I vaguely feel like people say Be Safe to me as a goodbye more often than when I was younger? but even if that's the case I don't have any sense of when that would have started. or like particularly if it would have been since I came out, since the pandemic started, or since I moved to this city

Jukebox reviews part 33! For context, see my post “A Project”      under this same tag. If you want to see a full list of his EMCSA    stories, they can be found here, sorted alphabetically.And if you want to see some of his drabbles, check out his blog at @jukeboxemcsa

Yes (Means It’s Hard to Say No)

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12/10/2016                                   mc

This is another Jukebox induction, this time centered around agreement and yes sets. It's a very well-done induction, and I'm sure that if I heard it recorded as it was clearly meant to be, it would likely melt my brain into a happy puddle - though my brain, being the particular flavor of ace it is, would probably shrug at the orgasm suggestion with a 'that sounds fun for people who aren't me, thank you" effectively. But technique wise? this is 10/10 spirals.

 Weak

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12/17/2016                                   mc mf mm md fd

this feels vaguely serial recruitment-y, and without even consent from Jack for it, and just is a turn-off for me. Add in the race play element (the concept of a "big, black cock" and ... nope. I'm squicked TF out. 

 Joyride

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12/24/2016                                   mc ff md

Gosh, I don't like Darren at all, and even Odetta irritates me by the end of this. I understand her anger, though, so it's easier to give her a pass. This is more body control than mind control, to me, which is a distinction that matters rather a lot to my enjoyment. Between not liking the characters and it being body control, not mind control? 2/10 spirals. 

 Delirious

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12/31/2016                                   mc ff

... nope. Pandemic stories just are NOPE. 

 Red Head Vs. the Pretty Red Bracelet

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1/7/2017                                       mc mf md

"which was totally unfair, if either of them had any interest in his being fair" ... I love this line. So much. (I often use the related "who said anything about 'fair'?") And - I've stolen the idea of tying a suggestion to a bracelet from this story, for my favourite redheaded gal, though the suggestion I tied to her bracelet is much sweeter and romantic than this one. (ok, ok, this story doesn't do a trigger so much as an associated anchor, but it still inspired me.) I love all of this story so much though. It's clever and hot and they clearly have a good relationship and just *yes.* If you like consensual, clever hypnokinky shenanigans, give this story a read! 10/10 spirals 

 Entangled

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1/21/2017                                     mc mf md

Another delightful "these folk are clearly in a happy relationship, and I love seeing them get up to shenanigans" story. The suggestions in play are clever and the way Ellen responds is absolutely wonderful. Joe's pacing and rhythm is spot on, too, and I can just see exactly how easily Ellen lets him into her mind, surrenders to his power, and lets him bind her. It's wonderful and I absolutely *adore* stories like this. 10/10 spirals. 

 Golden Slumbers

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1/21/2017                                     mc mf md

This is an interesting take on Victorian-era approaches.to hypnosis, and I think I mostly like it. It's truly terrible about consent, of course, but other than that I love how Alexander uses her expectation, her curiosity, and just his force of presence to command her into a trance. The story's focus on just how out of it she is, the way it feels to her, keeps me interested, but it's just missing a little something after the initial induction, for my personal preference. She's so passive, there's not much charge to it, to me. 8/10 spirals. 

 Passenger

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1/28/2017                                     mc

This reads as an induction to be recorded, but recorded with a specific person in mind - a new partner, being trained to respond, being brainwashed into the sort of pet they want to be for their dominant partner. It feels vaguely like I"m seeing somthing not meant for me, in that way. But at the same time, it's a lot of really good content to consider for any hypnotist playing with a new partner. Things like defining what safewords mean, adding in safeties like "when it's safe and comfortable" and in general how to take care of a hypnotee, while also doing hot things like brainwashing them. 9/10 spirals. 

 His Eyes, Her Eyes

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2/4/2017                                       mc mf md fd

This is a fun premise, for sure! And they both play into it so well. The sense of the rules we're given, the way they both follow them while being as unfair as they can manage, it's all really good. But the competitive edge feels just a bit ... not quite *meanspirited*, exactly, but something in that space, and that takes me out of it a little. Otherwise, this switch fight is lovely. 7/10 spirals. 

 Out of the Black

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2/11/2017                                     mc ff

Nope, I can't with an image of swimming that deep underwater. I just can't. *shudder* I had to nope out a paragraph in.

Season 4: What do we know?

What with it being summer break during a pandemic, I am quite bored. I’ve decided to take a look at what we know about the upcoming season.  It turns out, we don’t really KNOW a lot. What do we know then?

