#silver processes bs

[castingmysilver]

It took me *far too bloody long* to connect the dots and recognize that generally "parents rights" translates *directly* to "children are property and/or not fully-fledged humans yet, and we should be allowed to do literally anything we want with them as long as it doesn't undermine our community norms by giving them too much autonomy." You wouldn't instinctively think it worked that way if you were raised on the rhetoric! But I keep running over and over into both anecdotal evidence and actual News to the tune of homeschooling being commonly used as a cover for egregious physical and sexual abuses and overt educational neglect, folks I was taught would stand up for families in need calling the worst offenders dragged into court "heroes," even more mainstream behaviors in the insular homeschooled and religious-schooled communities often raising eyebrows among those outside who mysteriously got treated better... so many people turning a blind eye at best to horror story scenarios to allow their status quo, and meanwhile... there are people who actually believe children should have rights and choices as far as is safe for them, shouldn't be micromanaged to the edge of their sanity, should have *kindness* and shouldn't be hurt in ways that would be criminal to a fellow adult??? The evidence keeps building up for me. "Parents' rights"="children have none."

[castingmysilver]

This... is about to get too long for tags.

They're *wrong.* You're not wicked, or dirty, or polluted, or damned. God doesn't see you as poison or feces, your righteous deeds are not menstrual rags. Some of "them" are actually bad, and some of "them" are horribly mistaken, but they are still wrong to condemn you. You're a long way from perfect but you're doing the very best you can with what you were given, and you'll get better, and learn, and grow, and someday you'll know more people who think you're a decent human than people who think God hates you; and you'll even start to hate yourself less and second-guess yourself less and spend a lot of time genuinely *happy* mixed in with the bad bits. You're only struggling so badly to bloom because none of your gardeners know how to give a flower the sun and water it needs. It *will* get better, I know it hurts terribly right now but I will find us more people who will know how to love us without hurting us. The feelings you have aren't bad because *you* are bad, they're bad because the *world* is bad. Please hang on for me, I trust you, I believe you can survive to see the good times coming.

Also... keep up with the art whenever you can, dear. We're gonna be so good at it you'd be proud of us one day, even Miss R. will admire what we can do with color.

Reblog with what you would tell your 13-year-old self in the tags.

[orpheusilver]

argument scene is. a lot.

[jovibee]

Everybody finds it strange that Silver is the only character that doesn’t have a last name and idk if that’s been addressed in game yet but I like to think that his last name IS Vanrouge and he just asked for it to be dropped from his papers

[unicornondeck]

would you tell me what's wrong? (silver)

As Silver's gaze met his, Izzy's lips straightened into a line. When questioned about his state, he offered only a shrug in reply. His silence spoke louder than words. He avoided direct eye contact initially, opting to mess around with the handle on the drink as he tried to come up with a plan. The scent of alcohol lingered around him and added to the credibility of the few empty glasses by him.

His shoulders were tense against the back of the chair, both legs on top of the table beside the adjacent glasses. He was silent, clearly wrestling with something internally. He knew he was not exactly hiding his feelings about the past few weeks but it was clearly about to boil over. "Nothing is wrong, why would anything be fucking wrong? Everything is fine."

@pyratezlife

[castingmysilver]

....still processing this one.

I know hell is an insanely evil thing to *desire to exist* but i.... am struggling a little as someone raised in an intensely Christian bubble with whether it's insane evil to *teach about* if you firmly believe it exists and are scared of it yourself and trying to keep people you love OUT at all costs, rather than consciously using as a manipulation tactic??

I mean I know abuse isn't always dependent on intent, but like... Is there a moral difference between handing on a harmful belief with intent to harm, and handing on a harmful belief because it's your best understanding of the world?

my most antitheist opinion is that hell is like. a cartoonishly evil thing to believe in and insanely abusive to teach children about

[umbrellajamming]

I feel like whether Tim is on some level suicidal in RR #12 is very open to interpretation, which is part of what makes it fascinating!

because Tim's homecoming to Gotham is the culmination of an upward/self-actualization arc, after struggling through multiple low points/depression/an extended breakdown.

he finally got proof Bruce is alive. managed to claw Tam and himself out of the Cradle and away from the Council of Spiders/LoA by the skin of their teeth. thumbed his nose at Ra's and reaffirmed his own principles by blowing up all the LoA servers. finally kind of processed that Kon and Bart are both alive again - he just tackle-hugged Kon in RR #9 and told him, "when you found me in Paris, I was in a bad place. Now... Now I'm in a good place." he's full of renewed purpose and the realization that he doesn't, in fact, have to do things alone! (team-up Robin ftw!)

so probably not actively suicidal

but then in all of his frantic calculations to thwart Ra's and save each and every person Bruce loved - he doesn't factor himself in. he doesn't put himself on that list of loved ones and set up a contingency for preserving his own life (wtf Tim).

or does he??? that's where the ambiguity comes in for me, because we don't actually see him discussing the full details of his plan with anyone. and he doesn't mention it in his internal narration, either! because his internal narration is always super reliable..... hmmm.....

we know that Dick isn't aware of any other contingencies, or indeed the full details of the plot they were thwarting - after catching Tim, Dick has to ask him, "You want to tell me what that was all about?" and of course "How did you know I'd be there to save you?"

and as I've mentioned before, I don't think Tim had actually planned for Dick to save him, so his "You're my brother, Dick. You'll always be there for me," response is uh, both loving BS and a "genuinely felt expression of retroactive faith", as Silver put it (and which has been stuck in my mind in glowing cursive letters ever since, lol).

but. we do know that as part of his plan to thwart Ra's ninja-assassinate-Bruce's-loved-ones plot, Tim calls all three of his best friends into Gotham. (among all his other rallied allies.) his best friends who are various combinations of flight and/or superspeed capable. and who had each just smugly patched in via comm to confirm that their protection jobs were all successful, meaning Tim knew they were available if he potentially needed them.

the fact that the rest of the Core Four then twiddle their thumbs and let Tim keep fighting Ra's on his own after confirming Alfred/Selina/Barbara are safe, instead of zipping over to have his back (ie punch the jackass through a wall) almost has to be because of: (a) Tim's plan to deliberately stall so Lucius could file the WE paperwork (on the Watsonian level), (b) Yost allowing Tim to have his Final Showdown with the villain of the arc on his own, and also (c) Yost setting up the emotional climax/reconciliation of Dick catching Tim (both on the Doylist level).

like, Tim stalls Ra's for long enough that Dick is able to glide and grapple his way over from his own ninja-busting detail, we don't think the speedster or the Superboy could have gotten there in time?

