chez-pezeater · 5 years

Text

TCR Birthday Bash 2019: Day 7- Game Night

So this is probably going to get me either a lot of hate, thrown out of the fandom, or (best case scenario) requests for more. I’m honestly not sure which is worse (worst?) at this point. Either way please enjoy Cards Against Humanity: The Cat Returns Addition. Persephone is a TCR OC that belongs to @tcrmommabear & @sindysugar being used with their permissions.

At this point Hiromi has long since become a frequent visitor to the Bureau after following Haru one day. Meaning Hiromi while not quite as close to the others as Haru is, is still considered a friend. Also the humans are in their early 20s and knowing my friends and I when we get into the game, potty language. Which really should just be a warning for CAH in general.

Cards Against Humanity (for those that don’t know) is played with two types of cards: Black prompt cards and White (I call them) Reaction cards. A person draws a prompt card and the other players put down their reaction card(s) face down and then replace the number of cards they used. Prompt drawing player flips them over and selects the best reaction card of the round. Best reaction card(s) win the prompt card. Prompt cards use between 1-3 reaction cards.

- - - - - - - - - - -

To be fair, the entire thing was ENTIRELY Hiromi’s fault. Now that’s not to say that Haru didn’t love her best friend, because she did. She also knew EXACTLY what kind of humor Hiromi had. Mix that with a card game who’s box quite literally proclaims it to be “A horrible game for horrible people”. Yeah… It’s all Hiromi’s fault.

Hiromi drew a black prompt card. “’What’s making things awkward in the sauna?’ Ok folks hit me with your best shots.”

Louise puts down a card reading ‘A sales team of clowns and pedophiles.’

Muta chose to use ‘Scrotum tickling.’

Persephone gave it some thought before selecting ‘Cute Boys.’

Baron hesitated before putting down ‘MechaHitler.’

Haru slaps down ‘Full Frontal Nudity.’ with NO HESITATION.

Toto calmly places down ‘Fiery Poops.’

Hiromi reads all the reaction cards before declaring “A sales team of clowns and pedophiles is the winner. Who put that down cuz yeah that would make things awkward?”

Louise raises a hand while smirking. She accepts her prize before drawing a new prompt card, “’Only two things in life are certain: death and (blank).’ Oh my, there are so many ways that could be taken.”

Hiromi slapped down ‘The violation of our most basic human rights.’ as her card.

Muta, thinking of everything that happens regarding any of the groups antics, put down ‘Total fucking chaos.’

Persephone, not having very many good cards, selects ‘The male gaze.’

Baron, knowing how dramatic his sister is, chose ‘Dropping a chandelier on your enemies and riding the rope up.’ (winner)

Haru hemmed and hawed before putting down ‘Kamikaze pilots.’

Toto put down ‘Every ounce of charisma left in Mick Jagger’s tired body.’ hoping to get some laughs.

Louise read the cards out loud, cackling in between them, and said “’Dropping a chandelier on your enemies’ wins. So which one of you called me out like this?”

“I did sister dear, after all between the two of us this is exactly the kind of dramatics you would use.” Snorts echoed around the table, implying that Louise wasn’t the only over-the-top-Gikkingen around.

And so the game continued:

R3) Muta- (prompt) Listen, Gary, I like you. But if you want that corner office, you’re going to have to show me (blank).

Hiromi- Being a busy adult with many important things to do

Louise- Deez nuts

Persephone- Exactly what you’d expect

Baron- A constant need for validation

Haru- My worthless son

Toto- Meaningless sex

“Tough call but with how humans are ‘A constant need for validation.’ wins although ‘Meaningless sex.’ was close.” “Drat,” Toto declared while Baron took another card.

R4)Persephone- (prompt) Dear Sir or Madam, We regret in infom you that the Office of (blank) has denied your request for (blank).

Hiromi- Bill Nye the Science Guy & A gassy antelope

Louise- Republicans & Black People

Muta- Blackula & The shambling corpse of Larry King

Baron- Sean Penn & Tripping balls

Haru- AXE Body Spray & Being fabulous

Toto- Wifely duties & Consensual sex

“Seriously Louise? ‘Wifely duties.’ AND ‘Consensual sex.’ You know that combination wins.” “Sorry Love but that wasn’t mine.” “Nope it was mine.” “Well either way it was well played, well done Toto.”

“Looks like it’s time to pull out the ‘Most Horrible Person of the Night Award’.” “Hiromi, No!” “Hiromi YES!” “Hey! Why does Birdbrain get Doritos?!”

R5) Baron- (prompt) Well if (blank) is a crime, then lock me up!

Hiromi- The boners of the elderly

Louise- Eating together like a god damn family for once

Muta- The harsh light of day

Persephone- The Boy Scouts of America

Haru- Saying “I Love You”

Toto- The light of a billion suns

“I feel like I’m being called out right now. Who played ‘Saying “I Love You.”?” Baron asked with a very unamused look on his face.

“I did,” Haru replied straightfaced.

“You’re never going to let that go are you?”

“What do you think?”

Baron sighed before handing Haru the prompt card. It was better not to argue with her.

R6) Haru- (prompt) When I was tripping on acid, (blank) turned into (blank).

Hiromi- Sudden Poop Explosion Disease & Used panties

Louise- The economy & The sweet song of sword against sword and the braying of mighty war beasts

Muta- Expecting a burp and vomiting on the floor & Turning the rivers red with the blood of infidels (winner)

Persephone- Crazy opium eyes & Treasure beyond your wildest dreams

Baron- Natalie Portman & Angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night

Toto- A Ugandan warlord & Former President George W. Bush

“Really Muta? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: That’s disgusting.” “So are some of these reaction cards.”

R7) Toto- (prompt) Life for American Indians was forever changed when the White Man introduced them to (blank)

Hiromi- All my friends dying (winner)

Louise- Syphilitic insanity

Muta- How awesome it is to be white

Persephone- Indescribable loneliness

Baron- The Pope

Haru- The eighth graders

“Toto pass Hiromi the bag. Hiromi you’re terrible.” Hiromi just giggles naughtily.

R8) Hiromi- (prompt) (Blank): Brought to you by (blank).

Louise- Homeless people & Rich people

Muta- Mouth herpes & Going down on a woman, discovering that her vagina is filled with eyeballs, and being totally into that

Persephone- Santa Claus & Being rich

Baron- Shutting the fuck up & The Rev. Dr. Marin Luther King, Jr.

Haru- Getting caught by the police and going to jail & Going around punching people(winner)

Toto- Running out of semen & A mine having a stroke

“Sound about right.” “Oh and how would you know Turkey Leg? You don’t have any fists!” “Wouldn’t you like to know fatso.”