1) There appear to be nine episodes, and the first one is (currently) titled The Hellfire Club. This is all based on the Stranger Writers Twitter account. Nine episodes would be welcome, as last season felt a bit rushed to me.  As for the Hellfire Club, that’s where we can really only speculate...which I will happily do here because, again, I’m bored and starved of content. The Hellfire Club was first a reference to organizations in 18th century Britain or Ireland. They seemed to be hedonistic in nature, and some possibly existed as a mockery of religion. They basically congregated to have a safe place to escape social taboo. From the information I was able to find, they seemed relatively benign. There’s no evidence they were Satanic or anything malicious, though rumors were abound of evil magic and other goings on. From my readings, I get the sense they were basically like stereotypical frat houses of today: excessive indulgences in food, drink, and sex, along with weird rituals and pledges of loyalty and secrecy. I struggled to connect this to anything that could occur in Stranger Things. Hellfire Clubs as the rumors of the time saw them may fit into the supernatural aspects of the narrative, but it would be a very obscure reference. It could be a secret organization investigating things that would otherwise be frowned upon (the occult and/or supernatural). It could be a club or organization that others see as bad, like perhaps a school clique of outcasts, but it’d be quite something for an 80s kid to know the reference. To them, they’d probably more likely associate it with a comic book. The Hellfire Club was also the name given to a villainous group first shown in Uncanny X-Men #129. It is ostensibly an international elite social club, but is more or less a front for an group of powerful people, including several powerful mutants, to use their wealth and power to secretly influence world events. They were introduced during the Dark Phoenix storyline, as members of that organization tried to bend the Phoenix to their will in order to make use of her power. So, perhaps the Hellfire Club (likely named by one of our comic-loving boys) is made up of antagonists looking to capitalize on Brenner’s work. Brenner himself could very well be behind it all. The main issue I see here is that this would require not only revealing this to the viewers in the first episode, but also to the kids in order to allow the name. 2) Hopper is...somewhere This is old news by now, but we know Hopper hasn’t been reduced to goo like everyone else exposed to the Russian experiment. Where he is remains a mystery, though they seem to want us to think Russia and that he is the American mentioned by the guards. It’s not outside the realm of possibility that he could have slipped through the gate (intentionally or not) and ended up in Russia. It would make me wonder why the show played its hand so early though. They may have just said “screw it” when so many people noticed there were no remains like with everyone else who got blasted. It may also be a misdirection. I’m not a huge fan of those, as I think having to be blatantly deceptive is cheap writing, but I’m also not a writer. What we do know is that part of the plot will have to involve finding and rescuing Hopper, wherever he is. 

3) Murray knows something that would be of interest to Joyce

In an easter egg after Season 3, we were treated to Murray’s answering machine message. Writers know that a number of fans will call a phone number (or go to a website) provided on a show or movie and often set up supplemental material to go with it. Along with scolding his mom for calling him when she isn’t supposed to, he also includes a message for Joyce. This shows that he was anticipating her call, suggesting that they had remained in contact. Murray is intentionally vague about a discovery he made, but refers to it as an “update” and “not good or bad, but something.”  What we can get out of this is that Murray has been working on something of interest to Joyce, possibly at her request. What could interest Joyce that an investigative reporter would want to work on? The obvious answer is Hopper’s whereabouts, but that would imply that she thinks he’s alive. Perhaps she wanted to be sure that her family is safe from government agencies, Russians, and the supernatural.  The part that stands out to me is that it’s “not good or bad.” You’d think Murray would have some idea of what he discovered. This could just be a way for them be all “hey, Murray’s gonna be involved next season” without giving anything away. 4) The party will be split, at least at first I mean, this is basically a given, but, since it’s something we know, it should be included here. The Byers and Jane have left Hawkins for parts unknown. Jane presumably is going with them, but keep in mind her aunt is still out there. However, if Jane were to be going to live with her aunt then her goodbye wouldn’t be quite so impactful. Becky Ives is shown to live relatively close to Hawkins given the ease with which Jane gets there. Mike’s conversation with Jane where he invites her and Will over for the holidays suggests he expects them to be living together. We may not have seen the last of Jane’s biological family (or Kali for that matter), but she’s almost certainly going to live with the Byers, at least initially. With the emphasis the series has put on not splitting the party, we can expect them all to reunite somehow. However, the initial action would have to occur separately unless the entire season occurs during the course of a visit. This was all I could think of in terms of known information. Everything else would simply be speculation. I’m not opposed to that, but that would be for another post at another time. Please feel free to fill in any gaps I’ve left or correct any mistakes I’ve made (politely I would ask). 

New Post has been published on All about business online

New Post has been published on http://yaroreviews.info/2021/06/biden-weighs-new-executive-order-restraining-big-business

Biden Weighs New Executive Order Restraining Big Business

The Biden administration is developing an executive order directing agencies to strengthen oversight of industries that they perceive to be dominated by a small number of companies, a wide-ranging attempt to rein in big business power across the economy, according to people familiar with the plans.

The executive order, which President Biden could sign as soon as next week, would direct regulators of industries from airlines to agriculture to rethink their rule-making process to inject more competition and to give consumers, workers and suppliers more rights to challenge large producers.

The goal is to broaden the way policy makers approach business concentration in the U.S., going beyond conventional antitrust enforcement focused on blocking big mergers. For example, companies in industries controlled by a small number of big firms might face new rules for disclosing fees to consumers or for their relationships with suppliers, the people familiar with the effort said.

Big business groups and some Republicans will likely protest any new Biden measures. Businesses and conservative legal groups could challenge the rules in court, as they already have with administration moves to limit oil and gas drilling on federal lands and to extend a pandemic-related moratorium on evicting renters. Regulatory opponents are hopeful that conservative judges appointed by former President Donald Trump will make it easier to challenge Biden administration rules.

“I find the way this is being framed questionable,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, an economist who worked in the George W. Bush administration and who has advised GOP lawmakers and candidates. “They’ve decided the economy isn’t competitive, but when you look closer at the data, you just don’t see a radical increase in concentration.”