Dick is the one who caught Tim because it was thematic, it's a motif in their relationship and the resolution of their 12-issue arc, and don't get me wrong I wouldn't change that moment for anything - but! he wasn't the only one around who could have done so.

and Iiiiii have to suspect Tim would know that? there's ambiguity and room for interpretation, of course, especially since Tim doesn't say anything at all or call out to anyone as he's actually falling.

but also. Kryptonian superhearing? Tim's comm which could very well still be connected? could he have been relying on allies listening/clue-ing in, whether or not he actually explicitly sketched out a back-up plan with anyone to come back him up, after Lucius was done transferring WE? all according to (dumbass improvised) keikaku??

idk! seems plausible to me, but it's all so open to interpretation, it makes my brain go BRRRRRR 😊 like you can make a compelling case/headcanon/fic any way you look at it!

anyway. Dick catching Tim is very much The Moment Ever Of All Time <3 but also the thought of Kon just hovering at the ready to grab Rob but spotting Dick!Bats swooping in and being like ":))) oh ok. they both need this." is v. hilarious to me

[honey-floret]

Log X07242554 Journal of Dr. Beatrice "Honey" Lewis

A oddly calm woman with long brown and silver hair, and crooked, oversized glasses hiding slightly blown out eyes comes on screen, you can see the legs of an affini behind her. In her background is a large room, its white walls covered in bookshelves. The room is brightly lit by natural light.

Hiiiiii, this is Beatrice "Honey" Lewis. Recording in... my j.. jou.. journal for the the woman counts on her hands, this many times!!! and holds up six fingers. I... I... I'm a.. at the n.. new hab unit now.. I'm I'm happy to be here, it... it.. it's bigger than my old apartment and a..aa.. all my things are here. And so... so.. so is Ashli!!! Say hello to my journal Ashli!!

Hello journal, isn't Honey just the cutest like this?

Giggles You called me cute!

I did didn't I? It's because you are. Honey do you mind if I take over your journal for today? You should go have your meds and rest you had a long day.

Okiieeee Dr Beatrice Honey Lewis heads off screen

Now that I'm alone, I should give an accurate account of what happened today, and then I'll lock this recording.

The affini adjusts something on the datapad.

Today was moving day for Honey, I knew it was going to be a stressful day for her. I found her datapad recording last week and I ended up watching her journal entries. She talked about how much she hated moving. I decided that in order to reduce that stress that I'd take her out for a walk during the moving process, and then bring her over to her new hab unit when everything was set and done. It... didn't go exactly as I had planned.

Honey was nervous and upset the entire time. She kept complaining about how she wasn't there to make sure they had gotten everything, and that they knew exactly how to put everything out in the new place.

She started spiralling, crying about how it was unfair for us to move her. How unfair it was that she wasn't allowed any amount of freedom; how she wasn't allowed to just be alone. We had only left her place for half an hour before she had a complete meltdown, falling to her knees and crying. Very different from the persona she tries to give off.

I know that Honey didn't want any Xenodrugs. She has been very adamant about that. But, there wasn't anything else I could do in the moment. So... I pricked her with some class E's. And some class D's. And A's. And later I'm sure she won't want to remember this I'll slip her some class Bs.

She was honestly doing so well this last month. I know she says that it's all an act in her journals, but she said under the effects of the class Ds that she's really enjoyed it. That she appreciates the care and routine that I've given her, and all the instruction in how she can look after herself. She still expresses a want and need to go back to work, but I can see her making a good floret.

I think that when the time comes I will release her from my care, but on the condition that she be put in an work environment with affini. I have a good friend, Cybilpedium Acaule, who works in xenoarcheology, who could keep an eye on her...

She really is just the cutest.

-End Recording-

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

First << Previous << List of Chapters >> Next

[castingmysilver]

....I find a great deal of Derek Webb's "The Jesus Hypothesis" album relatable but I'm kinda stuck on these lines from "Some Gods Deserve Atheists" rn.

"When you were young

Hypothetical sin

Was all that you'd done

It was so simple then"

So........ this would imply having a generalized view of sin nature but *not* believing every other move you make is fucking up???? That was not my personal fundie-adjacent experience!

[ryuichirou]

i saw a twst piss shade thread on twitter and was sharing to acquaintances how Idia is so often hc to piss in a bottle, energy too strong, and so! i wanna ask who do you think would piss in their bottom's mouth or ass :D your ask box has been quietly uncursed those days by what's answered and i thought of that so i'm not sorry uwu

Anon, this is such a long overdue reply, but I never forgot about your ask. In fact, I was saving it for a rainy day (golden rainy god I hate myself), because the mere fact of having such an ask in our ask box was making me happy. I really appreciate the cursedness of it, and I especially appreciate you considering us an authority on such an important, topical and very complicated question.

(by the way, of course Idia would pee in a bottle – the guy is all about convenience!)

Let’s get into it lol

Ace – would. This absolutely isn’t his go-to, but I can picture him both having an accident and doing it on purpose just because of how much of an asshole he is sometimes. He probably wouldn’t expect it to be this hot, he was just being a dick, but…

Trey – wouldn’t, but he would think about it… but this is just one of a million cursed kinky things that Trey thinks about hypothetically. He is also the type to apologise a lot afterwards and clean his bottom’s mouth thoroughly lol

Cater – would also think about it, but probably wouldn’t dare to do it. He also might do a fake “oops, sorry” afterwards.

Ruggie – he absolutely would for money, but no one is really offering ;( “Weird stuff you’re into, but sure” type of thing.

Jack – he wouldn’t… intentionally. He is super against it, the idea would sound revolting to him. But he is also a young pup and can’t always control himself, so he might have a little “marking territory” moment.

Azul – wouldn’t, he probably would think it’s gross. If something like this happened accidentally, he would be more embarrassed than smug about it…

Floyd – would. Sometimes because he just wants to piss inside his lover’s mouth (especially if Riddle (or Idia…)’s been annoying him), sometimes he just feels so aroused that he can’t help himself, and sometimes he just feels like peeing but doesn’t feel like moving. He likes doing it a lot.

Jade – absolutely would. But only if the situation is perfect for it because this isn’t something that he can overuse, so to speak. He knows that his potential partners wouldn’t expect him to do something like this, so he has to catch the most perfect moment of bliss and pleasure to shock his bottom with his special hot liquid lol

Kalim – he would, I’m sorry Jamil. He would do it on accident the first time, and it would be in the butt, but after that he would kind of get into it… he doesn’t do it all the time of course, and he is a little embarrassed to bring it up, but all this shyness goes away whenever he’s having sex.

