Komunitas
lemmy.ca
Remember, in the US, you can be charged for obstructing a plain-clothes officer’s duties even before they ID themselves. (I’m not a lawyer but you could refer to 18 USC 111 or 18 USC 1501, or the fact that police don’t need to know the law properly to enforce it, Heien v. North Carolina) And, fake-ICE cosplayers like this guy can have their charges dropped by DOJ or pardoned by Trump. So if you get visited by someone unknown, you’re damned if you do or you don’t. Demand a judicial warrant and wait to receive one with an actual judge’s signature, before you open the door to agents you don’t know.
Komunitas
pawb.social
Instead, the note appears “to have been added after the beverage was handed off, likely by someone else,” a spokesperson told Block Club. Pathetic loser calls himself loser to cosplay as a victim.
Komunitas
lemmy.ml
Looking forward to what the Republicans cosplaying as leftists use instead of “genocide Joe” now that Donald is calling for a final solution.
Komunitas
sh.itjust.works
The far better question is why they need assault rifles? A suppressor is actually a good thing to put on any weapon. That’s why they’re becoming standard in the military. Guns are unbelievably loud, to the point that they can cause serious and permanent hearing damage to people around you when you fire them. If you’re accepting the premise that an armed police force is a good thing (I disagree, but that’s a separate discussion) it at least makes sense to minimize collateral damage. The sound of gunfire is especially dangerous indoors; if an officer was forced to fire their weapon in an environment like they could actually seriously injure innocent bystanders just from the noise alone. On the other hand, collateral damage is exactly why a 5.56mm carbine makes no sense as a police weapon. Those rounds will go straight through a human body, straight through a brick wall, and still be lethal. You could end up killing someone you can’t even see. It used to be that when law enforcement wanted extra firepower, they used submachine guns and shotguns, weapons with very little potential for overpenetration. But then police forces all started freaking out about the idea that every criminal was going to be wearing level 3 body armour and demanding to use the same guns soldiers use (not helped by the fact that cops in the US are allowed to buy surplus military equipment at knockdown prices). This doesn’t come from an operational need, it comes from the fact that every cop wants to cosplay at being military, but without all the hardships that actually come with that. That’s why you see federal agents and SWAT all running around in multicam and other military camo patterns, despite the fact that those patterns really don’t do much of anything in an urban environment. It’s all just dress up to make their peepees feel bigger.
Komunitas
sh.itjust.works
Hi! I was wondering about experiences with wigs? Specifically wearing them out and about. Unfortuntely my hair is just terrible. Oiley as hell, and now I am balding to my horror lol. So wigs it is. I have a cosplay type wig. Fantastic for reducing dysphoria and getting that euphoric feeling but its just impratical to wear on the train for example. Anyone had success with them? Do synethic wigs work well or should I be looking for really high quality ones?
Komunitas
hexbear.net
Libs love cosplaying leftists without doing any of the organizing or reading.
Komunitas
hexbear.net
they are not my friends, but i know some libs that cosplay as leftists and they completely bought into the nato-framing of the russo-ukrainian war from the jump, while they are generally opposed to what is happening in Gaza… but not enough to voting for Genocide Joe, ofc. for russo-ukraine, it was a part of the world they have fuck all analysis about but the news footage really played up how sympathetically white ukranians are. like one admitted that the footage of ukranians being displaced bothered them more, on an emotional level, than the US invading and displacing iraqis. major vibes. combine that casual racism with the fact that there was no geographical placeholder information for them about eastern europe. NATO aggression? what’s that? total clean slate for the media blitz to fill. with Gaza, the extermination and land grab has been a project for a long time. these libs have met muslims since 9/11 and heard voices contradicting state department messaging about the middle east, a place the US has been terrorizing and bombing and invading multiple times in our lifetimes. they have developed their own opinions in that time and there is even acknowledgement of Biden’s enthusiastic role in the 2003 invasion of iraq. of course, they are libs so A Dang Cheeto In The White House is more of a threat to their comfortable brunching than Genocide Joe exterminating Gazans, so their aversion to genocide isn’t that motivating. i will never, ever forget something i think Christman said about how genocidal war was not a problem for Europeans/The West until Hitler committed the unpardonable crime of doing it to Europeans. i have never heard a more succinct framing for perennially fickle western outrage about slaughter.
Komunitas
slrpnk.net
It’s funny how cosplaying is seen as this weird niche nerdy activity… unless it’s as an athlete. Although, having said that, we do have the term ‘full kit wanker’ in the UK, for anyone who buys the whole kit (not just the t-shirt, scarf or hat). Because, you see, there’s an acceptable quantum of cosplaying.
Komunitas
sh.itjust.works
The meaning depends on the intent of the person displaying that flag. The innocent option is that it’s military cosplay. The US military uses black or gray monochrome flags since red/white/blue is bad for camouflage. Some people think it looks badass, so they mimic it. The negative option is that it’s a “no quarter” flag.