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Mr. Holtz-Eakin, who now runs the American Action Forum conservative think tank, added that the potential executive order is rooted in “their philosophical presumption that the private sector is wrong and that government is better.”

The approach to big business would be similar to what Mr. Biden has called a “whole of government” method for tackling other priorities, such as addressing climate change and racial inequality. The draft executive order was first reported by Reuters.

No final decision has been made on the order, White House spokeswoman Emilie Simons said. She said that Mr. Biden made clear during his presidential campaign that he wanted the government to do more to limit business dominance over certain industries.

She added that the president has in the past called for giving small farmers more protection against concentration among farm distributors and makers of agricultural equipment, and he has called for restricting the ability of employers to force workers to sign noncompete agreements limiting their ability to go work for other companies.

The executive order under consideration would follow one with similar goals issued by former President Barack Obama in April 2016. Some supporters of aggressive antitrust action say that order was vague and came too close to the end of Mr. Obama’s term to prompt significant action.

The Obama order directed departments and agencies to identify within 60 days limits to competition in the industries they oversee and propose new rules aiding consumers and small businesses. The Commerce Department moved to increase competition for cable and satellite set-top boxes, the Agriculture Department moved to give small poultry farmers more protections against big meatpackers, and the Transportation Department required airlines to more clearly disclose baggage fees.

Mr. Trump reversed the poultry and baggage-fee measures, and he didn’t make anti-concentration policy a priority.

“I think the Obama order worked well, but it came at the end of the administration, and these things take time,” said Jason Furman, who chaired the Obama Council of Economic Advisers and helped craft and implement the order. “With more time to run, an executive order now has the potential to do quite a lot,” said Mr. Furman, now a Harvard economics professor.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D., N.Y.) and other lawmakers spoke about antitrust bills aimed at big tech firms in Washington, D.C., on June 16.

Photo: J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press

The Biden administration focus on big business power comes amid growing bipartisan support for tougher antitrust measures, especially against big technology companies such as Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc. Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google. A House committee last week approved a far-reaching legislative package aimed at curbing the market dominance of those tech giants in a variety of ways, such as prohibiting the big platforms from favoring their own products or services. The measures require passage from the full House and the Senate to become law.

Mr. Biden named a prominent tech critic, Lina Khan, to chair the Federal Trade Commission, one of two federal agencies that handle such cases.

A federal judge on Monday handed a setback to advocates for limiting the power of big tech companies, dismissing antitrust lawsuits against Facebook filed in December by the federal government and 46 states. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington said the claims were “legally insufficient” but gave the FTC 30 days to attempt to file an amended lawsuit.

Progressive academics and activists have in recent years been promoting new approaches to big business policy, and some have landed in the Biden administration. Tim Wu, a longtime advocate for tougher antitrust enforcement, is now an official at the White House National Economic Council handling technology and competition policy, and has been working on the executive order, according to people familiar with the deliberations.

Tim Wu, who ran for statewide office in New York in 2014, is a leading advocate for tougher antitrust enforcement in the Biden administration.

Photo: Keith Bedford for The Wall Street Journal

As a Columbia Law School professor in 2017, he wrote an article urging policy makers to explore “regulatory alternatives to antitrust to ‘catalyze’ competition.”

A similar argument in a November 2020 report issued by the Washington Center for Equitable Growth—headed at the time by Heather Boushey, now a member of Mr. Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers—called on the new administration to “commit to a ‘whole of government’ approach to competition policy.” Mr. Wu was one of the authors of that report.

Advocates of that approach say that regulators often focus on promoting the companies and industries they oversee, and that it would make a difference for the White House to direct them to do more to curb the power of those companies.

“It’s helpful to have pressure from the White House pushing agencies to think more about promoting competition when that benefits the public, even when it’s unwelcome to the industry being regulated,” said Carl Shapiro, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley who worked on antitrust policy in the Clinton and Obama administrations.

—Alex Leary contributed to this article.

Copyright ©2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

Congratulations, BATA! You’ve been accepted for the role of PUCK. Admin Rosey: One of my favorite points of this application were the plots because you highlighted how much you wanted Puck to confront realities that they’ve studiously looked away from or have been able to elude. I had to laugh at the description of Puck’s carreer choice -- it’s not glamorous but it’s definitely f u n. You managed to capture a certain amount of carelessness and happy-go-lucky recklessness, while maintaining how cutting and dangerous Puck could be as a character. Seeing them on the dash is going to be a definite breath of fresh air -- which will be short-lived, probably, considering the chaos that is bound to occur because of them. I can’t wait to see what twists and wildness you bring to the dash! Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.

WELCOME TO THE MOB.

OUT OF CHARACTER

Alias | Bata

Age | 19

Preferred Pronouns | Any!

Activity Level | So, there’s four days a week where I work. Hooray for food service during a pandemic I guess! Those four days are super long and I can’t be on the dash. However, for the rest of the week, I fully intended to do at least one reply a day and to schedule replies for days I’m not on. I also plan to be on to talk with other writers every single day, even if it is only for short bursts or small pockets of time. In numbers, I guess a five out of ten?

Timezone | MST

How did you find the rp?  | Um, I think I was tag browsing while procrastinating my homework back when school was in session and I stumbled across you guys? My friends rp a lot and told me which tags I’d probably like, so I took note of ‘em and searched them up every so often when I got bored, and I thought this looked super cool and took a note of it! Now that I have a job again and my life has kind of evened out, I decided now was the time to apply!

