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#conservative salt mine
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vitrified-vitriol · 3 months
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asgardian--angels · 2 years
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I love you salt marshes. I love you mudflats and salt pannes, and all the shorebirds that probe for invertebrates beneath your surface, leaving tracks behind. I love you anoxic sulfur-metabolizing bacteria. I love you Spartina patens, and a thundering dark sky against your windswept plain. I love you fish nursery habitat and wave energy absorber. I love you saltmarsh sparrows, even as you lose a race against time, and I am grateful to have looked into your eyes and seen unrelenting resilience there, confident you won’t go down without a fight. I love you mummichogs, pushing the limits of salt tolerance. I love you Salicornia, like neon pink Christmas trees. I love you mosquito ditch lines, visible reminders etched into your skin of how we have mistreated you and must do better. I love you, sense of serenity standing alone in your rustling grasses as the tide comes in, for a moment imagining the world as it once was, when you covered the whole coast and kept both land and sea bountiful and safe from harm. I love you, enough to work to restore your honor and dignity. I love you, I love you, I love you, salt marsh.
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Long post....
It's so incredibly frustrating dealing with a specific chronically online brand of "anti-zionism". Because as a Zionist and a Jew I fundamentally agree with with most of the sentiments expressed. I just tangibly feel threatened by an irresponsible generalisation and simplification of the issue, the warping and weaponisation of terminology so to be unrecognisable from how they are actually used by people and the way these threaten my safety and the safety of my community here in the Diaspora.
I am a Zionist in that I believe that if there are nation states one should have as it's foundational principal the safety of Jews (I kind of have to be, there is a good chance I wouldn't be here without Israel) and I believe in a subsidised right of return for all Palestinians. I agree successive conservative governments led by Benjamin Netanyahu have lent tacit support to the settler movement for over 15 years. I think Israel sorely needs to enact a bill enforcing prime ministerial term limits. I desperately want a good faith negotiation on a two state solution, but with the figures in play rn I just don't see that happening... Netanyahu is an arse(imo) who sold what little conscience he had left to the fringe right to hang on to power, Israel will never negotiate with Hamas as a governing entity, and I can only go by what I'm told by IRL Palestinian friends in Australia but they don't have much confidence in Abbas as a leader (big heaping pinch of salt because none of us have first hand experience of the current PNA government).
I also recognise the complicated history of the establishment of Israel. To oversimplify, the Zionist project for a long time was a (often flawed) process of buying land and negotiating with ottoman aristocracy.
I recognise that many promises were made to many people, particularly by the British who promised a compromise resolution for a Jewish and Palestinian state, but then handed figuring out how to do that to the fledgling UN as it's first project. The UN decided "jigsaw puzzle" was a good theme to go with for state borders for two states, which nobody was happy with and inevitably was going to lead to conflict... But instead of border friction, the entire geographic region preemptively attacked to prevent Israel from ever being established. Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Transjordan... All attacked and somehow, Israel succeeded.
I would like to focus on this for a little moment from the view of "surviving Jewish history", because by the time the dust settled it was almost exactly 3 years and 11 months to the day since the liberation of Bergen Belsen concentration camp. We survived, we slew Goliath, Blessed are you G-d who would not make me a slave, again... we would not be returned to the ghetto.
In that desperate struggle for survival homes were occupied by machine gun crews and RPG teams, communities emptied as armoured vehicles and aircraft of the Arab League were left as smoking shells... And people came home to find that after fleeing a conflict zone for safety their homes were occupied by unfamiliar families who would not leave... For them this was naqba, a catastrophe, their homes and farms were in all meaningful senses gone. One of those families was mine, my Jad (great grandfather) and Savta (great grandmother) who briefly emigrated to Israel from Tripoli. They had just survived one of the worst North African pogroms in 1945 when my Jad had spent years fighting for the allies in North Africa/Mediterranean and were frightened that after the humiliation of the Arab league there would be more pogroms soon. (they came to Australia shortly after)
History is complicated, the decisions people made have been desperate, the trauma on all sides is real, we cannot navigate this without trying to understand each other.... Let's look at some modern issues.
It's ok to criticise a country, but remember that your understanding of events in Israel as an outsider is necessarily superficial, and if you live in the "West" all of the groups you are discussing are vulnerable minorities in your country, and it is very easy for the unaware to imbibe and regurgitate Antisemitic, anti-Arab, Islamophobic tropes and dog whistles without knowing.