Komunitas
lemmy.world
Lihat kiriman asli pada platform media sosial terkait.
Komunitas
news.abolish.capital
An almighty attack on Green party leader Zack Polanski was mounted this weekend by the super-reliable, super-ethical, super-rational Daily Mail. As we put the clocks forward, it seemed we also wound back to roughly 2019. Let me return you to that year. Famous, wealthy and very beloved British actress Maureen Lipman, a month before that crucial election cosplayed a normie in an attack ad on Jeremy Corbyn by Labour sect Mainstream, explicitly aimed at getting the Tories in. “And the antisemitism,” she sighed down a fake phone, “Who would have believed that?” It turns out: a lot of people. Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party lost. Instead, we got further years of austere Tory economics, genocide and global chaos. And now here we stand, on the doormat of World War III, largely instigated by Israel. Yet time is a flat circle. Because Polanski, a Jewish man, is getting the same treatment once more. This weekend, the Green Party debated a motion called “Zionism is Racism”. Everyone is, of course, entitled to their view on what is, for many, a controversial statement. But as Green party policy, you’d have thought it was something for party members to decide. Endorse it, reject it, amend it, that’s surely – surely! – all a matter, and only a matter, for those who’ve paid their subs and turned up for the often long and tedious matter of scrutinising the party’s offering. Wrong! Common sense says: hey, if you don’t like a party’s policies, don’t join it, don’t vote for it, But when it comes to Israel, it turns out a British political party simply can’t be allowed to set its own parameters. And if it tries, its leader and its members better be ready to face an onslaught of abuse. On the eve of the party’s spring conference, where the motion was set to be discussed, the Daily Mail put out one of the weakest, sloppiest, flimsiest reports I’ve read in a long time. And when it comes to that particular rag, that’s really saying something. Alleging to have spoken to three members of Polanski’s extended family, the article’s authors start with an all too familiar figure: the hysterical, red-faced unc. You know the one. He’s marked by the trail of relatives diving into loos and under tables to avoid him at family gatherings. “He’s currently the leader of the future Islamic party of Britain, that’s what the Green party is fast becoming,” he told the Mail, practicing for his next enraged LBC phone-in. “And there would be no place for Jews in an Islamic state of Britain.” A second allegedly Jewish family member seemed to have absolutely no historical knowledge of the newspaper they were speaking to. And in the interest of smearing Polanski, its authors appear to have permanently detached their irony detectors. “If the Zionism-is-racism motion is passed it will make the Greens the most antisemitic party in British history since Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists,” the selective historian fretted. “The idea of it is one of the most sickening things I’ve heard in a long time.” A reminder: the Mail, now wringing its hands on behalf of British Jews, actively supported Mosley and his Union of Fascists in the 1930s. And its owner at the time, Viscount Rothermere aka Harold Harmsworth, personally congratulated Adolf Hitler on his annexation of Czechoslovakia on the eve of World War II. “My dear Führer,” he wrote in the summer of 1939, expressing his admiration of the Nazi dictator’s “superhuman work”. “The mad thing is that he’s gay, he’s Jewish,” said a third alleged Polanski relative, “But he’s cosying up to people whose ideology is the complete antithesis of everything that he’s supposed to stand for. It’s like he’s a chicken, telling us to vote for KFC.” According to Polanski, the entire article is a fantasy. “Spoke to my family today – all refused to talk to you,” he said to one of its authors. “You then started hunting down random ‘anon’ relatives.” It’s not just the Daily Mail, though. The Telegraph and the Times both ran articles suggesting Polanski, who appeared at the half-a-million strong anti far-right protest in London on Saturday, was making Britain unsafe for Jews by even entertaining an anti-Zionist motion. When Polanski retweeted a comment asserting that “the entire world detests” the Daily Mail, a Times columnist called it “extraordinary”. That was meant as an indictment. But the fact is, it is extraordinary for the leader of a British political party to take on, call out and hit back at a British media that’s far too used to calling the country’s political shots. And far too accustomed to policing our political horizons on behalf of its billionaire owners. The “Zionism is Racism” motion didn’t, in the end, pass, with the debate running out of time over a series of member-brought technicalities. It’ll return, though, for a vote at a later date. But the media response to it shows just how difficult it is to run on a political platform which, quite rightly, seeks to detach British politics from our so-called ally Israel. It shouldn’t be like that. In two years, at least 75,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military in Gaza. Israel continues to break international law in the West Bank. Meanwhile, the country is bombing Iran and invading Lebanon as I write, and over the weekend killed yet more journalists. Most voters in Britain are, quite rightly, sickened by all of this. And yet, the Greens questioning our relationship with Israel – a country that has done literally nothing for any British voter except put us all in greater danger – is supposed to be a vast political controversy? Make it make sense. From Novara Media via This RSS Feed.