Current/Past RP Accounts | None, I haven’t written anything in a super long time.

IN CHARACTER

Character | Puck - Pavel Lam with no faceclaim change, I think Jackson Wang has a certain pizzazz to him that I like quite a bit. Koala-tea choice, admins. I also chose to use they/them instead of he/him pronouns for Pavel, just so you’re aware. Both options were listed and I chose the former! :D

What drew you to this character? | My answer is really short and simple (but I promise it isn’t because I’m not super invested in the character!). Pavel is loyal to themselves and couldn’t really care what the big men in the city are doing. This is so refreshing to me! The biggest thing I took away from their skeleton is that the city could burn around them, the mobs could tear each other until there’s nothing left of the people that once fought, and Pavel would laugh, pack up, and move on. I cannot overstate how much I love that. No, I adore that. It sets them apart from every other character, in my mind. I don’t approve of it, and I think it’s a really dangerous personality trait, but they’re so different from everyone else. And that was really what attracted me to them. There’s something super fascinating about that ideology and I desperately want to explore it!

What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character? |

BOY DON’T TRY TO FRONT: Pavel Lam has never, not in their entire life, cared about the expectations of others, unless they were an employer on one of their jobs. Money talks, after all, and until the greenbacks changed hands, they were willing to do almost anything for years. And if there wasn’t an opportunity, they made one, impersonating tour guides and all sorts of other stuff. Pavel kind of forced the world to allow them certain things. But that’s the only circumstance when that’s happened. Everything else, from the expectations society placed towards a “loyal” child to others’ opinions on their pronouns and gender expression, has been met with a laugh and a biting “Oh, love you too!” Pavel is Puck and Puck is Pavel and that is all they are.

Now, that’s all fine and dandy but Verona doesn’t care about things like that. The city is built on expectations and broken promises, and every person living there expects things and wants to see those things delivered. No one, not even Puck, the jester themselves, are immune to such a thing. People want things from them, expect certain actions to be taken, favors to be repaid, and all sorts of other complicated factors Pavel does not want to deal with.

I want them to be forced to deal with it. Perhaps Nick Bottom expects repayment for that bomb Pavel set off three hours early. Maybe Gertrude dispensed a captain/soldier team that ended up saving Pavel’s life and now the Montagues expect Verona’s (least) favorite knave to complete a job for them. Or, maybe, just maybe, they know something about the secrets that seem to swim through the veins of Capulets like fish and those associated with such a family expect them to keep their mouth shut. I just want Pavel to realize people expect things from them and if they don’t deliver, their head will be on the chopping block.

They aren’t used to something like that happening, after all, and I really think it could serve as this vague “come-to-Jesus” moment (as if they’d ever put stock in organized religion), where Pavel realizes if they don’t make a change, they’re going to pay a serious price, and that could really change how Pavel interacts with Verona.

I’M SENT FROM ABOVE: There is freedom in neutrality. True neutrality, not Capulet or Montague Lite like some other so-called neutrals hold, but actual neutrality. Pavel values that freedom above almost anything else, except their rose-gold headphones and the rest of their bank account. Verona is their playground, the paved streets might as well be clouds for how lightly they dance along them. And they’re willing to do almost anything for a pretty penny. Whether they were ordaining a wedding, crashing a wedding, or breaking an engagement off before the bride put on her freakishly-expensive dress, they don’t care. As long as it paid, they’re willing to try it.

That willingness to do anything as long as they’re paid might just lead a particularly desperate Montague or Capulet to their door, willing to pay anything as long as Pavel is willing to help them. Whether they want Puck to take out Alvise’s killer, Othello becoming so convinced of Desdemona’s continued betrayal that he wants her to suffer, or if someone just wants a stash of Titania’s fae blood destroyed, Puck would do it, and do it happily. Just as long as they pay. This would force Pavel to actually be involved in the mobs and their struggles in a fairly direct way that makes use of their talents! And that’s the main reason I want this. Pavel can’t be this lone island forever, and I refuse to let them be uninvolved for too long. There’s no fun in drifting above all this chaos, after all. And how can I possibly rain angst down upon their head if Pavel refuses to talk to any of the mobs?

HIT ME BABY ONE MORE TIME: The life of a killer (and anything else, really) for hire isn’t as glamorous as the movies make it out to be, but Pavel would be lying if they said it wasn’t fun. It’s a blast, and, if you were to catch them in a rare moment of honesty, they’d admit they wouldn’t change their job for all the money in a Capulet’s bank account. They’d be tempted, sure, but they likely wouldn’t. It’s freedom handed out along biting iron edges that dig into skin and heart, tearing into softness with a brutality probably only matched by Iago.

It’s a shame that others don’t seem to agree with them on the sheer awesomeness that is Pavel’s job.

Doing what Pavel does, it’s inevitable that enemies will be made, and will hang around for a good while after their dislike has been cemented. Pavel seemed to have amassed a collection of these, with the most notable of these being, of course, Nick Bottom. But there are others. There has to be. And whether they haven’t arrived in Verona yet or got there faster than Pavel did, I can’t help but think they’re coming. And they’re out for blood.