Rook – would, but isn’t allowed :( Doesn’t mean that he absolutely never does it, mind you. But there is a very strict policy in Vil’s bedroom that he does break from time to time, to be completely fair. And with the other boys too, but not always – he is weirdly strategic about how he uses his urine. 🤔

Ortho – he would adjust his special gear just to try it out, and if he gets a fun reaction out of it, he’ll do it again! But he also was partially interested if niisan would be able to tell that the liquid he squirted inside of his butt is different by consistency and temperature… it’s not real pee, so it shouldn’t be a problem, right?

Lilia – would, he did it with a lot of boys back in the day, and he still does it now; he also kind of taught Silver that this is something that could happen in case of an emergency if you can’t leave your pee smell in the woods for some reason.

Sebek – would, and this is 90% because of what Lilia has taught Silver. Sebek knows that this is complete bs, but he got so flustered and shocked when Silver got down and opened his mouth, that he couldn’t process it or say anything in protest. 

[silver-wield]

the whole degradation stuff in ff7 is both interesting yet confusing to me. iirc in crisis core, only G-type SOLDIERs experienced degradation, but the way pres shinra says in remake that degradation is a common cause of death among SOLDIERs is giving me the impression that they've retconned that and that it's now happening to S-type ones too (which i'm still a little skeptical abt). it also makes me wonder if broden and roche were G-type SOLDIERs or they just were no longer able to withstand the jenova cells hence they turned into black robes....

but what do u think, silver?

G types are their main forces. Only Sephiroth, Zack and Cloud have S cells. Gast and Hojo were competing. Hojo made Sephiroth and stopped because you can't beat perfection. He then got distracted with all his reunion jenova bs.

S type soldiers are stable. That's why Genesis wanted a piece of them to stabilise his degradation.

Cloud only thinks he's degrading because he isn't a soldier and doesn't know how the process works.

[castingmysilver]

...yeah. We could watch *some* Disney in my house but officially it had "gone downhill" and become increasingly suspect since the death of Walt Himself.

I was nineteen before I saw The Little Mermaid in full for the first time - parents hated Ursula - and in my 20s on a private Netflix account pre-Disney+ when I did my first Hunchback watchthrough.

So I’ve been enjoying the Disney vs. DeSantis memes as much as anyone, but like. I do feel like a lot of people who had normal childhoods are missing some context to all this.

I was raised in the Bible Belt in a fairly fundie environment. My parents were reasonably cool about some things, compared to the rest of my family, but they certainly had their issues. But they did let me watch Disney movies, which turned out to be a point of major contention between them and my other relatives.

See, I think some people think this weird fight between Disney and fundies is new. It is very not new. I know that Disney’s attempts at inclusion in their media have been the source of a lot of mockery, but what a lot of people don’t understand is that as far as actual company policy goes, Disney has actually been an industry leader for queer rights. They’ve had policies assuring equal healthcare and partner benefits for queer employees since the early 90s.

I’m not sure how many people reading this right now remember the early 90s, but that was very much not industry standard. It was a big deal when Disney announced that non-married queer partners would be getting the same benefits as the married heterosexual ones.

Like — it went further than just saying that any unmarried partners would be eligible for spousal benefits. It straight-up said that non-same-sex partners would still need to be married to receive spousal benefits, but because same-sex partners couldn’t do that, proof that they lived together as an established couple would be enough.

In other words, it put long-term same-sex partners on a higher level than opposite-sex partners who just weren’t married yet. It put them on the exact same level as heterosexual married partners.

They weren’t the first company ever to do this, but they were super early. And they were certainly the first mainstream “family-friendly” company to do it.

Conservatives lost their damn minds.

Protests, boycotts, sermons, the whole nine yards. I can’t tell you how many books about the evils of Disney my grandmother tried to get my parents to read when I was a kid.

When we later moved to Florida, I realized just how many queer people work at Disney — because historically speaking, it’s been a company that has guaranteed them safety, non-discrimination, and equal rights. That’s when I became aware of their unofficial “Gay Days” and how Christians would show up from all over the country to protest them every year. Apparently my grandmother had been upset about these days for years, but my parents had just kind of ignored her.

Out of curiosity, I ended up reading one of the books my grandmother kept leaving at our house. And friends — it’s amazing how similar that (terrible, poorly written) rhetoric was to what people are saying these days. Disney hires gay pedophiles who want to abuse your children. Disney is trying to normalize Satanism in our beautiful, Christian America. 

Just tons of conspiracy theories in there that ranged from “a few bad things happened that weren’t actually Disney’s fault, but they did happen” to “Pocahontas is an evil movie, not because it distorts history and misrepresents indigenous life, but because it might teach children respect for nature. Which, as we all know, would cause them all to become Wiccans who believe in climate change.”

Like — please, take it from someone who knows. This weird fight between fundies and Disney is not new. This is not Disney’s first (gay) rodeo. These people have always believed that Disney is full of evil gays who are trying to groom and sexually abuse children.

The main difference now is that these beliefs are becoming mainstream. It’s not just conservative pastors who are talking about this. It’s not just church groups showing up to boycott Gay Day. Disney is starting to (reluctantly) say the quiet part out loud, and so are the Republicans. Disney is publicly supporting queer rights and announcing company-supported queer events and the Republican Party is publicly calling them pedophiles and enacting politically driven revenge.

This is important, because while this fight has always been important in the history of queer rights, it is now being magnified. The precedent that a fight like this could set is staggering. For better or for worse, we live in a corporation-driven country. I don’t like it any more than you do, and I’m not about to defend most of Disney’s business practices. But we do live in a nation where rights are largely tied to corporate approval, and the fact that we might be entering an age where even the most powerful corporations in the country are being banned from speaking out in favor of rights for marginalized people… that’s genuinely scary.

Like… I’ll just ask you this. Where do you think we’d be now, in 2023, if Disney had been prevented from promising its employees equal benefits in 1994? That was almost thirty years ago, and look how far things have come. When I looked up news articles for this post from that era, even then journalists, activists, and fundie church leaders were all talking about how a company of Disney’s prominence throwing their weight behind this movement could lead to the normalization of equal protections in this country.

The idea of it scared and thrilled people in equal parts even then. It still scares and thrills them now.

I keep seeing people say “I need them both to lose!” and I get it, I do. Disney has for sure done a lot of shit over the years. But I am begging you as a queer exvangelical to understand that no. You need Disney to win. You need Disney to wipe the fucking floor with these people.

Right now, this isn’t just a fight between a giant corporation and Ron DeSantis. This is a fight about the right of corporations to support marginalized groups. It’s a fight that ensures that companies like Disney still can offer benefits that a discriminatory government does not provide. It ensures that businesses much smaller than Disney can support activism.

Hell, it ensures that you can support activism.