Komunitas
ibbit.at
An almighty attack on Green party leader Zack Polanski was mounted this weekend by the super-reliable, super-ethical, super-rational Daily Mail. As we put the clocks forward, it seemed we also wound back to roughly 2019. Let me return you to that year. Famous, wealthy and very beloved British actress Maureen Lipman, a month before that crucial election cosplayed a normie in an attack ad on Jeremy Corbyn by Labour sect Mainstream, explicitly aimed at getting the Tories in. “And the antisemitism,” she sighed down a fake phone, “Who would have believed that?” It turns out: a lot of people. Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party lost. Instead, we got further years of austere Tory economics, genocide and global chaos. And now here we stand, on the doormat of World War III, largely instigated by Israel. Yet time is a flat circle. Because Polanski, a Jewish man, is getting the same treatment once more. This weekend, the Green Party debated a motion called “Zionism is Racism”. Everyone is, of course, entitled to their view on what is, for many, a controversial statement. But as Green party policy, you’d have thought it was something for party members to decide. Endorse it, reject it, amend it, that’s surely – surely! – all a matter, and only a matter, for those who’ve paid their subs and turned up for the often long and tedious matter of scrutinising the party’s offering. Wrong! Common sense says: hey, if you don’t like a party’s policies, don’t join it, don’t vote for it, But when it comes to Israel, it turns out a British political party simply can’t be allowed to set its own parameters. And if it tries, its leader and its members better be ready to face an onslaught of abuse. On the eve of the party’s spring conference, where the motion was set to be discussed, the Daily Mail put out one of the weakest, sloppiest, flimsiest reports I’ve read in a long time. And when it comes to that particular rag, that’s really saying something. Alleging to have spoken to three members of Polanski’s extended family, the article’s authors start with an all too familiar figure: the hysterical, red-faced unc. You know the one. He’s marked by the trail of relatives diving into loos and under tables to avoid him at family gatherings. “He’s currently the leader of the future Islamic party of Britain, that’s what the Green party is fast becoming,” he told the Mail, practicing for his next enraged LBC phone-in. “And there would be no place for Jews in an Islamic state of Britain.” A second allegedly Jewish family member seemed to have absolutely no historical knowledge of the newspaper they were speaking to. And in the interest of smearing Polanski, its authors appear to have permanently detached their irony detectors. “If the Zionism-is-racism motion is passed it will make the Greens the most antisemitic party in British history since Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists,” the selective historian fretted. “The idea of it is one of the most sickening things I’ve heard in a long time.” A reminder: the Mail, now wringing its hands on behalf of British Jews, actively supported Mosley and his Union of Fascists in the 1930s. And its owner at the time, Viscount Rothermere aka Harold Harmsworth, personally congratulated Adolf Hitler on his annexation of Czechoslovakia on the eve of World War II. “My dear Führer,” he wrote in the summer of 1939, expressing his admiration of the Nazi dictator’s “superhuman work”. “The mad thing is that he’s gay, he’s Jewish,” said a third alleged Polanski relative, “But he’s cosying up to people whose ideology is the complete antithesis of everything that he’s supposed to stand for. It’s like he’s a chicken, telling us to vote for KFC.” According to Polanski, the entire article is a fantasy. “Spoke to my family today – all refused to talk to you,” he said to one of its authors. “You then started hunting down random ‘anon’ relatives.” It’s not just the Daily Mail, though. The Telegraph and the Times both ran articles suggesting Polanski, who appeared at the half-a-million strong anti far-right protest in London on Saturday, was making Britain unsafe for Jews by even entertaining an anti-Zionist motion. When Polanski retweeted a comment asserting that “the entire world detests” the Daily Mail, a Times columnist called it “extraordinary”. That was meant as an indictment. But the fact is, it is extraordinary for the leader of a British political party to take on, call out and hit back at a British media that’s far too used to calling the country’s political shots. And far too accustomed to policing our political horizons on behalf of its billionaire owners. The “Zionism is Racism” motion didn’t, in the end, pass, with the debate running out of time over a series of member-brought technicalities. It’ll return, though, for a vote at a later date. But the media response to it shows just how difficult it is to run on a political platform which, quite rightly, seeks to detach British politics from our so-called ally Israel. It shouldn’t be like that. In two years, at least 75,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military in Gaza. Israel continues to break international law in the West Bank. Meanwhile, the country is bombing Iran and invading Lebanon as I write, and over the weekend killed yet more journalists. Most voters in Britain are, quite rightly, sickened by all of this. And yet, the Greens questioning our relationship with Israel – a country that has done literally nothing for any British voter except put us all in greater danger – is supposed to be a vast political controversy? Make it make sense. From Novara Media via this RSS feed
Komunitas
lemmygrad.ml