R9) Louise- (prompt) (Blank). Betcha can’t have just one!

Hiromi- Heartwarming orphans

Muta- Grammar nazis who are also regular Nazis

Persephone- Gwyneth Paltrow’s opinions

Baron- A sad handjob (winner)

Haru- Horrifying laser hair removal accidents

Toto- Emotions

“Is there something you want to confess brother dear?” “Not to you sister dear.”

R10) Muta- (prompt) This is the prime of my life. I’m young, hot, and full of (blank).

Hiromi- My dad’s dumb fucking face

Louise- Cancer

Persephone- Lunchables TM (winner)

Baron- YOU MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS

Haru- The Hamburglar

Toto- Statistically validated stereotypes

“What? I’m hungry!”

R11) Persephone- (prompt) We never did find (blank), but along the way we sure learned a lot about (blank)

Hiromi- Blowjobs for everyone & Pac-Man uncontrollably guzzling cum (Hiromi)

Louise- What Jesus would do & The South

Muta- The white half of Barack Obama & A black-owned and operated business

Baron- God & A chimpanzee in sunglasses fucking your wife

Haru- Jobs & Western standards of beauty

Toto- Important news about Taylor Swift & Starting a shitty podcast

“HIROMI!” “AHH SAVE ME SOMEBODY!” (This was not the first time Hiromi used Pac-Man against Haru. Nor would it be the last.)

R12) Baron- In return for my soul, the Devil promised me (blank), but all I got was (blank).

Hiromi- Jesus & White people

Louise- Third base & Being fat and stupid

Muta- A subscription to Men’s Fitness & Pooping back and forth. Forever.

Persephone- Some shit-hot guitar licks & An ass disaster

Haru- Interspecies marriage & Necrophilia (winner)

Toto- The Blood of Christ & Adderall TM

“Guilty conscious Haru?” “I’M NOT A FURRY DAMNIT!”

R13) Haru- (prompt) You won’t believe what’s in my pussy. It’s (blank).

Hiromi- Daddy issues

Louise- The power of the Dark Side (winner)

Muta- A salty surprise

Persephone- Old-people smell

Baron- My collection of high-tech sex toys

Toto- How wet my pussy is.

“I hate you all.”

R14) Toto- (prompt) Money can’t buy me love, but it can buy me (blank)

Hiromi- The mere concept of Applebees TM

Louise- Sexual peeing

Muta- Authentic Mexican cuisine

Persephone- An asymmetric boob job (winner)

Baron- Helplessly gigling at the mention of Hutus and Tutsis

Haru- Switching to Geico®

R15) Hiromi- (prompt) (Blank) is a slippery slope that leads to (blank).

Louise- Blackface & Ripping open a man’s chest and pulling out his still-beating heart

Muta- Court-ordered rehab & Words, words, words.

Persephone- Same-sex ice dancing & Butt stuff

Baron- Establishing dominance & Stockholm Syndrome (winner)

Haru- Overpowering your father & Darth Vader

Toto- Copping a feel & A boo-boo

“Damn Baron, what are you into?” “I’m not! Why are you handing me these?” “Because you made shit go real dark, real quick boyo.”

R16) Louise- (prompt) My gym teacher got fired for adding (blank) to the obstacle course.

Hiromi- Walking into a glass door

Muta- Sperm whales

Persephone- Peeing a little bit

Baron- A face full of horse cum

Haru- Meatloaf, the man.

Toto- Warm, velvety muppet sex (winner)

“I think I need to give these back to you Toto.” “No no, you can still keep them.” (Cue unhappy Baron face.)

R17) Muta- What gets better with age?

Hiromi- Crippling debt

Louise- A Super Soaker TM full of cat pee (winner)

Persephone- Roland the Farter, flatulist to the king.

Baron- Yeast

Haru- The placenta

Toto- Nothing

“At least no one played ‘My genitals.’ this time.” “That can still change Haru~.”

R18) Persephone- (prompt) In his new action comedy, Jackie Chan must fend off ninja while also dealing with (blank).

Hiromi- Not having sex

Louise- Aaron Burr

Muta- Mixing M&Ms and Skittle like some kind of psychopath

Baron- The dentist

Haru- Samuel L. Jackson (winner)

Toto- Getting eaten alive by Guy Fieri

“To be fair, Ryan Renolds had a hard time dealing with Samuel L. Jackson in ‘The Hitman’s Bodyguard.’” “Still funny.”

R19) Baron- (prompt) Today on Maury: “Help! My son is (blank)!”

Hiromi- A woman

Louise- A monkey smoking a cigar (winner)

Muta- Teaching a robot to love

Persephone- Running naked through a mall, pissing and shitting everywhere

Haru- Such a big boy

Toto- Filling every orifice with butterscotch pudding

“What is ‘Maury’?” “An American TV show that mostly deals with people deliberately exposing themselves to lie detectors and paternity tests because they can’t stay in their lanes and be decent human beings.”

R20) Haru- (prompt) Heed my voice, mortals! I am the god of (blank), and I will not tolerate (blank)!Hiromi- Sunshine and rainbows & Incest

Louise- The profoundly handicapped & Throwing a virgin into a volcano

Muta- Sweet, sweet vengeance & Cheating in the Special Olympics

Persephone- Finger painting & The hiccups

Baron- Erectile dysfunction & Having a penis (winner) (game end)

Toto- Nickleback & Licking things to claim them as your own.

“That’s it, game over, Baron wins, Good night.” “Oh c’mon Haru.” “Nope! Can’t do it! Good night!”

- - - - - - - -

‘Most Horrible Person of the Night Award’ is an inside joke among my circle of RL friends that typically ends up being a bag of Doritos.

#the cat returns #cards against humanity #warning: bad language #tcr birthday bash #tcr birthday bash 2019 #the cat returns fanfics #chezpez writes #TCR

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levinea-yuuki · 6 years

Text

I've been thinking recently

We don't have much foundation. Both Millennials and Gen Z are stuck with so much responsibility for our futures. We're judged for our quirks, called special snowflakes by the most entitled generations, and tossed out on our own by Baby Boomers and Gen X.

Now I definitely don't feel like a Generation Z child because of two reasons:

I'm 22 years old and that just makes me feel like a millennial based on the whole structure and my lack of a sense of timelines.

I've never gotten into fortnite or the majority of these memes or dabbing.

But honestly that is not going to stop me from enjoying watching all of these people having dance-offs or making cleverly woven jokes or saying things I'll never fully grasp, (I still don't understand "worm"), or simply feeling refreshed about the open-minded beliefs of equality and acceptance, understanding, and kindness. Pour as much of that on as your hearts can show.