I want a rivalry. This is basically what this amounts to. And not a rivalry in the same way that Puck was written to have with Ariel, which I feel somewhat amounts to Pavel feeling undermined by Alva’s skills, but a genuine actual rivalry between assassins (and anything else) for hire. Pavel thinks they’re the best, that no one can compare to their skills. And they’re right to think that, but it’s also just straight up wrong. There’s no possible way that can be true, so the goal of this plot is to take that confidence Pavel has and to cut it down at the knees, to make them try and figure out who they are when their skills and job are in jeopardy, because I feel like so much of who Pavel is is tied to that. So, clearly, it needs to be stripped away!

Are you comfortable with killing off your character? | I sure am! Look, Puck just kinda. Exists in Verona, free from all this Montague - Capulet stuff. I don’t think they’d know what to do with the expectation of loyalty from anyone, and that’s a great strength. But like, they doesn’t really care about the chaos Verona is currently in, beyond how it serves them. So the likelihood that they’re going to piss someone off and that someone is going to kill them? Oh, it’s massive. Sky-high probability. It’ll be their own fault too, so like, yeah, I’m chill with it.

IN DEPTH

In-Character Para Sample:

The room, from Puck’s perch, stretched into the untold void of normality, only to vanish at the corners as if it fell off the world like those old maps seemed convinced everything eventually would. Thank goodness there were fewer of them in the world now than there used to be. Their bank account was still amazed at how much flat-earthers would pay for proof of their beliefs without taking the time to invest in an insurance plan against Pavel’s more destructive tendencies. Their faith was met with ash, sealed in a manila envelope and signed with a delicate, arching “P”. The only other thing that package had contained was an index card with a smiley face. Faith was a weakness all to easy to exploit, and belief only turned defenses inward. That was the exact reason Puck refused to humor either of such things. There wasn’t any use believing in the goodness of others or the gentleness of their hearts, not when ash-filled envelopes were so easy to get through the mail.

Besides the point. Irrelevant. Potentially useful for the end of this job, yeah, but they weren’t there yet, were they? Ding-ding, five points to the person crouched below the roof. Ten more and they’ll be able to trade in their earnings for a Starbucks gift card. Assuming this job went as it was meant to. If it didn’t, then they’d have no choice but to get two gift cards and their waistline certainly couldn’t survive that, oh no. It was already a precarious relationship, Pavel and their suits. No need to further jeopardize it with more frappuccinos.

Off-topic, Pavel. Focus. The big man with the too-strong cologne just returned. He must be trying to compensate for something if that’s the best he can do. Smells like something with a ship on the bottle. Damn thing offends the senses and Pavel’s thirty feet off the ground, they can’t imagine what it must be like down below. Maybe the guy strapped to a chair is fighting to get away from that scent. Puck certainly would be. They’ve probably lost nose hairs up here, Christ on an ever-loving fucking bicycle.

The dialogue that big man starts spewing sounds like something out of Austin Powers. Pavel could not restrain their eyeroll if they tried, and they were not trying. Blah-blah-blah, look at me and my awful choice of cologne. I’m big and scary, Pavel filled in, mouthing out the words they were convinced he was saying, and no one ever messes with me because I’m the big man with a big car but a really small penis that everyone knows I have because the girls on the street corners laugh when I leave. They snorted. Ah, if only there was someone in the world that appreciated Pavel’s wit. Blah-blah-blah, they continued to mouth. Look at me, bullet in the peanut I call a brain.

It was at that moment Pavel squeezed the trigger on the rifle that had been keeping them company up in those rafters for the past two hours. The job was dead or alive and the target was way less likely to object to being dragged through a river a few times if the piece of metal in his brain shut him up long before the water did. They learned their lesson after the first couple guys had tried to bully, flirt, and beg their way out of the contracts. Silent was always better, especially on long trips like the one that awaited Puck.

A groan escaped their mouth as they swung themselves down to the ground, taking a few pit stops along the way to make sure their bones stayed together. Reporting back was just not as fun if they couldn’t make an entrance that would make the gods weep with appreciation. “You know,” Pavel began as he approached his target and the man still in a chair, “you were not supposed to be here.”

A second bullet put an end to the witness, leaving him slumped in the chair, zip ties around his wrist keeping him upright. Puck wondered, briefly, if he’d appreciate the irony in something used to control him now maintaining the last little shred of dignity. Course, Puck agreed, there wasn’t much dignity left once the dead shit themselves, as they did every single time. The British guy with a name that sounded like it came off a birdwatching book was right. Killing did get easier.

The rest of the base had been as easy to dispense of as these too had been. The six figures that now rested comfortably in Pavel’s bank account had made the job seem difficult, or at least time-consuming. Barely three hours had passed from arrival to now. People are either really dumb and think too highly of others or… Naw. That was it. People were dumb and overestimated the abilities of literally everyone else. Aw, to be naive and believe humanity actually was worth the resources it sucked up like a particularly determined leech. Without such belief, Pavel would be a lot poorer though, so they supposed it all evened out in the end.

“Alrighty, up you go, you big oaf,” Pavel grunted. “Let’s get you out of the literal pile of shit you created and off to those friends you thought you left behind in Bulgaria. This is an improvement on your smell though, so I guess you get a few points. Maybe like two. I’m still in the lead though, and because I’m the one that took you out, I get your points now that you’re dead. Thems the breaks. Should have read the rules more carefully before deciding to play.”