The fight between weird Christian conspiracy theorists and Disney is not new, because the fight to prevent any tiny victory for marginalized groups is not new. The fight against the normalization of othered groups is not new.

That’s what they’re most afraid of. That each incremental victory will start to make marginalized groups feel safer, that each incremental victory will start to turn the tide of public opinion, that each incremental victory will eventually lead to sweeping law reform.

They’re afraid that they won’t be able to legally discriminate against us anymore.

So guys! Please. This fight, while hilarious, is also so fucking important. I am begging you to understand how old this fight is. These people always play the long game. They did it with Roe and they’re doing it with Disney.

We have! To keep! Pushing back!

[authortobenamedlater]

E2 deep dive, once again under a cut to be extra careful of spoilers.

Where is Dr. Halsey, the world wonders?

She’s in an oddly comfortable and well-lit place to hold a war criminal, playing a game with what turns out to be a flash clone. Maybe of herself? Young Halsey had red hair and brown eyes? Well, I always knew that blond hair wasn’t growing out of her head. She keeps asking the flash clone about “the man” but the clone dies before she can answer. One gets the feeling this has happened before.

Riz still has lingering pain from taking a plasma grenade that would have killed a mere mortal. Understandable, even if Spartans heal and recover at lightning speed. Interesting bit of info from Kai that the emotion regulator acts as pain relief, since physical and emotional pain are processed in the same region of the brain. Yet Riz would rather have “a bullet in [her]” than put the pellet back in. She’d rather feel pain than feel nothing, we discover as she struts away in her tank top and leather pants.

Jumping ahead a bit, but since we are talking about Riz, who’s this Louis guy? I don’t remember reading about him in the admittedly very few books I read. He and Riz are tight, though. Maybe a former couple? And who IS that Danilo guy Louis takes Riz to see? A massage therapist? Psychic? What’s with this “your life is yours now” line? Foreshadowing? It’s a little weird.

I know I’ve been beating the “John is a broody introvert” drum for like two years, but WOW is he earning that reputation this season. He keeps talking about Makee, and she’s part of his troubles, but the other part is Cortana. He’s in denial about how not OK he is without her.

Kai, of course, knows something is up as she and John stare at a board showing the status of all Spartan teams. A status board that is not computerized. Well, Fenway Park will probably still have a manually operated scoreboard in 500 years, so I guess FLEETCOM can too.

Back to the matter at hand. Kai knows John is hurting. She tells him “We’re more than just—“ More than just WHAT? Let her finish, John you emotionally stunted dunderhead! Nope, you’re too busy fixating on Cobalt, for whom your concern is endearing if not a little inordinate.

There seems to be some ongoing…I don’t know if tension is the right word, but something between John and Kai over Kai shooting Makee.

About the status board. We see at least five teams: Silver, Gold, Cobalt, Omega, and Sigma. Blue Team is conspicuously absent, but if they got slipped in like this there would be pitchforks and torches outside Paramount HQ. I will use this to feed my headcanon that Blue Team is the Spartans’ SEAL Team Six and officially does not exist.

Maybe this is nothing, but silver, gold, and cobalt are all metals in addition to colors. Does this timeline use metals instead of colors to identify Spartan teams? Doesn’t explain Omega and Sigma, though.

After watching who knows how many flash clones keel over in front of her, Halsey finds out Ackerson is the “nice man” sending them in and he’s the one holding her prisoner in what turns out to be a holodeck of some sort. He doesn’t outright say the clones are of Halsey, but his “any resemblance is purely coincidental” line smells like BS to me. Halsey gets the award for most flash-cloned human in history, probably.

At any rate, Ackerson and Halsey know each other, a departure from First Strike and Ghosts of Onyx, but their rivalry will be even better face to face. Ackerson’s agenda, whatever it is, most intriguingly to me involves keeping Halsey alive. She was sentenced to an Article 72 at the end of S1 and in the last episode she’s seen leaving Reach. So how did she get back here, and into basically the Pentagon with nobody seeing her? Why does Ackerson need her alive?

Laera is not having any of Soren’s crew’s shenanigans and I don’t think this will end well for them. She hasn’t survived however many years married to Soren-066 by being a dummy. Kwan is still hiding out in that cave and running from her indentured servitude. Are we gonna get an explanation of this or…? Again, do Soren and Laera know she’s here and Kessler is going to see her?

I’m SORRY but the John/Kai implications when Ackerson is talking to Kai? “I know how long you’ve been together” “I understand what he sees in you.” WTF, buddy? I know he’s using this to try to get to Kai, but if he didn’t think there was something to it, he wouldn’t bother. Kai doesn’t refute any of it, either.

More evidence of Ackerson’s agenda comes when he talks with Cortana, who in addition to getting a makeover is cloistered in a holotank and stuck running simulations. Presumably about the Covenant hitting Reach. I’ll speculate that Ackerson is purposely keeping her separate from John because together they might dismantle whatever his plan is. He’s kept her from accessing “external systems” even though she says they might improve her simulation’s accuracy. Basically, he needs to keep her contained.

Cortana’s “you won’t visit again, according to the simulations” line. Is she predicting Ackerson will die on Reach? He survives to the Battle of Earth (Halo 2) in game canon. We also see him with Kai in the trailers and I’m presuming they’re on Onyx. Does he die on Onyx? Or is this not related to him dying at all?

John inadvertently crashing the Perez family dinner is great. The grandmother’s “You’re very large” observation is 🤣 The reference to the “Spartan Attack” game gives us a look at the wider universe. We have Call of Duty and other such games, why wouldn’t this world have something similar? I’m also all for Silver Team going around the galaxy picking up honorary Spartans. John doesn’t realize that’s what he’s doing but he is 😂

They gave Carter’s famous “the Covenant’s on Reach” line to John, nice touch.

Lastly, Makee is somehow alive. I like it less than my headcanon of her Halo 5 Cortana gambit, but I’ll allow it. Covenant must have some serious medical tech, which given how advanced they are vs. humans, could track. The Makee reveal doesn’t surprise me. I said right after S1 that she was too good a character to just be gone. It does, however, feel a little cheap to have her walking around like nothing happened. I seem to be one of the few who actually liked her and thought she was a good foil for John (The Scene notwithstanding), so I’m interested in seeing where this ends up.

Still no sight or mention of Miranda, but Olive Gray is listed in the credits. This means we HAVE to see Miranda at some point since there are union rules about this. Once upon a time the rule was anyone appearing in at least 8/22 episodes had to be credited with the main cast (Babylon 5 fans will make the connection that Warren Keffer appeared in exactly eight episodes 😆), but I don’t know what that looks like now. Anyway, I have some theories, but I’ll save that for later in the week because this show makes me chatty.