Paywalling the transcript but not the podcast is so funny to me. Let’s check in on the Keynesians… 😩 Even the little bits like Tooze saying “it turns out” helium affects AI are hysterical! People said that for years grandpa! ::: spoiler Expand transcript Before the Iran war, a huge amount of the fossil fuel consumed around the world passed through the Strait of Hormuz, including 34 percent of the crude oil, 19 percent of the liquefied natural gas, and 16 percent of the refined petroleum. Whether the Persian Gulf region will remain so central to the global economy once the war ends is an open question. As the world struggles with the immediate disruptions, the long-term winners and losers of the war are only beginning to come into view. Is the Persian Gulf’s economic model in jeopardy? Will China benefit from a broader global shift to renewable energy? And how is the U.S. economy affected overall by the war? Those are just a few of the questions that came up in my recent conversation with FP economics columnist Adam Tooze on the podcast we co-host, Ones and Tooze. What follows is an excerpt, edited for length and clarity. For the full conversation, look for Ones and Tooze wherever you get your podcasts. And check out Adam’s Substack newsletter. Cameron Abadi: Several countries in the Gulf have developed an economic model that depends on serving as a hub of international human capital, specializing in various types of high-end services. If this region isn’t secure, does that put this model into jeopardy? Is that the foundation of this entire economic concept? Adam Tooze: You can see the force in that argument. Dubai appears as a tourist economy probably largely from a European point of view. It’s notoriously so in Britain. Apparently, there were a whole bunch of articles about how crazy the Brits are about Dubai, both positively and negatively. It’s both loved and hated. I think from the point of American listeners, they won’t think of Dubai necessarily as a tourist destination, but it is a popular spot for Europeans because of reliably warm weather in the winter, and it’s reasonably close. But in terms of the economy, the highest figure I’ve seen for Dubai tourist share is less than 10 percent of GDP. So Dubai really is a commercial center: banking, trade, finance, insurance, all those kinds of things. And there’s no doubt, of course, that they will take a hit from the shock of the war. Real estate is another key component. The wealthy of the whole world like to have apartments there, very low-tax, kind of a haven status, if you like. But I think there’s a tendency toward skepticism when we’re talking about services in general, sort of what’s its basic means of support. It doesn’t make anything. So sooner people feel insecure, somehow it’ll all evaporate. I’m not going to try and predict Dubai’s GDP 10 years from now. But one shouldn’t underestimate the resilience of hubs like this. The sense that this is simply going to evaporate underestimates the central role the Gulf states play. Only in really, really bad scenarios does some form of relatively normalized traffic through the straits not resume at some point. This war is, after all, gratuitous. It should not have happened. There is no good reason for it other than Israeli geopolitics. At some point one has to assume that some kind of logic will be restored. And when it is, one would expect these centers to come back because they sit at really nodal points in the global economy. The demand for this oil and this gas is not going to collapse anytime soon. As soon as the straits open up, it’s cost-competitive. So absolutely, obviously, it is devastating in the short run. The people I’m most worried about, frankly, are the migrant workers who are there to service these economies. But I wouldn’t expect it to change the course of their development permanently. CA: A new FP essay written by Nils Gilman describes what he calls a “metabolic” Cold War pitting a coalition of petrostates, basically oil economies, versus a coalition that he refers to as the “Green Entente,” countries that are aligned behind renewable energy. Could this war be seen as an intervention in coalition management within the petrostate bloc that he’s talking about? A way of getting Iran in line? AT: Yeah, I mean, I think this distinction between electrostates and petrostates is interesting. In some ways, I’ve played my own part in popularizing the distinction, I think. But I also have to say I have some second thoughts about it, because I think we know what we mean by saying there are petrostates. And generally, what we mean is states that have a large share of GDP or state revenue that is to do with fossil fuels. And that’s clearly true for the Gulf states, and it’s true for Russia. It’s true to a limited extent for the United States, which is a petrostate in the sense it produces an awful lot of petrol and gas, but it’s not in any way heavily dependent on it. It’s just a huge producer. But what also distinguishes the petrostates from each other, which is crucial, is the degree to which they actually can control demand for oil and gas. And the United States, with a huge domestic market for oil and gas, can, of course, do that. And so it becomes rational for diehard, last-ditch fossil fuel defenders in the GOP to imagine, I think, a kind of enclosed U.S. oil and gas world in which the American merrily goes on consuming oil and gas. And then, of course, it looks for buyers for surplus oil and gas abroad. But that actually creates a conflict between American producers of oil and gas and American consumers, because the less that’s exported, the better from the point of view of American consumers. But in any case, the U.S. can shape a demand which is more or less adequate to the supply it can produce. And they’re both at a very high level. Russia is not in that position. It’s a substantial economy, 100 million-plus