Getting back to the point. Though there's not much of a generation gap between Millennials and Generation Z in my point of view, seeing as we're both dragged into the same issues that arose with having to deal with the baby boomer generation in the same manner that we're having to deal with Gen X, though maybe not to the same extent, I feel like the older Generations are trying to shove a gap between us or push the blame.

This link takes you to a website that expresses just how much there is to think about with what Baby Boomers have done to our economy... Even though they blame millennials. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/apr/29/millennials-struggling-is-it-fault-of-baby-boomers-intergenerational-fairness

It's not just our economy that I'm worried about in the long run.

We can repair that type of damage, what I'm really worried about how the younger ones are raised. Striking on a highly personal and sensitive note, my mother born in Gen X married young to my baby boomer father and had my brother and me, my brother being in the millennial generation. After seventeen years of supporting us, forced into not seeing us very much at all with working two jobs and still expected to cook and clean while he made no effort to get his own job, criticized her for everything she did as well as prevented her from having literally any friends in or out of work, she got out. Good for her, right? She left the abuse, lived a little, remarried, and had my siblings.

Now here's where it gets sticky.

This left us with our father (me as a sheltered albeit pampered 11 year old and my brother the inexperienced 16 year old who was also pampered) because he fought her in court and somehow won full custody of us. It came to the point where my brother was suddenly the sole money maker for the household (while also in school) in the time frame of a week after she left because dad still refused to get a job but insisted on smoking and drinking a six-pack a day anyway. At the same time his pride got in the way of accepting my mom's help because she had optional child support and when he did accept it he immediately went and spent it on his booze, so she ultimately stopped the fruitless. He cut ties between my mother and us and pretended everything was fine and dandy now that she was gone. When he died of an impending and incurable death triangle (kidney failure, liver failure, and sever diabetes) almost five years later we were left with his debts and he didn't teach us a single thing to get us started. Almost three years later, I left to live with my mother because she found us and got back in touch. My brother rejected her offer and went out on his own, swimming in the unbacked pride dad had set, and since then has been entirely incapable of holding a job for more than a few months before he's fired for one thing or another. He still refuses to speak with her.

Now on my end, everything started fine. I was expected to do some of the chores, finish highschool, and I finally had the chance to learn who my mother was the first time in my life... but once I had settled in I came to understand that she was in a constant defensive state anytime she was questioned and was afraid of moving forward. She suddenly had a late teenage daughter that didn't know a single thing about living. To this day four years later she has had a very easy-to-boil temper. It started as a self defense mechanism, she had to become this way to keep herself alive with my dad as a husband, but she became more than the overseer of the new family, she became an overbearing abrasive woman to make sure things were going her way so that there was no way she could slip back into what she had been living in.

She is now the type of person who considers pain to be a competition, a concept of reality she got from her father, my father, and her generation as a whole. Her existence is work, bills, her new spouse, and figuring out how to set me on my siblings on the best path. She has experienced more pain than I can picture, lived a longer life with many challenges, gave every ounce of effort to get back to her senses and I respect that wholeheartedly, but what I can't seem to respect or handle is her needed to feel like she's right all the time even when she's dead wrong, how deaf she is to the hurtful things she says, and how she goes about getting things done.

It's not just life she tackles harshly now, but pain is measured on her own set of scales. It is her competition in order to feel sturdier about her situations and I see this a lot in her age group, frequently and everywhere, but in the process of all of this she invalidates anybody else's difficulties if they are less than her own. In her eyes, "if I can tolerate it then you should be able to" or "if it's not bothering me then it shouldn't bother you" is the only reality. There are no extra spoons or forks, no in between, no consideration for how somebody else perceives a situation or how much somebody else can handle before they burst, and particularly with people in my age group she holds absolutely no patience. It's almost like she considers us a to be hypochondriacs because we haven't learned how to "suck it up" or "save face" when the physical aches or mental loads are too much, or the shambles they've left our economy in and voting Trump in because they think he will just fix it right up like changing a tire. It's entirely irresponsible, immature, inhumane, and unreasonable. She and most people her age, and people like my father, are incredibly blind to it. I can no longer respect them or trust them.

Now here's the kicker.

She as well as many other mothers claim that people in my age group have tunnel vision, that each day is brand new for us, that we don't know hardship or real stress, when in reality we are all facing the teeth gritting consequences for their choices. We are trying so hard to have optimism and open hearts, the patience they lack, and the wisdom to break free from their mislay of twisting roads and bare minimum guidelines.

As an example of her mindset and the challenge it presents, she believes I am entirely incapable of taking care of stressful situations when she hasn't taught me how, just like my father but and almost an exact opposite sense. My father pampered me and sheltered me, my mother drowns me only in harsh reality and expectations. It's not just her, the society these Generations have built are also malfunctioning and sending catless mixed messages. There are scores of American schools that don't teach a lick of daily knowledge like how to clean without making freaking mustard gas or how to go about sewing on a button. Cooking, paying bills, skills like changing a tire or what to do when the electricity goes out and it's not the breaker. Finances and taxes. They believe that schools only need to teach things like the states and capitals, sports, math, language (but only English and Spanish, I wanted to learn Japanese and sign language guys...), wars, a collection of science subjects, and maybe music. They've cut the budget for anything else. Screw the general public. Even my mom acts like her goal is to become middle class so that my siblings have more opportunities to learn what they need, but she's so fixated on raising her rank in society's standards thinking that it will solve everything she can't comprehend the real issues.

She believes I don't get certain responsibilities done the instant she tells me to because I'm lazy or inconsiderate, but mostly it's because my mind doesn't allow me to multitask like hers does, or I'm not sure how to go about it because I have to teach myself, and therefore it's just one more thing she has to add to the list of what I am not putting any effort into. She doesn't understand, or maybe she doesn't WANT to understand, that I have anxiety when I'm put on the spot because if I don't have a moment to think about what to do she chooses to scream at me instead of simply suggesting a solution or helping me think, and then decides to take over the responsibility with an added bonus of guilt-tripping and gaslighting. After years of this I've grown apathetic to her to the point where she has started calling me heartless and disrespectful. It is incredibly difficult to respect somebody who treats you like a tool that needs fixing but also doesn't make the effort to find out what's wrong in the first place.