As if life ever had such rules. Throwing around such phrases let people believe there was an order to all of this, that their lives weren’t statistically impossible and utterly insignificant.  But Pavel knew better. The game was that there was no game, no purpose behind it all. Only puppets dancing on strings they never noticed were cut. Those that believed otherwise were just better suited to stepped on rather than growing into the ones doing the stepping.

Extras:

Puck’s playlist is entirely 90s and 2000s pop.

His motto is 100%: “Chivalry is dead but you’re still kinda cute.” or “I want you on my team/So does everybody else”, depending on how annoying and persistent the Montague and Capulets are that day.

This was submitted through Puck’s mockblog, which you are more than welcome to examine!

Italian lawmaker demands Bill Gates be ARRESTED for ‘crimes against humanity’... But WHY?

Bill Gates and his latest anti-coronavirus efforts have been at the center of the wildest theories that explore possible sinister motives behind the billionaire’s activities.

— 18 May, 2020 | RT

The lower house of the Italian Parliament

An Italian lawmaker has managed to bring the conspiracy blame-game to an entirely new level, exercising her parliamentary chamber free speech to blast Bill Gates as a “vaccine criminal” and a globalist tool.

Bill Gates and his latest anti-coronavirus efforts have been at the center of the wildest theories that explore possible sinister motives behind the billionaire’s activities. In arguably the most high-profile outcry last week, an Italian MP for Rome Sara Cunial delivered a speech rarely (if ever at all) heard at any parliament.

In her passionate address, Cunial called upon fellow lawmakers to defy any plans of compulsory vaccination against Covid-19. Such endeavors are being pushed by the corrupt elites – the Deep State – she claimed, pointing the finger at Bill Gates as one of the main culprits behind the vaccination drive, if not the pandemic itself.

For decades, Gates has been working on depopulation policy and dictatorial control plans on global politics, aiming to obtain the primacy on agriculture, technology and energy.

Being a well-known anti-vax activist, Cunial singled-out Gates as the villain primarily because of the vaccination campaigns that his foundation has been conducting for years in less-developed countries. But while boldly accusing the billionaire of sterilizing millions of women in Africa and paralyzing hundreds of thousands of children in India, she also added a good pinch of GMOs and 5G tech to the dense conspiracy mix of his ‘sins.’

The Italian politician also harshly criticized the anti-coronavirus lockdown measures that her country was among the first to impose. According to Cunial, the isolation serves the globalist agenda too, while the Italians have been subjected to a “Holy Inquisition of false science.”

“It is our children who will lose more, who are ‘raped souls,’” Cunial said. “In this way, the right to school will be granted only with a bracelet to get them used to probation, to get them used to slavery and involuntary treatment.”

The real goal of all of this is total control. Absolute domination of human beings, transformed into guinea pigs and slaves, violating sovereignty and free will.

When hecklers attempted to interrupt her, the president of the chamber called to order – because in a “free parliament anyone has the right to express their opinion” – and scored a round of applause.

Allowed to finish her speech, Cunial raised the stakes even further, pleading to the Italian PM to submit Gates to international justice – unless of course Giuseppe Conte is himself part of the global Deep State conspiracy.

Next time you receive a phone call from the philanthropist Bill Gates forward it directly to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.

While Bill Gates has often been a target of assorted conspiracy theories in the past, the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has ramped up interest in his persona. His quest for a vaccine against the Covid-19, as well as a recent Microsoft patent vaguely describing a device that tracks ‘body activity’, caused a lot of fuss.

Despite the fact that Bill Gates has technically stepped down from Microsoft’s board and is no longer associated with the corporation, while the ‘sinister’ patent WO/2020/060606 never mentioned any implants, some deduced the billionaire might be planning to sneakily microchip humanity under the guise of coronavirus vaccination… for reasons.

While Cunial’s tirade might sound unprecedented, it’s not particularly shocking coming from a fierce anti-vax activist who was expelled from the 5 Star Movement party last year over her dissenting views.

She also wouldn't be the first high-profile figure to scapegoat Gates. Russian Oscar-winning director Nikita Mikhalkov made headlines earlier this month after he, just like Cunial, sounded alarm on national TV about the alleged plot to decimate and control the population of the planet.

Russian director Nikita Mikhalkov (left) claims billionaire Bill Gates (right) might be seeking to implant humanity with microchips under the guise of vaccination, seeking to control people and ultimately “solve” overpopulation. ‘Bill Gates seeks to microchip humanity!’ Russian Oscar-winning director pushes vaccine conspiracy… loosely-based on REAL patent, 3 May, 2020

The ongoing coronavirus crisis has produced a number of wild conspiracy theories, as some are trying to find the “secret” reasons behind the pandemic. A handful of them revolve around Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and his efforts to develop a vaccine against Covid-19.

One Microsoft patent that recently received international recognition has been found by many ‘truth-seekers’ to be particularly alarming. The patent WO/2020/060606 describes a “Cryptocurrency system using body activity data” – basically, a device which can be used to ‘mine’ some digital coins using one’s body. Or, rather, “award cryptocurrency to the user whose body activity data is verified,” as the patent abstractly puts it.