people, but its oil and gas production is far too big to be absorbed domestically. And if that’s the case for Russia, it’s even more the case for the Gulf states. So they aren’t petrostates in the sense that they can meaningfully imagine shaping a world through their own say-so in which oil and gas are still consumed. Their only real way of influencing that market is to be willing to offer oil and gas at very low prices, which means it becomes irresistible for some consumers. Now, if that’s the case, and you’re a Gulf state, and your strategy longer term is to stay in the oil and gas game but to compete on price and quality, then you’ll have a very high interest in diversifying the rest of your economy, which is what the Gulf states are all doing. And to do that, you actually turn yourself into a progressive electrostate state. So if you look at the Saudis, the Emiratis, they both have highly ambitious green electricity build-out programs, like Texas, in fact, which also is the largest renewable investor in the United States with the biggest wind and solar program. And if you look at Texas’s electric grid, increasingly, during the daytime, it’s dominated by renewables. And the Saudis and the Emiratis have woken up into this. I literally witnessed in Beijing this week a combined audience of Chinese and Arabs applauding the future of their collaboration between Saudi Arabia and China, because China is going to supply Saudi Arabia with the solar panels, the batteries that it needs to expand a green hydrogen, green steel, and desalination program all on the back of green electrification. So these choices are choices, but only really for the United States does it make sense to imagine a fully enclosed, 1950s-style, fossil-fuel-forever kind of world. Not the Russians, not the Gulf states. They don’t either of them really have the option of projecting that into the future. The Russians will mess around, and they’ll try and find low-income consumers who want their discounted oil. But the Saudis are actually heading in this other direction entirely. And this is even before we begin asking ourselves whether it’s really plausible, this is why the Trump administration did it. And I think the story we’re getting out of the Trump administration is so chaotic that the idea that somehow there was a grand strategy to corral all the oil and gas producers and somehow bang them into shape and get them under American control—I mean, would that it were the case that Washington was this concerted. Probably by far and away the most plausible interpretation is that they’re being instrumentalized by [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu. And beyond that, I think it’s Trumpian cosplay geopolitics. Again, I just think he’s making it up as he goes along. And there are some hardcore interests in the U.S. which were keen on a war with Iran forever. And the Israelis, of course, actually have, at least in Netanyahu’s sense, something to gain from this. But that is the crucial point. I think the crucial thing to make is that this idea of a petrostate that is truly self-sufficient really doesn’t extend beyond the U.S. CA: If we were to look at the other side of that Cold War setup, would it be possible to think of China as the beneficiary of this energy crisis now? Might oil-dependent countries, seeing how oil and access to oil is being weaponized, turn toward electrification and what China can offer in terms of access to renewable energy? AT: I think in broad terms, the answer to that question is almost certainly yes. This crisis is not an advert for reliance on fossil fuels. The proviso is that you have to reckon with what economists call the J-curve effect. So you suffer a shock. In the long run, this causes you to change behavior, but in the short run, with the parameters of your existing behavior set, you pay the penalty up-front. And so fossil fuels bulk larger in the short run as oil and gas prices go up. Discourse centers around them, policy centers around, everyone’s focused on them. It doesn’t look like we’re in a world which is transitioning, because oil and gas are the news. But in the medium term, yes, I think that’s a very plausible scenario. And it’s one that we’re already seeing working through. And it is one that the markets are betting on, because as much as the major oil companies, especially those which aren’t particularly exposed in the Gulf like Chevron, have done well out of this in terms of stock market price, the even bigger gains have been marked up by the champions of the green energy transition in China who are above all the battery makers. Because they really are the hub of green electricity transition as we are now understanding. They’re in the EVs; they’re the backup that the solar panels, in particular, need. So CATL, which is the most successful Chinese battery maker, has seen a substantial surge in its shares. Tens of billions of dollars have been added to the value of the major Chinese battery producers. BYD is not just a carmaker, it’s also a battery producer. So yes, we are seeing markets anticipate precisely that longer-term adjustment. CA: There’s been some suggestion that the U.S. economy could benefit to some extent from this energy crisis and the war more generally, that the war could be good for American oil and fracking businesses, even as it’s bad for U.S. consumers and maybe most of its citizens. How should we predict that this war will affect the U.S. economy? AT: I think that is the right way to think about it. It’s above all a distributional issue for America. Oil-importing parts of the world, whether rich or poor, when hit by big price shocks like this, suffer net losses. It’s called a terms-of-trade effect. Your exports buy you less imports, and it’s bad for your GDP. And in a really