I've read so many cases of this, just terrible awful parenting, it's to the extent where it's old news and that's unfortunate because it still hasn't changed. Make situations like these current news, spread them with a warning for our future, this problem has been around for so long it is almost entirely ignored by the older Generations in exchange for the opportunity to push blame. I myself have gotten so tired of asking "what is wrong with them? Why don't they see what they're doing? Don't they understand how harmful this is?" I see my mom giving sexist excuses about the behavior of men into the mind of my younger brother, I see her pushing my sister to tolerate him instead of stopping him from acting this way, and I think, "why can't they take responsibility for the damage they've done, re-evaluate themselves, or feel any regret for the stigma they choose to keep planting in young minds?" At every turn I'm invalidated, and though I'm expected to watch my siblings, I'm not allowed to stop them if they choose to play recklessly, rebel, or cock an attitude if I tell them they need to do something like brush their teeth or put a toy away. Unless there's an obvious chance of injury, I'm prevented from intervention. What kind of children are these siblings of mine going to grow into with this mindset? What are the claims that her generation are going to throw on them when there's no one else to blame? Why am I expected to relent to her demands and stretch and mold myself into her concept of what an adult should be if I can't suggest a compromise or take a stand? How am I or anyone else supposed to know what to do in shaky situations is if were not given the chance to learn, shown an example of how, or charted a better path instead of setting expectations and just demanded to reach them? I can't stand this. Each of these generations all hold individual, unique, brilliant people but the younger ones are treated like entirely different entities based on societies obsolete standards and malformed beliefs. This needs to change.

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dipulb3 · 4 years

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Analysis: Rotting fish, lost business and piles of red tape. The reality of Brexit hits Britain

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/analysis-rotting-fish-lost-business-and-piles-of-red-tape-the-reality-of-brexit-hits-britain/

Analysis: Rotting fish, lost business and piles of red tape. The reality of Brexit hits Britain

While it should be a source of embarrassment for the PM that his deal has made life very difficult for many of the industries that he has championed post-Brexit, Johnson’s public statements on the matter suggest he is oblivious to the reality that many are facing.

When asked for comment on the immediate consequences of the trade barriers implemented as a result of the deal, a UK government spokesperson told Appradab Business:

“From the outset we were clear that we would be leaving the customs union and single market which meant that there would be new processes after the end of the Transition Period. These were widely communicated through our public information campaign.”

The starkest example of what Brexit is doing to British business comes from Scotland’s fishing industry. Despite the government’s claims during Brexit negotiations that the fishing industry was very near the top of its priority list, there is a real fear that the entire industry could collapse in a matter of weeks.

“We had an entirely new system for exporters to get their heads around that hadn’t been tested prior to use. The result, somewhat inevitably, was that it started going wrong straight away,” says James Withers, chief executive of Scotland Food and Drink.

“This isn’t as simple as an IT glitch that needs fixing. In a matter of days, we went from being able to send fresh food to Madrid with a single cover sheet of paperwork. Now there are roughly 26 steps for each transaction.”

The real-world impact of this means that some exporters have had the European market cut off overnight. Almost every day, pictures circulate on social media of virtually empty fish markets and boats tied up. Withers has heard stories of Scottish boats sailing 48 hours to process catches in Denmark, just to get their stock into the single market. In an industry where profit margins are often thin, every hour spent working around red tape is critical to both the freshness of the product and the productivity of the business.

When pushed on the matter, Johnson has said that he thinks these are merely teething issues and not the fault of his deal or the barriers it’s created. His spokesman explains that the government is providing £23 million ($31.4 million) for the industry to ease the process.

When asked specifically about the fishing industry earlier this week, Johnson once again denied that the problems facing exporters had anything to do with his deal, but instead were due to restaurants being shut because of the pandemic.

However, Withers believes that money “will run out quickly” and without coming to some new sort of arrangement with the European Union, “this sort of exporting might not be sustainable” and will “almost certainly lead to the very people the [Prime Minister] said he was fighting for losing their jobs.”

The scenes in Scotland might not be as dramatic as the food shortages and lines of backlogged trucks that many predicted post-Brexit, but the damage is already showing up in economic data. Brexit issues are exacerbating a slowdown caused by pandemic restrictions, IHS Markit said on Friday, and lengthening suppliers’ delivery times. While 33% of manufacturers reporting a drop in exports linked the decline directly to the pandemic, some 60% linked the drop to Brexit, according to IHS.

ForagePlus, a horse nutrition business based in Wales, had dozens of parcels bound for Europe returned this week due to glitches in its shipping company’s new systems for processing customs information. “It’s just a shambles basically,” ForagePlus founder Sarah Braithwaite told Appradab Business, adding that it had been nearly a month since the company was able to ship anything into Europe due to the pandemic and Brexit.

There is real concern among trucking companies and logistics firms that things are going to get much worse in the coming months.

Multiple sources within the affected sectors told Appradab Business that British consumers won’t feel much disruption yet, as January is a typically quiet month at ports and the United Kingdom did stockpile goods to prepare for a possible no-deal Brexit. But that could change as trade volumes increase over the coming months, putting border systems under additional pressure.

This could result in a gradual reduction in the variety of fresh produce available to British shoppers. According to a spokesperson for Logistics UK, “in the short term, while supply chains sort themselves out, it may be that we return to a more seasonal approach to shopping or have a more limited range to choose from.” This could mean that after decades of fresh fruit and vegetables at all times of the year, Brits might have to start seeing strawberries as summer treat, for example.

The region where food shortages could fast become a real issue is Northern Ireland, where images of empty supermarket shelves have circulated on social media. Due to the unique position of Northern Ireland, it has split with the rest of the United Kingdom and remained inside the EU single market, making it a lot harder to import food from Great Britain. Simon Coveney, Ireland’s foreign affairs minister, said that images showing empty shelves in Northern Irish supermarkets were “clearly a Brexit issue” and “part of the reality” of the United Kingdom leaving the European Union.

Trade experts are concerned about the gradual decline in EU-UK trade. “The slow decline is in some ways more dangerous than sudden food shortages,” says David Henig, UK director at the European Centre For International Political Economy. “I am particularly concerned about exporters being unable to fulfill orders and losing customers or just giving up completely. The long-term message that sends could be very damaging for inward investment,” he adds.

There are legitimate questions as to why things have been so bad, despite the United Kingdom having years to prepare for the cliff edge. “We’ve known about the risks of not being prepared for five years,” says Anna Jerzewska, founder of Trade and Borders, which assists exporters and importers across Europe.

Jerzewska says that her clients are reporting numerous complaints, but most worryingly a failure of support from the UK government to resolve their issues. “Getting an answer to a technical question could take 48 hours, which is obviously a problem for fresh produce. People in the call centers can only really point to guidance, but the guidance isn’t currently fit for purpose.”

And despite everyone involved working hard to resolve the early issues, Jerzewska fears this won’t be enough to save struggling British exporters. “At the moment it’s shock, but the underlying costs are not going away. And for traders who work at thin profit margins, an extra couple of percentage points could be the end.”