The patent did not escape Nikita Mikhalkov, renowned Oscar-winning film director, who pushed quite a theory in a new issue of ‘Besogon TV’ (roughly translated as ‘demon banisher’, dubbed, ‘In whose pocket the state is?’ The episode was aired by the Rossiya 24 TV channel on Friday, but was then quietly taken down from its schedule and not repeated – something Mikhalkov has taken for an act of “censorship.”

'It's man-made to test 5G': Boxer Khan spreads coronavirus conspiracy claims, suggests pandemic could be 'population control' plot. 4 Apr, 2020

Mikhalkov claims the very name of the patent has an occult meaning in it, accusing Gates of actually seeking to implant humans with microchips to control them, and tying it to his potential vaccination program.

The 060606 part is somewhat alarming. You probably understand this, right? Is this a coincidence or an intentional selection of such a symbol, which in the Apocalypse of John is called the ‘number of the beast’ – the 666.

Mikhalkov then goes on a rant about a dystopian future where digitized (and microchipped) society is split into two unequal parts, namely the elite and the human drones they control. In search of Gates’ global “co-conspirators,” he squarely points finger at Herman Gref, the head of Russia’s state-owned bank Sberbank, a known proponent of the digitalization of society. The director’s theory falls short of explaining how that system would solve the overpopulation problem, though – or why Russia would be keen to follow the American business magnate’s lead, for that matter.

Like any other outrageous theory peddled by a celebrity, the new issue of ‘Besogon TV’ went viral online, getting around 700,000 views in less than in a day.

Mikhalkov’s conclusions might be quite far-fetched, and the patent WO/2020/060606 is not directly linked to Gates, who has technically stepped down from Microsoft’s board to focus on running his and his wife’s Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Neither does it mention microchipping, instead describing “sensors” coupled with a “device” to register the body activity. One alleged purpose of such a technology described is to encourage healthy lifestyle with users awarded cryptocurrency for exercising.

Should that be a hype killer then? Hardly, as some would still be freaked out by the potential Black Mirror-esque applications of this tech, while the discussion on the encroachment of technology (and various forms of controls) on our daily lives has never been more relevant. And those who fear being forcefully microchipped by an evil corporation, should probably first check their own pockets for a little “tracking device” called a smartphone, which they had purchased and carry around voluntarily.

'They’re preparing people for microchip implants': Tennis legend Marat Safin shares coronavirus conspiracy theory, 14 Apr, 2020.

Russian tennis legend Marat Safin has suggested the coronavirus pandemic could be a pretext for the mass implanting of microchips into humans, as the former world number one gave an unexpected take on the crisis.

“I think they are preparing people for 'chipization' [chip implants]," Safin, 40, said in an Instagram chat with Russian outlet Sports.ru.

Tenet’s Release Date Forgets the Lessons of Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar

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It seems fairly certain now that Tenet will be released in theaters at the end of the summer. Warner Bros. confirmed as much Monday when the studio announced Christopher Nolan’s latest epic is set to open in 70 countries, including the UK, on Aug. 26. It will then make the jump stateside to vaguely determined “select U.S. cities” on Sept. 2, just in time for Labor Day weekend. While plans can change—they have before—there is almost a weary resignation about this announcement. We’re opening this in theaters in 2020, come hell or high water.

Yet one of the many bitter ironies about this choice is that it ignores a central theme of another Christopher Nolan odyssey, the star-gazing Interstellar. Every bit as ambitious and grandiose as Nolan’s other IMAX spectacles post-The Dark Knight, Interstellar grappled with cerebral concepts, including Einstein’s theory of relativity, intergalactic wormhole space travel, and the existential threat of depleted resources on Earth. The movie also, much more bluntly, dramatized the danger of anti-intellectualism and a willful rejection of scientific facts, especially  the danger of beleaguered resignation.

The scene that most crystallizes this occurs during the climactic moments of the movie’s second act. Literally worlds away from where the movie’s hero Joseph “Coop” Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) struggles with the pitiful Dr. Mann (Matt Damon), Coop’s children back on Earth also face a reckoning. Now both adults who took radically different lessons from their father’s NASA legacy, Murph (Jessica Chastain) is a scientist who followed Dad into the space program, and Tom (Casey Affleck) is the estranged brother who’s happy to keep his eyes squarely focused on the ground. There is nothing wrong with farming, of course, but for Tom it’s as much a form of self-denial as it is a profession.

When the confrontation comes, Murph and friend Getty (Topher Grace) have come to the farmhouse where Murph and Tom grew up with their grandfather, and where Tom now lives with his own wife and son. In actuality Tom had two children, but one of them, Jesse, died of a lung disease caused by “blight;” a new type of dust and ecological menace that’s spread around the globe and is now coating every crop Tom owns. On this fateful day, Tom’s living wife and son are also showing symptoms of disease, and Murph wants Tom to make the tough choice: Face the reality of the situation and leave his family home.

One look at Affleck’s glower when his character enters the house announces this isn’t going to happen.

“Let me make something abundantly clear, you have a responsibility—” begins Getty before Tom punches him in the face. Murph then more succinctly cuts to the chase, “Dad didn’t raise you to be this dumb, Tom.”

And here in this moment, like many a story before it, Nolan’s Interstellar has distills  the age-old conflict between science and commerce, hard truths and comforting delusions. When boiled down to its fundamentals, the scene isn’t that different from Chief Brody trying to explain to the mayor of Amity Island they need to close the beaches in Jaws, or Cassandra warning the Trojan court of a doom to come.