[lboogie1906]

Dr. Herman Branson (August 14, 1914 - June 7, 1995) was a pioneer in biophysics. Born in Pocahontas, Virginia, not much is known about his early life. He attended Virginia College and received a BS. He graduated from the University of Cincinnati where he received a Ph.D. and started a career in academia.

He served as Assistant Professor of Physics and Chemistry at Howard University. He served as the Director of the Experimental Science and Mathematics Technology Program in Physics. He became a tenured professor of Physics and was named Chairman of the Physics Department at Howard University.

He entered into a partnership with Linus Pauling at the California Institute of Technology. He focused on the structure of proteins. His process used mathematics to determine possible helical structures that would fit the x-ray data, as well as chemical restrictions that had been outlined by Pauling. He narrowed down the possible structures of two helices. The two coils were named Alpha and Gamma. Linus Pauling initially dismissed his work, saying that the shape of his coil was impossible. Pauling published the data in his name, giving him minor credit for his original research. In the initial press release from Caltech University, announcing the discovery of the Alpha Helix, his name is excluded. When Linus Pauling received a Nobel Prize for his contribution to Chemistry, he was not credited for his contribution.

He returned to Howard University as a full professor of Physics and Chairman of the Physics Department. He served as the President of Central State University. He assumed the position of President at Lincoln University of Pennsylvania. He continued to research and published more than one hundred articles in his lifetime.

He became one of the founders of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education. He led a group of educators to the White House to speak to President Richard Nixon about the growing disparity in financing for higher education.

He spent the remainder of his life in Silver Spring, Maryland, surrounded by his wife, children, and grandchildren. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence #alphaphialpha

[talkingpointsusa]

Tim Pool hosts an absolutely idiotic panel discussion on “deep state weather manipulation”

We have been seeing a lot of disinformation lately about the recent hurricanes in the south, particularly the false claim that the United States government is somehow controlling these hurricanes and using them to somehow steal the election. It’s a claim that’s stupid on its face but that didn’t stop Tim Pool from hosting a completely batshit insane panel discussion on supposed government weather manipulation. It turned out to be about as dumb as it sounds and I figured that we needed a lighter debunk after the last post. Let’s let Tim introduce the topic and then the co-panelists (who are all internet lunatics but I’ll get into each individual when they’re introduced) and then we’ll get on to debunking some conspiracy BS.

00:07, Tim Pool: “All these corporate journalists are livid cause Marjorie Taylor Greene was tweeting that they can control the weather. Of course she’s referring to militaries, powerful individuals, the general — the man right? But the media wanted to make it about the Jews because that’s the only way they can go after Marjorie Taylor Greene when she talks about geoengineering, cloud seeding, and other weather manipulation techniques that are available.”

Yeah, there’s a long history of antisemitic coding revolving around the word “they” but leaving that aside for now let’s talk about weather manipulation.

There’s a great recent article in the Atlantic that goes over some of the details about cloud seeding and geoengineering but suffice it to say that these are both really new technologies that really don’t have the kind of power that these guys think they have.

Take for instance cloud seeding, the process of injecting silver iodine into clouds in order to create artificial condensation. Cloud seeding is only semi-affective at best right now and as the article notes, we can’t artificially create clouds right now and we need clouds in order to seed them. Scientists have tried to artificially dim the sun in the past but that’s an extremely finicky process that requires releasing a quadrillion carefully calibrated particles into the atmosphere. It’s not like you can just pull a lever and then boom, different weather. That’s not a thing that exists outside of imagination land.

As for hurricanes, the notion that anybody can create a hurricane out of thin air with the current technology that we have is ridiculous. We can *barely* make it rain (and even then only with the right conditions) and these dumb-dumbs think that we have the kind of technology to control something as powerful as a hurricane?! If somebody tells you that the government can create hurricanes, the only reasonable response is to laugh in their face because clearly they don’t know what they’re talking about.

00:46, Tim Pool: “This results in this massive viral conversation from tones of people about, can the government make hurricanes? Ok, well that seems a little bold but some people are talking about actual weather manipulation. We’ve talked about Operation Popeye a little bit on Timcast IRL because the subject came up where the US Military was cloud seeding as a weapon of war to wash out roads in Vietnam.”

Except that there’s no proof that this operation was actually successful. Just because the government tried to do something doesn’t mean that they actually succeeded.

Also, trying to wash out roads with cloud seeding is a far cry from the government being able to create targeted hurricanes. Anyway, here are the panelists. I’ll let them introduce themselves and then I’ll explain how every single one of them is completely batshit crazy.

01:26, David DuByne: “Hi, I’m David DuByne, I run the Adapt 2030 channel and the Civilization Cycle podcast. I was a former coffee buyer in Myanmar and when we were purchasing coffee there circa 2012, we were encountering cold leaf damage, leaf kill on the top, and then the bean density was decreased but talking to the farmers they told us that their great grandfathers who were also farming at that time in the 1880’s experienced the same cold wave but you realize, and this is in Myanmar so I was a global warming believer, so I went back to the end of the 1880’s to take a look and then suddenly I found these cycles through history that eb and flow food production and that follows right along with civilization cycle and decline, apex and decline.”

Congratulations David, you’ve discovered what seasons are. Nice job buddy.

David DuByne is a climate denial grifter who’s YouTube channel is all about how the economic collapse is coming any day now, climate change is fake, society is going to reset, and you’ve got to buy his junk to “adapt”. His arguments are the usual climate denial nonsense like “Well, if global warming is a thing how come it snows sometimes?” (I guess when he discovered seasons he stopped before he discovered the difference between weather and climate).

It’s just brain rot stuff and I have no idea where Tim even found this guy since he’s not that well known. We don’t hear from him too much over the course of this episode which I think is a positive thing.

Let’s move on to the next grifter.

02:27, Ransom Godwin: “I am Ransom Godwin, I’m the host of Mountain High Time, a YouTube channel and you know, I’m not an expert on anything I’ve just been around the circle continually getting banned everywhere cause I seem to find the right topics to talk about that are taboo I guess. So I keep getting banned and now I’m the co-host with DuByne on Civilization Cycle where we talk about how things are changing and you know, some of these things like global warming. I’m not a fan of global warming, I don’t believe that, but I also don’t believe that governments have enough power to control things as big as hurricanes, I just don’t see it happening.”

I love how this dudes entire qualification is just “I’m kind of a dick and keep getting banned on social media”.

Ransom’s a former DJ turned weirdo right-wing YouTuber and later David DuByne’s co-host. The dude has one thousand subscribers on YouTube, again no idea where Tim found this guy.