Many of Johnson’s Conservative lawmakers are struggling with how to reply to their constituents. “The party gave us lines to read out when the deal came through presenting it as a huge success, but as time goes on, it’s clear there’s quite a lot of nasty surprises in Pandora’s box,” says one Conservative member of parliament who is not permitted to speak on-the-record about government policy outside of their brief.

Others say that small local businesses are up in arms at finding out that if they want to visit Europe to sell their goods, they might need a work permit from foreign governments or paperwork allowing them to move goods into the European Union.

There isn’t much optimism that things will improve in the near future among moderate Conservatives. Many are extremely worried that the gradual decline caused by Brexit will ultimately lead to Europe trying to lure Britain’s golden goose to the continent: The City of London, which hosts many of the world’s biggest banks.

“Once the fog of Covid lifts, financial and professional services firms looking to expand globally will see London and realize that we have given up quite a lot of our competitive advantage,” says the Conservative member of parliament.

The trade deal Johnson signed bizarrely didn’t address either of these, despite them making up a huge part of the UK economy. Banks and traders in London are now hoping to be granted “equivalence” by the European Union, a designation that would allow them to continue serving EU clients with limited disruption.

“If no deal is reached on equivalence for financial services or data, that could kickstart a squeeze on the city from EU regulators and leave businesses wondering what the benefit of setting up in London is if you want to serve the European market,” says Henig.

The European Union and United Kingdom are supposed to reach an agreement in March on financial services, but the mood music from both London and Brussels right now suggests that the United Kingdom is unlikely to be pulled back into the EU regulatory sphere any time soon.

Many Brexiteer lawmakers felt vindicated when the world didn’t fall off its axis in the immediate aftermath of Brexit, as plenty of the anti-Brexiteers’ worst nightmares failed to materialize. However, if the current trajectory of gradual decline continues, the slide could become uncontrollable.

Those politicians will have to explain to voters why they encouraged their prime minister to pursue such a hard Brexit despite the warnings of its consequences. They have a couple of months before things get really bad to put pressure on Johnson to start engaging with the reality of Brexit a little more.

The question that matters most to those struggling is how bad things must get before those who most vocally supported Brexit are willing to break ranks and admit the truth: that leaving the world’s largest trading bloc has immediate consequences.

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tom--22--felton · 4 years

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A couple of days ago an anon asked how much money Tom made from his parties. Obviously we have no hard facts but we can make an educated guess. Tom has almost 10 mil IG followers and his DrakoTok got 10 BILLION views. Can we assume 50,000 people watched his party? I think it's reasonable. Then he made $750,000. Can we assume 100,000 people watched? yes, then he made 1.5 million dollars. Given his aggressive advertising it is possible he made more than that (1)

I have noticed people discussing Tom's parties on other HP blogs. People are really mad at his deceitful and misleading advertising. His 19th HP reunion party was advertised as live but Dan and Rupert sent short recordings and Emma didn't show at all. People said Tom's parties were a scam. Val says Tom will have to come up with new programming, people are not stupid. I respectfully disagree. Tom's fans don't care, they will pay him millions no matter what. (2)

Tom is very smart, in the middle of the pandemic when the world economy is in shambles, he figured out how to make millions off the fandom. This is even more profitable than the fan conventions. It doesn't matter that this is a scam, it is legal and Tom's fans love him. Like cheating, people will say Tom is doing nothing wrong. Fans will pay to watch him eat cheerios. So going forward, just assume Tom will be making millions (3)

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I guess I’m not educated enough because for some reason I have hard time believing 50k people paid to watch the party :) Not that it matters because I guess you are right and he made good money for both of the parties anyway. I can’t really agree it’s a scam, or maybe it was only me who didn’t expect live interaction between the actors in 19years later party. But I agree that him posting pictures with golden trio might be misleading and people believed all of them will be present.

I also can’t agree that people are THAT stupid to pay for anything he has to offer. I still think he has to come up with something. What can it be? He used HP cast to attract viewers for the first one, and I’m going to be honest with you, i really liked it. He used his friendship with Jason and his own family to attract people for the second one. I think the only thing he has left to offer is Emma. And if he convinces her, then yes, people will pay.

I do agree that this format is even better than conventions. I think it’s easier to organize and is much more profitable. It doesn’t give him love and adoration, and positive energy he clearly enjoys during comic cons, but i think the paycheck is good enough not to be disappointed.

If anyone thinks I’m judging him, I am not. It’s a good thing that Liam gave him an idea of how to use this platform and that Tom succeeded. Good for him. And I remind everyone that you don’t have to buy tickets if you don’t want to.

#anonymous ask t22f

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cksmart-world · 4 years

Text

The completely unnecessary

new analysis

by Christopher Smart

April 28, 2020

THE GOP IS NOW THE POT

They like to say they are the Party of Lincoln, even though Republicans have stood in the way of civil rights, voting rights and equal rights since the mid-60s. Maybe they like beards and top hats, who knows. But in reality, it is now the Party of Trump — POT. With the exception of lonely Sen. Mitt Romney, who voted to impeach the president, Republicans have been in lock-step with the guy who bragged about grabbing women “by the pussy” and then screwed a porn star right after his wife had given birth. About 80 percent of the Trump/Republican $1.5 trillion tax cut went to the wealthy — as congressional Republicans cheered and took bows. As Mr. T goes on about protecting preexisting conditions in health coverage, administration attorneys are in court trying to kill it and Obamacare. More cheering. Many Americans are too busy to pay attention to such minutiae, which is good for the POT. But the coronavirus spoiled everything and revealed to even those carefree souls that the Blowhard-In-Chief can't lead in a crisis. All those shameless Republicans, who were pretending Trump wasn't completely whacked because they got Supreme Court picks and rolled back environmental protections, are now stuck to him like a fat guy on a porn star. The words “inject Lysol” will live in infamy.

RUSH LIMBAUGH AMERICAN HERO

OK, it's time we gave Rush Limbaugh his due. After all, President Trump did award him The American Medal of Freedom for his radio broadcast that began in 1988 and reaches 20 million real Americans. Rush keeps patriots firmly grounded in the good old days when men were men and Jim Crow kept people in their place. Remember this comment: “The NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons.” And when it comes to law and order, Rush is the best at calling a spade a spade: “Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?” Remember the time Rush called Obama a “halfrican American” and played the song, “Barack The Magic Negro.” Was that a knee-slapper or what. And Rush tells it like it is on immigrants: “Some people would say we're already under attack by aliens — not space aliens, but illegal aliens.” And on same-sex marriage: "If same-sex fits the bill of the contract, then everything fits the bill," Rush said. "And at some point who's to say that you cannot have sex with a child... ." On women's rights, he's got the right answer, too: “When women got the right to vote is when it all went downhill.” Yep, when it comes to American values, there is no one like Rush Limbaugh. No wonder Trump gave him the American Medal of Freedom.