bad case, it can produce a net recession. So Europe in 2022, 2023, when the gas price just went through the roof, 2 percent to 3 percent hit to GDP, we think. So that’s real. If you’re a poor country, which is importing energy, it literally leads to shutdowns of activity like we’re seeing in Pakistan and other parts of Asia. In the U.S., it’s a distributional issue, first and foremost, because some people win and some people lose. On net, probably the United States economy, the GDP, may in fact benefit because America is a substantial fossil fuel producer and exporter as well. How large that effect is going to be is very uncertain, I think, because—and this is a point that’s been underlined in several different places—as with [President Donald] Trump’s tariff policy, you just don’t know what they’re doing. And so day by day, people are trying to guess. There’s some truly scandalous action going on in the futures market for oil around presidential Truth Social posts and announcements. It’s quite clear that the Trump administration is leaking to insiders who are placing gigantic bets in the markets. But that’s not the basis on which to run long-term investment in the American oil industry. And so even in Houston, apparently, there isn’t exactly a kind of mood of celebration here, because it only matters if it’s for the long term. And when you put the question, does the American president actively support a long-term elevation in oil prices, the answer is kind of obvious. And it’s no, because as much as there may be some winners from a higher oil price in the United States, the majority of the population, the heavy oil consumers, definitely lose. And they don’t lose as much as they would have once, right? Because as people have grown more affluent, and the oil price in real terms in relation to incomes has trended down, and people have become much more efficient in their energy use. And so energy is not the decisive factor that it once was in America’s budgets. It bulks rather larger in popular psychology than it does actually in the economy. It has an impact on American society which is perhaps out of proportion to its material consequences for people’s budgets. But it’s no doubt at all that the American presidential administration is not going to deliberately set about maintaining a high level of oil prices because it’s good for the fracking industry or whatever. That’s Trump windbaggery. That’s not actual policy. :::
Komunitas
lemmy.world
The pants, spats, tunic, cape and hat were purchased but everything else was my work
Komunitas
ibbit.at
Holidays whip up sweet and spicy memories of Captain Max that I stir into a new Spring casserole of vintage photos. Like onions, some make me cry, but most are tasty enough to make me smile and occasionally even lick my lips. I call it “collage therapy” and, like good holy-dazed comfort food with special herbs – such as *herb,* also celebrated around this time (4/20, anyone?) – it soothes my bottomless sorrow since the May 13, 2025 death of my beloved husband Maximillian R. Lobkowicz di Filangieri, helping me navigate this strange space between grief and gratitude. Max Collage #7 highlights the Passover Liberation from Slavery and the Easter Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Filled with fun and games, Easter egg and Afikoman hunts, these zesty Spring holidays, can also be harsh, with bitter herbs for Pesach and fasting for Lent, to give us a tiny taste of the great suffering of slavery, crucifixion and other sins perpetrated by human greed, brutality, hubris and foolishness. Liberation & Resurrection Both Passover (Pesach in Hebrew) and Easter honor divine Miracles of Return, echoing the primeval Eleusinian Mysteries of spring, which celebrate the pagan return of Persephone, Princess of the Underworld – and queen of the funereal grief I now feel – to her own grieving Earth Mother Demeter. Yes, long before the Rebirth of the Holy Son returning to His Father in Heaven, the ancients honored the Resurrection of the Holy Daughter returning to Her Mother on Earth. According to the Greeks, the Goddess Persephone (Proserpina to the Romans – like Max) rises up from the bowels of Hades (Pluto) to the old Athenian suburb of Eleusis, rejoining Her Earth Mama Demeter (Ceres) who is so ecstatic to embrace the fruit of Her loins that She showers the world in spring (now that’s some serious squirting)! I only wish Max could return to me as Persephone returns to Her Earth Mother Demeter and Jesus returns to His Heavenly Father. That utterly irrational yet profound longing for the return of my beloved has opened my agnostic heart to understanding the deep faith so many place in the miracle of resurrection. Ahhhh… if only! Miracles of Spring Though pretty amazing, the stories of Purim and St. Paddy’s Day don’t feature scientifically impossible *miracles.* No miraculous parting of the sea, and no walking on it either. The Megillat Esther doesn’t even mention the name of God. Easter and Passover are all about God and His (in Judeo-Christian-Islamic lore, God’s pronouns are always “He/Him”) miracles. Things that *can’t* happen – manna from heaven, resurrection of the dead – do. The closest thing to a miracle I’ve ever experienced was Max himself, his energy and his love that somehow – miraculously – both protected and liberated me. Though agnostic, we tried to honor all the Gods and Goddesses, because as Max would say with a wink, “You never know.” We were fascinated and sometimes aroused by the ancient tales. Our Commedia Erotica interpretations might be considered blasphemous, but they were always heartfelt. On the Passover/Easter convergence of 2011, we held a big “Last Supper Seder,” sharing matzah and chocolate bunnies, colored eggs, the Pascal lamb, red wine, “bitter herbs” and 4/20 