I guess he’s the one arguing for the reasonable side of the aisle. They didn’t get a meterologist or someone who actually knows what he’s talking about, just a guy who’s big introduction is “I GOT BANNED FROM YOUTUBE ONCE”. Also, he later admits that he thinks that the government can amplify the strength of hurricanes so he’s not even that reasonable.

03:04, Brian Smith: “How you doing guys? In2ThinAir. I run the In2ThinAir channel. I am a creator, private researcher.”

Tim Pool: “You gotta slide over to your right a little bit.”

Please don’t, I’ve already heard enough of this guy for one lifetime.

So, Brian Smith is a self-proclaimed weather expert and the owner of the In2ThinAir YouTube channel. A cursory look at his channel shows videos with titles like “🤯 DOG Climbs the GREAT Pyramid IN EGYPT! - MESSAGE From the GODS!”, “🤯Trump 2nd Assassination Attempt PREDICTED By TIME Magazine!” and my personal favorite “SOLAR FLARE Shows 'Phoenix Rising' Ahead of Total SOLAR ECLIPSE!!”

Now, if those extremely illuminating titles didn’t tip you off, this guy is…how do I put this delicately? COMPLETELY FUCKING BANANAS!

Half of this guys videos are of him ranting about a coming spiritual war and sounding like that guy on the subway that everyone tries to avoid! This is not a serious person.

Speaking of unserious people, the final panelist is a weirdo chemtrail guy who appears to have made up his own system for classifying clouds.

03:31, Shane Cashman: “Very excited for this episode today. Shane Cashman, host of Inverted World Live every Sunday at six on YouTube and weather channel reject and I study fake clouds.”

Tim Pool: “What’s a fake cloud?”

Shane Cashman: “Well there’s a classification system, there’s a whole bunch. There’s vintage clouds, god made.”

I can see why this guy got rejected from the weather channel because I found absolutely nothing on this classification system outside of Tim Pools YouTube channel.

Shane’s one of Tim’s “news writers” and is mostly here to represent the chemtrail weirdo contingent of Tim’s audience. This whole thing is a circus full of disinformation spreading clowns.

With all of that out of the way, let’s take a look at the actual discussion and debunk some BS. Tim starts off by asking the question on his audiences minds and accidentally lets a bit of his reasoning for hosting this panel slip.

04:54, Tim Pool: “Alright, so the question that everybody wants to hear first I suppose; did the government make the hurricanes to destroy the southeast so that Kamala Harris can win the election?”

Shane Cashman: “Make or manipulate?”

Tim Pool: “Well, I went for the most extreme version of this story.”

Yeah, I believe that. This whole thing is basically just Tim dragging the dumbest people he could find onto his channel so that they can launder government weather control conspiracies to his audience and get him more money as a result.

Anyway, Ransom has really dumb thoughts on cloud seeding.

05:13, Ransom Godwin: “No, I don’t think they can control it. Now, manipulating it is another topic because obviously they do have a lot of cloud seeding programs and a lot on the internet right now they’re talking about lasers seeding clouds as well and I looked at their experiment and this is a very small room and a little thing. However, the sun we just had a flare. That produces enough electrons to seed lots of moisture so whenever you have a solar flare combined with a Hurricane and maybe some manipulations I think they can do a Ho Chi Minh trail type thing and make it rain more.”

Ok, this is extraordinarily stupid for a wide array of reasons.

The only thing less developed than standard cloud seeding is laser assisted cloud seeding. That technology is extraordinarily experiential and can barely influence standard weather, let alone hurricanes.

No cloud seeding technology can influence hurricanes. As I said before, hurricanes are extraordinarily powerful and the amount of energy required to manipulate them is greater than our current technology affords. The clouds found in hurricanes also contain less water droplets that silver-iodide targets making influencing them with cloud seeding even more infeasible.

There are so many moving parts in this conspiracy too. So the shadowy government cabal needs to wait for just the right solar flare and then just the right Hurricane and THEN they can influence the election. This is ridiculous.

06:01, Brian Smith: “I believe they can create them. I don’t think it’s as easy as people may think. This is a combination between HAARP, lower level things like NEXRAD, and the simple radar towers, 5G.”

Yeah, one thing that you’ll notice about this Brian Smith guy is that he likes to just throw out a lot of conspiracy buzzwords and never provide specifics. This is one of the massive red flags that the person you’re talking to shouldn’t be taken seriously. The enemy of conspiracy is specificity.

For example, how exactly can 5G influence a Hurricane? That’s just stupid on its face. Next thing you know we’ll be hearing about how the lizard people are using vaccines to create hurricanes. It’s alt-right mad libs.

To give you an example of this in action, here’s what happens when Tim asks Brian for specifics.

06:15, Brian Smith: “Things can be manipulated, the jet stream can be controlled. There’s definitely examples out there where they have hurricanes that were sitting in one area with a lot of military around them like the airplanes and stuff like that as if it was a project. They were working on it, it was getting bigger and smaller and then eventually dissipated.”

Notice how again, there are no specifics. Just “well there’s definitely some examples out there, just trust me”.

Tim then asks an armour piercing question.

06:33, Tim Pool: “When was that?”

Uh-oh.

Don’t get me wrong, Tim is a terrible interviewer whose main goal is laundering his guests extreme positions to his audience but that’s a really really basic question. If this “independent researcher” is what he says he is this should be a slam dunk.

Spoiler alert: it isn’t.

06:37, Brian Smith: “They started — they started doing that in the 40’s and 50’s.”

Tim Pool: “When they started creating a hurricane?”

Shane Cashman: “Project Cirrus. Creating hurricanes? 1948 is when they started dropping silver iodine into Hurricane King.”

Brian Smith: “47 was Project Cirrus, that’s when they dropped dry ice into a hurricane thinking it would dissipate it. It actually caused it to hook a turn into right into Florida and actually killed somebody.”

Oof, saved by Tim’s idiot co-host.

Nothing about what these guys are saying about Project Cirrus is true. While a lot of people did blame Project Cirrus for causing the hurricane to hook a turn into Florida most scientists nowadays agree that the notion that 80 kilograms of dry ice could even remotely impact a hurricane is pretty ridiculous.

Hurricanes are strong, unpredictable, and make unpredictable turns all the time. For example, Hurricane Charley made an unexpected turn in 2004 which led to Tampa being spared and Sarasota being hit. In 2005, Hurricane Wilma made a sudden 90 degree turn towards Florida. There’s no evidence that the shadowy cabal of Democrat operatives had any role in either Hurricane or the countless others that made unexpected turns in the past.

Tim reads the first quarter of the Wikipedia page for Project Stormfury and then makes a remarkably dumb statement.

08:29, Tim Pool: “I’d actually assume that creating is substantially easier than manipulating because planting a seed is very very easy, moving a tree is very very hard.”