THE LYING BASTARD NEWS MEDIA

You know why Trump is always yelling at those stupid reporters and calling them Fake News? Because they are lying sacks of shit, that's why. Like this: On Jan. 22, when Trump said about coronavirus, “No, we’re not worried at all. And we have it totally under control.” It was the lying media that reported it. And on Jan. 30, when he said,“We think we have it very well under control... and we think it’s going to have a very good ending for it. So that I can assure you.” It was the lying media again. And on Feb. 10, when Trump said, “I think the virus is going to be — it’s going to be fine.” It was the damn news media. And on Feb. 27, when he said, “When you have 15 people [infected in U.S.], and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero. That’s a pretty good job we’ve done." Yep, lying bastard news media. And when Trump said he was “A war president,” and had “total authority,” the media reported that, too. And then they reported Trump saying: “I don't take any responsibility at all.” Then the media reported him saying this to governors: “Respirators, ventilators, all of the equipment—try getting it yourselves.” It's all a bunch of bullshit because the news media is just trying to make him look bad because they hate him. What other reason could there be?

WILL COVID 19 BRING BACK NATURE AND EQUALITY?

Abstinent pandas are now mating in quiet zoos. Wales have returned to the waters around Vancouver. And its quiet enough to hear birds sing in Chicago. From New York City to Wuhan, China the air is clear. The World Health Organization estimates that dirty air causes 4.2 million premature deaths a year. The question is, during this lockdown can we envision a better future or will we go back to pollution, noise and poverty that is guided by an inequitable financial system? Can we structure our lives without cars? Can we increase renewables? Can we put a higher value on the natural world? Can we make sure folks on the bottom of the economic ladder earn a livable wage with affordable health care? Can we come up with better government that isn't driven by an exploitive financial sector and its enablers? Jonathan Watts observes this: “Ultimately, the most important environmental impact is likely to be on public perceptions. The pandemic has demonstrated the deadly consequences of ignoring expert warnings, of political delay, and of sacrificing human health and natural landscapes for the economy.” Yet when we emerge from this scourge the economy will be in a shambles and the urge to get it up and running again may well eclipse any notion of conservation and equality. It need not be an “either—or” choice, but don't count on elected politicians to lead the way.

Post script — Well, sport fans that does it for another week here at Smart Bomb, where the staff keeps track of the president's cures for coronavirus so you don't have to. Times are tough, but there is a silver lining to all this — drive-in theaters are making a comeback. For the younger crowd it could be a great experience. There's nothing quite as entertaining as watching young people get drunk and vomit inside and out of their father's car. And, of course, it's completely virus free. For an added bonus, you can follow them to the car wash and watch as they wash off dad's car along with their pants and shoes. People have also rediscovered city parks. What's more joyful than taking the kids and the dog down to the park to chase ducks? It's the kind of thing money just can't buy. Neither the youngsters nor the dogs will ever believe they can't catch those slow, feathery waddlers — priceless. Another good thing about the pandemic is that people are finally seeing — after waiting in line for hours — that shopping at Costco isn't really all that cool. Who wants to stand in line for great deals, like a 48-pack of cinnamon rolls, anyway. Which brings us to home cooking and the resurgence of folks wondering how to use an oven. Time to bring the cookbooks out of storage. What is zest, anyway? Do we have a zest-maker? Ever wonder why people think cooking is fun. Some have about about had it with their own concoctions and are ready to brave the vagaries of coronavirus for some Gang Keow Whan. And really, who can blame them. The truth is, the staff here at Smart Bomb is jonesing for green curry, too. But since we don't dare make it, we're sending Wilson and the band on a mission to Archer Thai on 1100 East for takeout. And one day, we'll actually eat there again.

OK, Wilson, get the band to put down the Clorox and step out from the ultraviolet lights and play a little something from your old pal, Nilsson, to honor our commander in chief:

Now let me get this straight; You put the Lysol in the coconut You drank them both up You put the Lysol in the coconut, You drank them both up Called your doctor, woke him up, and said,

"Doctor, ain't there nothing I can take" I said, Doctor, to relieve this belly ache?" I said, Doctor, ain't there nothin' I can take"

You put the lime in the coconut, you drink them both together, put the lime in the cocount, then you'll feel better. Put the lime in the coconut, and call me in the morning

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renewdeal-blog · 7 years

Text

America’s Crumbling Infrastructure

Reflection

The Great Depression almost crippled America’s economy forever. A combination of the Dust Bowl and the Stock Market Crash of 1929 left the American economy in shambles, and without a way to escape the deep depression it was in. The only way the country was able to keep itself going was by virtue of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “New Deal”. This was a series of programs and regulations that sought to increase government involvement in the economy, in an attempt to revitalize it. It changed the way Americans viewed federal involvement in the economy, and brought about more socialistic tendencies to the United States. FDR provided millions of unemployed Americans with jobs, and set-up regulations that would prevent a future Great Depression, such as environmental awareness and social security. It created a new relationship between the population and the federal government, with a more intimate connection between the two. Although the New Deal sought to change the negative aspects of the American economy that only benefitted the wealthy people of America, many of these issues still remain today, and the gap between the rich and poor continues to widen.

America’s Infrastructure

Many of the issues that were present during the New Deal era are still very prevalent in America today. Specifically, the state of the U.S. infrastructure is as bad at it has been since the years during the Great Depression, when it was just beginning to be built. To address this issue, President FDR created programs such as the Civil Works Administration (CWA-1933), Public Works Administration (PWA-1933) and the Works Progress Administration (WPA-1935). All three of these programs were established in an attempt to create jobs for the large number of unemployed people in the country at the time, and were focused on building public places such as post offices, bridges, schools, highways and parks. Most of the infrastructure that is present in America today was built during this time period or in the decade after WWII. But this fact has severely impacted the quality of America’s infrastructure today. Although most of it was built over 50 years ago, it has been very poorly maintained since then. As a result, the infrastructure has slowly deteriorated over time to become one of the worst overall in the world, compared to other countries.

Every 4 years, the American Society of Civil Engineers comes out with a grade of the overall infrastructure of the United States. The most recent report, published in 2017, gave the infrastructure a D+, the same grade it received four years earlier. This is significantly behind other world powers, and results in billions of dollars lost each year due to poor infrastructure. Much of the discrepancy between the United States and its peers can be traced to very different funding levels. On average, European countries spend the equivalent of 5 percent of GDP on building and maintaining their infrastructure, while the United States spends 2.4 percent.