And yet, what’s intriguing about the Interstellar variation is that it sympathizes with Tom and his position. Unlike Murph, he wasn’t Daddy’s favorite; the educational system likewise didn’t see much promise in him. In high school a single test prevented him from going to college. Instead he was left behind, conscripted to do what society viewed as a less financially important task while his little sister excelled at university. In a handful of minutes, the implication that Tom grew bitter about both his lot and their father’s absence is self-evident. As is their connection since Cooper disappeared trying to mitigate an existential threat which has come all the same in Tom’s adulthood.

But as that grown-up, what once seemed like an abstract idea is now tragically obvious. The danger of the blight is visible in the small Cooper family cemetery outback, and it’s there on his sister’s face as she stands in his kitchen, calling him dumb. But then it’s uncomfortable looking reality in the eye like this—or being asked to forsake the only thing Dad ever left him, which was this farm.

“Dad didn’t raise me. Grandpa did,” Tom snarls. “And he’s buried out back with Mom and Jesse.” Interstellar empathizes with Tom’s plight and desire to ultimately do nothing—just keep going on and pretending everything is normal—even though the movie knows it’s a deadly delusion. After all, the film crosscuts this scene with Coop calling Dr. Mann “a fucking coward.”

What Tom is doing is cowardly. But it’s also tragic, because he refuses to accept the scientific facts of a worldwide disaster, even as they come from his own sister. So Tom refuses to uproot his remaining family, to live with Murph and what’s left of the United States’ science community, waiting for a proverbial cure that hasn’t been invented yet. He’d rather just do what makes him happy until it kills him. And not only him. “You’re going to wait for your next kid to die,” Murph apprises of the situation.

The scene is obviously a work of fiction in which there is a fantastic agricultural blight so deadly it’ll kill off all organic life on Earth in several generations—and it exists in a world where the U.S. government is still even-headed enough to launch a program to save its citizens and species. With that said, the echoes of the conflict between data-minded experts versus the wishful thinking of those who just want to keep on keepin’ on, even if it kills them and everyone they love, obviously speaks to our moment. You can see Tom in each American, maybe some of whom have legitimate reason to feel “left behind,” now refusing to wear a mask during the coronavirus pandemic.

Hence the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases currently increasing in 30 out of the 50 states. As of the time of writing, more than 4.3 million cases have been confirmed in the U.S. alone, and the death toll is about to cross the morbid threshold of 150,000 Americans. There is no sign of things getting better in North America. In fact, things are expected to get much worse, particularly as the White House attempts to force public schools throughout the country to reopen at full capacity.

As WB pointed out in a press statement, more than 30 states currently have given movie theaters the go-ahead to reopen at reduced capacity. However, there is undoubted crossover among the states where indoor theaters can reopen and those with rising infection rates. Similarly, studios and theater owners are aware of a certain risk level of opening Tenet during a pandemic, even in areas where infection rates are down. According to a report in Variety, multiple studios are likely considering releasing movies in Europe this summer “in case more theaters in Spain shutter” due to a second wave of infection.

This is not to say Warner Bros. is making the choice to release Tenet out of cynicism. Indeed, we can only speculate as to what the private conversations are behind closed doors between studio executives, filmmakers, and exhibitors. But we know Nolan is desperate to protect his love for theatrical moviegoing, which he vocalized in The Washington Post in March by correctly saying cinema is a vital part of our collective social life. It’s about as democratic a form of art as can be imagined, with all economic classes able to afford and share an experience of going to the movies.

Read more

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Horrifyingly, movie theaters are facing an existential threat at the moment. The CEO of the National Association of Theatre Owners warned last week if Hollywood keeps delaying their movies until there is a vaccine “we won’t be there in a year.” So it appears likely Nolan is trying to turn Tenet into a kind of economic refuge, or at least respite, for movie theaters to weather a storm that is likely to last well into 2021.

But like Tom trying to will away the threat of blight to his family, or ignoring the protestations of his sister, Nolan and Warner Bros. are playing a risky game. Even in areas where infection rates are down, people who go see Tenet in September will be gathering in indoor theaters for hours at a time, with more than a few lowering their masks every so often to enjoy a snack or drink. On some level, I want to be one of them. I’ve savored every Christopher Nolan movie to date, and find a kind of sacrosanct comfort each time I go to a movie theater. But as with Tom and Murph’s childhood home, one needs to face the risks hidden in that comfort as the world changes.

A month ago, epidemiologist and infectious diseases expert Dr. Carlos Del Rio told CNBC, “I would honestly say I’m not comfortable going to the movies right now. I want to see the numbers come down, want to see the cases go down. Right now, the only place I am comfortable going to the movies is my living room.” In the same report, Dr. Ravina Kullar, a Los Angeles-based infectious disease specialist said, “What we are seeing now is that wave one is still going on… there has not been a decline or a plateau and that is a concern. I don’t see any change in a positive direction.”

Since then, the daily increase of new reported COVID cases has risen from around 30,000 new cases a day to between 50,000 and 73,000 cases a day. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, predicts we could likely soon see 100,000 new confirmed cases of coronavirus infection a day.For me, going to a movie theater is like going to church, or like working the same field as your father and grandfather is to Tom in Interstellar. It’s home. But until there is a solution to the problem, it is better to listen to the Murphs and Faucis of the world than wait around for another kid to die.

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