Ah yes, because trees are equivalent to a giant tropical storm. What are we even doing here?

08:40, Tim Pool: “If, so you have a small depression form and then it starts to expand and grow as the storm grows wild and crazy. The implication to me that you could move a thirty mile wide Hurricane sounds pretty nuts but the idea that you could seed with a very small and I mean very very small portion of warm water that creates the beginnings of what could create a hurricane seems much more plausible. Not that I’m saying it’s possible, I’m saying it seems easier to plant a seed than move a hurricane.”

Both sound pretty nuts to me considering that modern cloud seeding technology hasn’t even came even remotely close to the level it would have to be to create a hurricane. Neither of the options that Tim has given here are scientifically feasible. We are not even close to being able to generate the amount of energy that’s needed to just create a hurricane out of thin air or even increase its size. The only way this metaphor would make sense is if planting a tree required enough energy to wipe out all life on the planet!

I’m definitely using “it’s easier to plant a seed than move a hurricane” in my day to day life though.

So, they yap on about how cloud seeding was utilized in Dubai once and I’m not going to waste your time with it. Just because one piece of technology exists doesn’t mean that some larger scale piece of related technology also exists. We can call people with FaceTime but that doesn’t mean that Star Wars-esque holographic projectors exist. We can fly through the sky on airplanes but that doesn’t mean that we can teleport.

10:23, Shane Cashman: “I wonder if you could go back to 1861, there was that colonel they called the rain maker who went out and literally bombed the atmosphere and said I could create the — and he had a patent for it right? And then he took credit for every storm.”

This is an argument you hear from weather control conspiracy theorists all the time, this is a Marjorie Taylor-Greene line too. Years ago somebody filed a patent for a machine that supposedly could control the weather so that surely must mean that the government can create hurricanes now, right?

The problem is that patents are absolutely meaningless. There have been patents filed for; full body teleportation systems that transport the body through “hyperspace”, greenhouse helmets, and devices that calculate your life expectancy. Do MTG, Tim Pool, and Shane Cashman mean to tell me that we can secretly teleport because some nutcase filed a patent for it years ago? And in case you were wondering, none of the specific patents that these guys always cite are compatible with modern technology and science. I couldn’t find the specific thing that they were talking about but provided that it does actually exist, it’s still some dumb patent from the 1800’s and that doesn’t prove anything.

Anyway, time to learn about HAARP. They harp on about HAARP for a bit and then Brian decides to try and prove to the others that HAARP can influence the weather. It’s predictably very stupid.

12:35, Brian Smith: “That’s not the point though. HAARP’s not creating the hurricane, HAARP’s adjusting the atmospheric conditions on earth to allow hurricanes to be formed in a certain area on earth.”

None of these dumb-dumbs know what HAARP is. I feel like HAARP is one of those things that people talk a lot about but nobody actually seems to know what it does. Enter morons like Alex Jones who exploit that lack of knowledge to push conspiracy theories about HAARP because it has kind of a scary sounding name.

HAARP stands for High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, it is a research facility located near Gakona, Alaska. The purpose of HAARP is to study the ionosphere which is the highest ionized part of earths atmosphere. The way that HAARP does this is by sending radio signals into the ionosphere which causes electrons to move in waves. It’s pretty complicated stuff and I’m not really an expert in this particular field, nor is 99% of the population including Brian Smith.

The fact that what HAARP does isn’t really clear unless you read up on the science, which is a pretty complicated process in and of itself, is something that conspiracy theorists have taken advantage of. Lots of people have claimed that HAARP is used to control the weather (they never elaborate on HOW it’s supposed to do this). HAARP research data is actually pretty public and they offer annual tours of the site.

Anyway, Tim doesn’t believe in HAARP conspiracies…for now. So as a result everybody starts selling him on why HAARP is controlling the weather.

14:05, Shane Cashman; “I think it’s more than just controlling weather. I think they’re burning — they’ll tell you they’re burning a hole in the ionosphere, which is where radio transmissions go, migratory birds use the ionosphere the magnets with their cryptochromes, it’s affecting something. I think it doesn’t just stay in the hole, I think there’s a ripple effect honestly. And other people would say that by doing this — you ever hear of cymatics? Like with frequencies used to make sound become matter. I think there’s something to Tim’s point. The leap — that’s for me is where I’m thinking. If you can control something through frequencies like cymatics does with shapes and matter or sound into matter, that’s the reason it could potentially be controlling weather.”

One of the games that conspiracy theorists will often play is throwing out a bunch of complicated words and concepts and capitalizing off of their audiences ignorance around those concepts to sell a faulty premise.

Shane Cashman has no idea what he’s talking about here. Cymatics is the study of visualizing audio frequencies and has nothing to do with HAARP or the weather. If we’re taking what he’s saying seriously, we essentially are being asked to believe that somehow sound frequencies can manipulate the weather and create hurricanes.

Also, they’re not “burning a hole” into the ionosphere. They’re heating small portions of it to study it’s effects.

This part is pretty funny. Presented without comment.

15:19, Tim Pool: “I’m concerned about this right, because we got a few super chats from people saying HAARP is disinformation or distraction, one thing that we know that intelligence will do is fake conspiracies, that’s the real conspiracy right?”

HAARP’s a psy-op everybody!

“Yeah, all this dumb stuff that guys on my side are saying including everyone around me at this very table…that’s the CIA bro.”

I guess that’s one way to do damage control.

16:06, Brian Smith: “I try to tell people that when — a lot of people bring up HAARP and I’m like, you know, HAARP is like an idea. It’s a thought process of a very powerful type of technology but it’s old and I think it’s possible that yeah, the whole term is being used as a distraction now to discredit people who talk about it. I do think there’s a technology that’s bigger than HAARP that can do exactly what HAARP conspiracy theories are saying that it does though.”

This guy is such a dick. Five minutes ago he was all in on HAARP conspiracy theories but then when he gets the most mild pushback I’ve ever seen it becomes “Yeah, I think that HAARP’s a distraction from this bigger weather control station that I won’t name in this video”. This is embarrassing.

However, Tim’s brilliant analysis got me thinking. Brian seems almost intentionally dumb. Could it be that he’s a CIA operative using Tim’s dumb Russia-funded YouTube show to poison the well and make conspiracy theorists look bad? I think we’re getting close people.

If you haven’t noticed, I’ve stopped taking this “panel” seriously. They start talking about CERN and “anti-matter weapons” and I honestly don’t care about what their thoughts on that are. People aren’t throwing black hole grenades around and the entire CERN leg of the discussion just comes across like a bunch of twelve year old boys making stuff they think sounds cool up. They then have a very dumb discussion about AI.