Since the 1960’s, the population in the United States has doubled. However, most of the infrastructure has lagged behind, and has been neglected in the eyes of the federal government. Many of these structures are reaching the end of their lifespan, and will require significant monetary resources to revitalize them. The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) estimates that over $800 billion is required just to help revitalize the country’s roads and bridges. The DOT found that 1 in every 4 bridges in the U.S. are either structurally deficient or are not designed to support the traffic that they carry on a daily basis. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also estimates that drinking water, irrigation systems, and wastewater systems will require $632 billion in additional investments over the next decade.

America’s airports have the largest amount of air traffic of any country in the world, yet the aviation infrastructure has failed to adjust. According to the DOT, about 20 percent of all arrivals and departures are either delayed or cancelled. Some studies have found that this costs the U.S. economy nearly $35 billion per year. New developing technology has also left the deficiencies in U.S. infrastructure exposed, with broadband networks and electrical grids failing to invest enough money to expand and upgrade their systems. The pervasive issues with American infrastructure mostly stem from one issue: federal funding. In most developed countries, the bulk of the funding for infrastructure comes from the top-down, with the federal government providing most of the monetary backing for infrastructure. However, the U.S. federal government only provides about 25 percent of the funding for public infrastructure. In this country, it is mostly up to the state and local governments to pay for the development and maintenance of infrastructure in their surrounding areas. This has left many local governments out to dry, with insufficient funds to meet the needs of the infrastructure.

The only way to counteract these deficiencies is increased federal investing. By increasing efficiency and reliability of transportation, the economy would be more competitive on a global scale and it would provide more of a cushion to the economy in case of a recession. Overall, the ACSE says the federal government and private sector need to increase the investment in infrastructure from 2.5% now to 3.5% in 2025, in order to meet the increasing needs and to improve the infrastructure score. This 1% increase in spending from the GDP is estimated to add 1.5 million jobs to the economy. If the government were to continue on its current spending rate until that time, the ACSE estimates about $3.9 trillion in losses to the GDP and 2.5 million lost jobs. Overall, the group says that there needs to be about a $1.5 trillion increase in spending by 2025 to ensure a successful and efficient infrastructure. If the spending is not increased, then the American economy will suffer the consequences.

youtube

Questions: If you were running for President of the United States, would you consider the state of America’s infrastructure as a pressing issue for your campaign? Why or why not?

How would you go about solving the issue of crumbling infrastructure?

Why do you think the federal government continues to neglect investing in infrastructure, while they continue to spend an absurd amount of the federal budget on military endeavors?

Sources

http://www.businessinsider.com/us-invest-over-4-trillion-by-2025-to-fix-infrastructure-2017-3

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/state-us-infrastructure

https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/

Kyle Hill

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derstheviking · 5 years

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The Neoliberal Dilemma

The conditions of neoliberal capitalism have created a dilemma in which property ownership is controlled by an oligarchical class that maintains wealth, though few middle or lower class people have the freedom of opportunity to attain this great wealth. Why then should a capitalist class exist in society when it is undermining our democratic institutions? Economists have shown that while there is regular movement between the lower and middle classes of an economy, very few middle class people are able to become upper class without being born into it. Therefore, it is unfair to justify the existence of this class that receives money from the middle class constantly, but is not forced to give any of it back through taxes, instead hoarding the wealth, pouring it into political campaigns, and investing in risky business ventures such as hedge funds and Wall Street. Every year in the United States, millionaires and billionaires donate millions of dollars to political campaigns around the country. While the campaign of Bernie Sanders was funded with only small personal contributions and union donations, the campaign of Hillary Clinton was funded primarily by large banks and financial institutions. When our politicians are bought and sold by corporations, how can they be held accountable to work towards an economic system that works for the best interests of everyday Americans rather than that of the super-rich? The best route towards building an electoral system that works for the people is to institute public funding of elections, where government money rather than corporate money is used to fund elections. But public funding of elections does not go far enough, we must reconfigure our electoral system to make it easier for third parties compete. Americans should no longer have to feel that they are throwing away their vote on a third-party candidate. With instant-runoff ranked elections, voters will have the choice to vote for third-party candidates as well as major party candidates in a ranking system. It is also essential that we pass a constitutional amendment to overturn the disastrous 2010 Citizens United supreme court decision that gave corporations the power to give unlimited contributions to political campaigns without spending limits. Attempts at controlling voter fraud are attempts to suppress the vote of low-income Americans and minorities. We must make voting easier in the United States to expand to vote to as many people as possible, anything less is undemocratic.

Global capitalism has reached a point of crisis at the turn of the 21st century. No longer can the world sustain a global capitalist system perpetuating the exploitation of third-world populations for the benefits of imperialist industrialized nations. Not only do we see an impending ecological crisis, with temperatures hitting never-seen-before record highs, with the use of coal, natural gas, nuclear power, and factory farming all contributing to ecological disasters, extreme weather conditions, global warming, and the destruction of natural environments, but an economic crisis as well, with wealth and power increasingly being concentrated in the hands of the very few, pushing down wages, and cutting social expenditures as a means to give massive profits to large corporations and their CEOs.

Trade deals are written by the corporations for the corporations, they continue to exploit workers, while reaping massive profits for multinational corporations while leaving local communities in shambles. Even in the United States, party power in the Democratic Party continues to find itself ever more in the hands of the few powerful party officials who attempt to rig the election in favor of centrist candidates. The traditional two-party system is facing a populist revolution like it has never seen before. Both on the Democratic and Republican side, both parties are facing fundamental splits in their electorates, opening up the possibility of new political parties taking power for the first time in the next century of American history. Wherever we end up, the continual push for progressive policies such as the $15 minimum wage, single-payer health care, and tuition-free public college, will be crucial to the success of America in the next century, or even the next 10 or 15 years. With a Republican-controlled stalemate in Congress, the Republicans have lucky for us failed to deliver on their promise to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. With 30 million people off health care, we need progressive health care reforms more now than ever. Obamacare set a mandate for insurance, but we need to expand health care so that Americans can receive health care for free through their tax dollars. Not only would the tax rate increase be lower than premiums are already, but the average American family would save $5,000 per year in health care costs. Not only do we stand for moving towards a single-payer health care system but also keeping in the short term what has worked about Obamacare such as equal rates for women, equal coverage and rates for preexisting conditions, and an expansion of Medicaid. Health care is a human right. The European Union constitution guarantees it as a right, and we should too. Plans to repeal and replace Obamacare are simply a massive tax cut for the super-rich and poor people gain nothing from losing Obamacare. If this is such a problem then all we need is to provide universal health care on the basis of production for use not for profit, saving money by eliminating private insurance companies. New York has made the right choice adopting the $15 minimum wage, though the timescale is slow, and a program of tuition-free college, though it only covers a portion of the people who need it. No one that works 40 hours a week should live in poverty. No one can make it on the current minimum wage.