herbs with professors, porn stars, artists and therapists. Max had just recovered from bladder cancer surgery a couple of weeks before, and he wasn’t sure if he was well enough to attend. But as I began the seder, he slipped into a long robe and suddenly *appeared* from behind my chair, playing the part of the resurrected Jesus… or Elijah, depending on what you believe. It was mystical, hilarious and genuinely surprised me – almost like a real resurrection! I keep hoping he’ll do that again… Easter, Pesach, Nowruz Though we weren’t religious believers, Max fervently believed in consuming all the delicious foods of our elaborate Passover/Easter seder dinners, from matzah ball soup to chocolate Easter bunnies. Both Pesach and Easter highlight eggs, which Max adored, regardless of color. Iranian or Persian New Year, aka “Nowruz,” also features eggs, sweets, spring cleaning, the idea of rebirth, renewal, sometimes rebellion (how about those Arab Springs?) and other parallels to the spring holidays Max and I grew up on. A 3000-year-old Vernal Equinox festival that’s more cultural than religious, with roots in Zoroastrianiasm, and is observed by over 300 million people around the world, we’d often acknowledge Nowruz or Noorooz (meaning “New Day”) in our Bonoboville Spring holiday bacchanals, but admittedly without nearly as much detail as Pesach or Easter because being the dumb Judeo-Christian-Pagan-Agnostics we are, we really didn’t know Nowruz from Babaghanoush (which is actually Lebanese, not Iranian). At least we acknowledged our ignorance, unlike many raised in so-called “Judeo-Christian” culture who excuse their war crimes by framing Iran as a savage society or Islam as an especially vicious religion. Bonoboville Spring Bacchanals Of course, Nowruz, Pesach and Easter are family occasions, but there comes a time when anyone with a pulse tires of trying to please their aunties and in-laws and craves a spicier blessing. Time to catch Spring Fever and fall in love… or at least party like a bonobo! Thus, for the past three decades, after spending the first part of their holiday with family, bevies of Easter Bunnies, Passover Kinksters and a few Nowruz revelers would gather together in the Womb Room Sanctuary at the little Love Church of The Bonobo Way in Dr. Suzy’s Speakeasy of Bonoboville to celebrate the erotic, not-so family-friendly, bacchanalian roots of the Judeo-Christian Rites of Spring. And no, it wasn’t a cult; we were just having irreverent consenting-adult holiday fun. Officiating in my priestly robes, tallit, gold cross (a gift from a devout Catholic therapy client), Star of David (woven for me by Twin Towers inmates from the threads of their prison uniforms), “Lox et Veritas” g-string and bunny ears, I would channel the spirit of The Great Bonobo Spring Easter Bunny Matzah Goddess, or some such mirthful divinity. And Capt’n Max would channel Capt’n Max. Sometimes he’d wear his own Twin-Towers-woven star or bunny ears, but his sheer presence always projected plenty of divine “main character energy” on its own. Never Again for Anyone The pandemic cooled down our bacchanals, and as Israel’s escalating attacks on Palestinians passed over Passover 2021, Max and I sadly stowed our Stars of David, put on Keffiyehs and raised Palestinian flags. At the time, the choice felt simple to us: “Never Again” meant “Never Again for Anyone.” Yet nothing is ever that simple. With loved ones on all sides, we couldn’t fully root for any *side* except the Bonobo Way, the side of peace through pleasure, ceasefire, sharing and good old-fashioned diplomacy. We also continued to root for Freedom of Speech – a vital aspect of that “freedom” from slavery that Passover celebrates – and that’s free speech for everyone, including the creeps who try to take ours away. With Max now gone, I still root for free speech and the Bonobo Way, but I miss our painted eggs on the Last Supper seder plate. I miss Max. Make Matzah Not War Max passed over (literally) before tRump’s current bombardment of the ancient land of Iran, aka Operation Epstein Folly. Yes, “Operation Epic Fury” (did a gamer come up with that name?) was re-christened “Operation Epstein Fury” by clickbait influencers, but that merely exchanges Epstein for “Epic,” and it’s much worse than that. “Folly” is more on-the-nose than “Fury” because none of the architects of this mess are authentically “furious” about anything. Certainly, the babbling tRumpus is not furious, nor are any of his cosplaying Cabinet of Dr. Caligari horror actors, yes-models and real estate developers. But they are all remarkably, hubristically and rather dangerously foolish. The bombing of the girls’ school might be Herr Trumpenstein’s most foolish and horrific deed yet, especially as it appears to be a bloody coda to his Epstein history. Fools can be funny, but this fool’s errand is devastating to people all over the Middle East. Needless to say, Nowruz 2026 is not as joyous as usual, though some Iranians are observing the pre-Nowruz traditional fire ritual Chaharshanbe Suri by defying government orders, while others are burning effigies of tRump and Bibi. Poor Trumpty Dumpty was “shocked” that a big *civilized* country like Iran would actually fight back when pelted with American bombs. “They weren’t supposed to,” Trumpty whined (not so subtly blaming Jared), as Dr. Caligari’s Cabinet of Creeps nodded along, bombing away anyway. Where’s Moses to part the Strait of Hormuz with his magic God Rod when you need him? If Max were alive, no doubt he’d be ranting against these mad, arrogant, avaricious fools. And he’d make it personal, telling the story of his own experience as a former starry-eyed U.S. Army recruit to any bewildered soldiers that might be listening. Max was a rifleman, a crack shot being groomed for sniper