21:42, Tim Pool: “The fascinating thing too is, I remember watching these old sci-fi movies where they’re trying to find a chemical formula for a cure or something, and they’re in a computer and the computers like running a simulation and it shows like the chemicals and everything and that was sci-fi. AI literally does that now. So, they collect all of our health data, put ten million different files from various humans and various ailments into the computer and let the AI run through it and they don’t go to do anything. Basically the AI brute forces all the data and finds patterns and then it says ‘we discovered that every single person who is suffering from pancreatic cancer also had this one weird marker that no one’s ever noticed before’ because it can see patterns we can’t recognize. Then doctors are like wow. Then if you take some random persons medical data, load it into the AI, they’re gonna be like in ten years you’ll have pancreatic cancer because you have the same marker as them and we can treat it right now.”

So AI apparently can predict if you have cancer now.

There are some AI tools that have been developed to identify if a certain cancer patient is likely to respond to certain drugs like checkpoint inhibitors and some that can identify cancer, the tech isn’t currently even remotely close to where Tim’s saying it’s at.

Take for example, a recent AI tool debuted by the Royal Marsden NHS foundation that can accurately identify cancer. While the AI can identify cancer in people, it’s extremely far away from being able to detect hidden markers that indicate that the person may be suffering from cancer. Even the researchers behind the tool admit as much, quote:

“In the future, we hope it will improve early detection and potentially make cancer treatment more successful by highlighting high-risk patients and fast-tracking them to earlier intervention,”

So yes, what Tim’s saying might very well be the next step for AI’s utilization in medical research but we aren’t quite there yet. If that were the case we’d be throwing parades in the streets because we’d have basically cured cancer.

22:40, Tim Pool: “So if you were to load all the worlds weather data in real time, constantly, into an AI it’s gonna show you basically a map of probabilities where storms may form.”

There is technology being developed to predict the weather using AI but that still doesn’t mean that people can control hurricanes. That’s a massive leap.

Tim Pool also has no idea what he’s talking about when it comes to climate change.

26:44, Tim Pool: “We did a show, I think a few months ago, maybe more than a few months ago. We were talking about the poles shifting and one of the interesting things that was brought up that I didn’t really think about but it’s so obvious is that there’s a glacier in Indonesia. That there’s a gigantic ball of ice on top of a mountain in Indonesia and it seems crazy because it’s a warm area but at the high altitudes these glaciers take very very long times to melt. And so, thinking of that, and then hearing stories about global warming it really does feel like — when I hear about climate change scientists, and you know or whatever, or the climate scientists and blah blah blah, it feels like a kindergartener trying to explain what’s going on with the weather without having enough data or understanding of the billions of years.”

What?!

So, let’s break this down. Glaciers exist on top of mountains in Indonesia so that means that climate change is fake…that’s it, that’s the argument. Never mind the fact that those exact same glaciers are literally melting because of climate change or the fact that there’s really no connection between both of those topics.

Science is also fake apparently.

27:45, Tim Pool: “I think there’s a strong possibility when you look at everything, actually I think it’s a 100% probability, we are wrong about all science. To be fair, 99.9. What we get right is what we can replicate. We can make video games, we can drive cars, so science does get us to these points where we can predict and make these systems. But to predict global weather, I don’t know that humans have been around enough, tracking enough data, to really understand what’s happening.”

Even in the context of this video that statement doesn’t make any sense. Tim was just going on about how AI can predict the weather (which we now apparently can’t do) and cancer, not to mention all the stuff about how we can apparently manipulate the course of hurricanes.

Also, David DuByne is an idiot who sucks.

28:09, David DuByne: “Let me combine these two ideas and then Brian, I’d like to get your opinion on it. So, going back to this, if you’re going to really control weather, not manipulate it, not modify it, you’re going to have to have sensors about every foot on the planet to understand what’s going on from the ground level up to what? 18,000 feet, maybe 20,000 feet? The same thing is true with what we get fed with global warming and global temperature data. They don’t have sensors everywhere. In the oceans it’s barely a cover, they might have a few buoys out there. And when they’re talking about overall land temperatures, there’s very few temperature data stations collecting data anywhere and they’re trying to say the entire planets heating at this uniform rate in this area but it’s not.”

There are over 100,000 weather stations around the world. Furthermore, there are satellites monitoring the climate and there’s the fact that our recorded temperature data shows that the present keeps breaking records in terms of heat. In short, David DuByne has absolutely no idea what he’s talking about.

Half of the episode is just these guys making stuff up about climate change. They play an extremely boring slideshow from DuByne for a majority of the other half of the video that’s basically “hey guys, look…weather patterns exist” and I’m not going to bother looking at that. They then go back to talking about weather modification and it’s basically the same stuff as before. If you want to watch it, go right ahead. It’s just the same dumb crap from the beginning constantly being repeated ad nauseam.

Conclusion:

Wow, I’m pretty sure I lost brain cells looking at that one. When Tim Pool is the most reasonable person in the discussion, you know you’re screwed. It’s probably going to be a long time before I look at another one of Tim’s panel discussions because these are just way too long and everyone there has a bad habit of saying absolutely nothing.

Original Video:

Tim Pool. “Geoengineered Super Storms & Government WEATHER CONTROL | the Culture War with Tim Pool.” YouTube, 11 Oct. 2024.

[castingmysilver]

I was told repeatedly in my teens by older and "wiser" adults that internet friendships were less meaningful, and more fake, than the meatspace sort because to be a *true* friendship or to be able to really know someone you *must* be able to see them, touch them, visit them at the drop of the hat, bake them a casserole after their parent's funeral. I was also told I would get it when I got older. That the knowledge of the fakeness of my primary available social avenue would come in with maturity.

They were wrong.

I do sometimes long for physical presence with those I love, and even those I am just friendly with, online. But that doesn't make the love tied to these fragile filaments of connection any less *real.* I can still rejoice with you, comfort you, give you little gifts, occasionally even help pay your bills. That *matters* as much as a casserole or a hug would.

And I gladly embrace that I live in a world where that is possible, even if sometimes the internet can also magnify toxic holes.

Long-distance

[4/23/23]

A thousand gentle feelers of connection

Branch out through mechanical minds.

My heartstrings splay out in extension 

Along aetherial ties that bind

Me to my knowledge of all of you.

I glow golden with joy,

Though my face is lit in monitor blue.

Such power we've found, for good or ill!

We weave cyber networks of community.

From far away, I can care for you still

In many small ways minus proximity.

My words, my art, my listening ears 

Still matter in spite of a world so large.

We can shelter and comfort from fears

And the swirl of circumstance's barrage.