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douchebagbrainwaves · 3 years

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WHAT WE LOOK FOR SPAM

And most importantly, if you make a conscious effort. In big companies there's always going to be about. On the Internet there's no reason to keep their current format, or even if you trade half your company for you once you'd grown it to a broader market. It seems to me identical to asking, how can I design a good language, it will be a minority squared. Who would rely on such a test? It would have been there without PR firms, who generated such a buzz in the news media that it became self-reinforcing, like a knife that doesn't cut well, or they stop going well surprisingly fast. I still don't understand Berkeley. Every programmer must have seen code that some clever person has made marginally shorter by using dubious programming tricks.1

The question is, can a language be? The field of philosophy is still shaken from the fright Wittgenstein gave it. You won't even generate ideas, because you have it too; almost everyone does. If someone seems slippery, or bogus, or a table of typical grant sizes supplied by a VC firm, understand what those are estimates of. Of course, the most valuable antidote to schlep blindness is probably ignorance. It's flattering to talk to corp dev. Do one thing and do it yourself.

In the years since, I've paid close attention to any evidence I could get on the question, from formal studies to anecdotes about individual projects. It's not the product that should be insanely great, but the idea is very much alive; there is a whole category of enterprise software companies that exist to take advantage of dramatic decreases in cost is to increase volume.2 The product is just one component of that. You'll also have a provisional roadmap of how to succeed. Even if there aren't many of them, there are certainly a lot of them were crap, but I can imagine some where trying to make sales would be a shambles. The networks are prevented from seeing this whole line of reasoning because they still think of themselves as being in the broadcast business—as sending one signal to everyone. So far most of what I've said applies to ideas in general. If you get bored with, or can't understand, or don't agree with one point, no problem: it won't kill the essay. It didn't work out as I'd hoped.

When you realize that successful startups tend to have multiple founders who were already friends before they decided to start a startup by just writing code. With time, as with money. At the very least, that worry will now be out in the open instead of being a successful startup founder is concealed from almost everyone except those who've done it. The first is that startups are so small. Nothing evolves faster than markets. If we ever got to the point where you're trying to convince investors is to make something people want. Eventually you get new habits, but at every point have working code—or the style of painting where you begin with a statement, but with a slow sales cycle.

On the face of it, this seems a rather damning thing to claim about a programming language? We'll have precise comparisons, but not very novel. Most of the people who've had to write about English literature—to work on. I was never sure about that in high school. For the past 9 years it was my job to predict whether people would have what it took to start successful startups.3 If you say: I'm going to build, plus the unscalable thing s you're going to write about writing. There are tricks in startups, at least de facto, expected to prepare them for their careers. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal described how TV networks were trying to sell you expensive things say it's an investment.4

The three old guys didn't get it. And I was a Reddit user when the opposite happened there, and the rest are just a cost of doing this can be enormous—in fact, discontinuous. He didn't stay long, but he wouldn't have returned at all if he'd realized Microsoft was going to write about English literature—to write, without even realizing it, imitations of whatever English professors had been publishing in their journals a few decades of the founding of Boulton & Watt there were steam engines scattered over northern Europe and North America. Why do the media keep running stories saying suits are back writes Nicole Ford in Sexbuzz. When I think how hard PR firms work to score press hits in almost every publication we wanted, but we never managed to crack the print edition of the Times. Eventually you get new habits, but at the other end of the spectrum from a coding job at a big company. Did they explain the long-term goal of being the market in accommodation the way eBay is in stuff?

Not understanding that investors view investments as bets combines with the ten page paper mentality to prevent founders from even considering the idea of fixing payments was right there in plain sight, they never saw it, because they know it's true. It's usually a mistake to talk to corp dev when they're either doing really well, I should explain what it means. And what we've found is that the Internet is an open platform. How will this all play out? They're problems! Which means your brain could conceivably be split into two halves and each transplanted into different bodies. But not quite.5 Perhaps we should do what Aristotle meant to do, instead of simply arguing that they are downwind. But this isn't true with startups. But I wouldn't want it to grow as fast as possible.6 I used was ridiculously simple.

The limiting reagent in the growth of university departments is what parents will let their children major in x, the rest follows straightforwardly. It's isomorphic to the very successful technique of letting people pay in installments: instead of painstakingly discovering things for ourselves, we could quote it to other publications, and claim that with 1000 users we had 20% of the online store market. Even a concept as dear to us as I. Since we would do anything to get users, we did. What's really going on here, I think TV companies will increasingly face direct ones.7 Even in cable TV, the long tail was lopped off prematurely by the threshold you had to look at a piece of writing and step back and ask whether the author was telling the whole truth?8 There's no need for a Microsoft of France or Google of Germany. Be sure to ask about how they funded themselves with breakfast cereal. One way to make something dramatically cheaper you have to follow. You could read the list in any order.9 Maybe it would be some kind of exit strategy, because you have it too; almost everyone does.

Notes

Ii. Picking out the same phenomenon you see with defense contractors or fashion brands.

We didn't know ourselves which VC firms. Treating high school textbooks. Which means it's all the red counties.

That's probably true of nationality and religion as a kid. They each constrain the other reason it's easy to read stories. I know for sure whether, e. But it isn't critical to.

It doesn't happen often. But if so, you have no idea what they too were feeling in 1914 on the Daddy Model may be a product manager about problems integrating the Korean version of this model was that professionalism had replaced money as a process rather than geography.

When you fund a startup with a company changes people. Samuel Johnson seems to set in when the problems you have the concept of the most abstract ideas, and he was a bad idea, at which startups develop new techology is the valuation of an ordinary programmer would never have worked; many statements may have been sent packing by the government. CEOs in 2002 was 3.

The solution was a bimodal economy consisting, in virtue of Aristotle's contribution? The bias toward wisdom in so many companies that have little to bring to the sale of art are unfinished. It seems as dumb to discourage risk-taking. If you like doing.

I'm not against editing. At this point for me was the fall of 2008 but no one knows how many of the problem, but simply because he writes about controversial things.

These range from make-believe, is that the probabilities of features i. Instead of no one who's had the discipline to pull ahead in the succession of spectacular treason trials that punctuated Henry's erratic matrimonial progress made him an obvious candidate for grants of monastic property.

Starting a company, and thus no form nor anyone to call you about an A round.

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