duty when one fine day, his young brain figured out that after target practice came killing his fellow humans. So, he threw down his rifle, picked up a pen and studied war no more. Well, it wasn’t that simple (nothing ever is), but that’s a story for another collage. In the meantime, let’s simply end this foolish war, or whatever it’s called. Max would say, “Listen Trumpty, we all know you’re a bully and a fool, so why not go TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out), find an offramp (but that doesn’t mean pivoting to “take Cuba”!), and stop the bombing? Then maybe they’ll stop their bombing (after all, you started it), and we can all go bonobos, eat chocolate eggs and enjoy the miracles of Spring.” Not that it’s ever that simple, but in the meantime… Happy Easter, Passover, Nowruz, 4/20, Dionysia, Primavera, Eleusinian Mysteries, Spring Break or whatever you celebrate, from me, Bonoboville and the Spirit of Max. The post Make Matzah Not War: Easter, Passover, Nowruz, Eleusis & the Spirit of Max appeared first on CounterPunch.org. From CounterPunch.org via this RSS feed
Komunitas
lemmy.dbzer0.com
(IcoNx937) (2026) Image description: A woman with brown spiral-patterned eyes and short black hair in a shocked facial expression, standing while holding a wooden staff with a glowing red orb at the tip in her left hand. She is wearing round eyeglasses and is dressed in a black pointed witch hat with an orange band, a black strapless dress, a black cape tied with a bow, orange elbow-length gloves, orange thigh-high stockings, and brown boots. ::: spoiler Full Generation Parameters: (black background:1.5), looking at viewer, dutch angle, 1girl, sonohara anri, short hair, black hair, bob cut, bangs, brown eyes, glasses, breasts, cosplay, witch hat, collarbone, cleavage, black dress, strapless, orange gloves, elbow glove, black cape, zettai ryouiki, orange thighhighs, brown footwear, embarrassed, surprised, holding staff, casting spell, shouting, sweatdrop, @_@, boots dynamic pose, oekaki, anime coloring, anime screencap, masterpiece, best quality, amazing quality, Negative prompt: worst quality, worst detail, bad quality, sketch, bad anatomy, bad proportions, extra limbs, extra digit, extra legs, extra legs and arms, disfigured, missing arms, too many fingers, fused fingers, missing fingers, unclear eyes, watermark, username, blurry, english text, korean text, text, subtitled, chinese text, out of frame, multiple views, (shoulder bag, bag, strap:1.5) Steps: 30, CFG scale: 7, Sampler: Euler a, Seed: 1193737036, RNG: CPU, Size: 832x1216, Model: waiIllustriousSDXL_v160, Version: classic, Emphasis: Original, Model hash: a5f58eb1c3, Hires steps: 20, ControlNet 0: [object Object], ControlNet 1: [object Object], ControlNet 2: [object Object], Hires upscale: 1.5, Schedule type: Automatic, Hires upscaler: RealESRGAN_x4plus_anime_6B, Denoising strength: 0.5, Clip skip: 2 :::
Komunitas
sh.itjust.works
In 2025, when Elon Musk joined the government as the de facto head of something called the “department of government efficiency”, he declared that governments were poorly configured “big dumb machines”. To the senator Ted Cruz, he explained that “the only way to reconcile the databases and get rid of waste and fraud is to actually look at the computers”. Muskism came to Washington soaked in memes, adolescent boasts and sadistic victory dances over mass firings. Leading a team of teenage coders and mid-level managers drawn from his suite of companies, Musk aimed to enter the codebase and rewrite regulations and budget lines from within. He would drag the paper-pushing bureaucracy kicking and screaming into the digital 21st century, scanning the contents of cavernous rooms of filing cabinets and feeding the data into a single interoperable system. The undertaking combined features of private equity-led restructuring with startup management, shot through with the sensibility of gaming and rightwing culture war. To succeed, he would need “God mode”, an overview of the whole. If the mandate of Doge was to “[modernise] federal technology and software to maximise governmental efficiency and productivity”, in the words of the executive order that launched the initiative on 20 January 2025, the reality was a strengthening of the state’s surveillance capacities. Over time, Musk had become convinced that the real bugs in the code were people, especially the non-white illegal immigrants whom he saw as pawns in a liberal scheme to corrupt democracy and beneficiaries of what he called “suicidal empathy”. He understood empathy itself in coding terms. It was an “exploit” or a software vulnerability against which the system architecture needed to be hardened. Musk’s office featured a gaming rig complete with an oversized curved screen, and the Doge website had a leaderboard for tallying cuts in real time. But beneath the jokes and cosplay lay a serious conviction. If the state was just a database, then inefficiency came from bad data: undocumented foreigners, ghost employees, even “vampires” collecting social security. These were bugs in the codebase, irregularities to be traced, quarantined and purged. Musk had revamped and retrained Twitter into X. To him, the US state was just another system – a glitchy dataset to be scrubbed and optimised. Call it StateX.
Komunitas
lemmy.world
Bruh if my homie looked like THAT good in cosplay I’d be tempted to joke around too
Komunitas
lemmy.blahaj.zone
So I really wanna look like Purple Heart from Hyperdimension Neptunia, I wanna do that but it’s so much work and I keep getting distracted by playing video games instead of working.
Komunitas
lemmy.world
Any time someone draws PPG as normal looking attractive women instead of fingerless disfigured cuteness-monsters, my headcanon is that they are cosplayers.