Remember criticisms need to be specific. What happened, where did it occur, who specifically was responsible, how did it happen (explain the function of lack of legal oversight or intervention to prevent it, or how an authority figure or governing entity sanctioned a particular action), why was this event significant, is the source credible. If you're reading an informational post, did it meet these criteria? This is a standard I try to hold Palestinian, Arab, Israeli and World informational sources to, everyone has a bias and it's my job as a reader to be both aware and compassionate... It's your job too
Failure to do the above leads to radicalisation, and that makes everybody less safe, everywhere. To speak for myself I have never before in my life considered moving to Israel, not in all my years... But this year my synagogue has been physically vandalised, and it has been graffitied with "free Palestine" and on a separate incident last year "work makes you free", our holocaust museum has suffered multiple attacks from a self styled Nazi party (NSN, the same ones who got themselves on TV at the TERF rally in Melbourne), as far as I'm aware no arrests actually led to charges, despite knowing so many people in my area (mostly low income, migrants, 1st gen citizens and Indigenous) with extremely petty convictions, literally cops so drive slowly down my back street because they have nothing better to do. As a disabled mix race Jew it feels less safe every day. We used to have open doors, now our gates are closed and we get threats in the mail.
Be careful with your words, they are powerful; once spoken or written, you cannot ever take them back.
Varda💗
(If there are any weird sentences, I'm dyslexic with a tremor.... Autocorrect likes to fuck me up)
Don't be a clown. Disagreement is ok, but rabid uninformed takes will get you blocked.
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tips for making patches!
(disclaimer: take everything i say with a grain of salt. being punk is about doing what makes you happy regardless of what others think, including some random person on the internet. these are just some bits of advice I’ve picked up for people who are looking to get into diy.)
-one rule you’ll hear a lot is not to put any political/controversial patches on your back. this goes double if you live in a conservative area or household. keep your safety in mind.
-for political patches i try to pick social issues that i feel comfortable talking about, because people will ask you about them. for example, the disability rights movement is very personal to me, so i have a lot of patches related to it. as a white person, i personally choose not to have anti-racism and blm patches, not because i don’t support those initiatives but because i don’t feel that i really have anything to add to the conversation. ultimately it’s up to you to create what you want, but be aware having the same recycled slogans and/or exclusively political patches can sometimes come off as performative
-on the same note, make patches for things you like! put your own personality and interests into it, that’s what makes your work truly one of a kind. bands you enjoy, things that make your project unique. the politics are a big part of the subculture, but they’re also one of the most controversial aspects, so don’t feel like you have to broadcast those beliefs if you’re not ready/in a safe environment
-don’t be afraid to fail. it’s like any skill, and the more practice you have the better you’ll get. there is a beauty to these early, “badly done” diy projects and that message is what the subculture is built on
lmk if you guys are interested in a more in depth tutorial of how i make mine, i really enjoy talking about diy and it’s a huge passion for me :]
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aikoiya · 6 months
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LoZ - Hyrulean Cultural Aesthetics
Overall Cultural Influences:
Central Hyrule & Hylians specifically = Medieval Germanic & Arthurian English with some variation depending on location. All Hylian towns will likely have a little bit of this in them.
Humans = Rural, small town, down home, farmer, tough as nails, survivor, rough around the edges, traditional, conservative, but still rebellious, & generally very good-hearted. That means they are the rednecks, the cowboys, the military men, the American Southerners, the Vikings, & the Celts kind of characters. You're salt of the earth types. At least in feel, though not necessarily in culture. It's because of this that humans generally get along well with Gorons. Either way, humans stick mostly to the agricultural & ranching settlements for the most part.
Zora = Hard to tell as they generally don't wear clothing, but they do wear a lot of jewelry. If I had to give them clothes, I'd definitely say they'd be something flowy. Possibly Roman or Greek in fashion to go with the water theme? As for sensibilities, maybe a bit of French Rococo. I also get the impression that the Zora's Domain is actually divided into 2 levels: the Upper Domain & the Lower Domain. The Upper Domain is what we see in the games & consists of the commercial district & palace. The Lower Domain is entirely underwater & is where the Zora actually live. The reason we don't see it is because Link can't dive.
Rito = Northern Native American. Aldean specifically. Maybe a bit of Latin American.
Goron = A mix of Maori (Polynesian), African, Dwarven, & maybe a bit of Old West mining town, though it's hard to tell for certain as they generally don't wear clothing. Definitely something with a decent blend of caballerismo & machismo. Something masculine & tribal, but also community oriented & friendly.
Gerudo = Egyptian/Middle Eastern Amazons with some Orc influence. Possibly with some hints of Hindu too. At least as far as fashion goes.
Korok/Kokiri = If Peter Pan & the Lost Boys were Hobbits.
Twili = Possibly Scandanavian? Also Chinese with some Japanese influences.
Mogma = They seem to be Brooklyn-ish. Maybe even a bit of an Italian-American Mob feel, but more so in the "friendly gangster" way. So, I'm seeing some Bensonhurst influences, which is a specifically Italian-American borough within Brooklyn, I believe. Maybe even a bit of New York Jewish? Like, they come across as being Italian mafia adjacent, but only in so much as the accent, the attitude, & family-oriented organization. Sort of an "it takes a village" & "we take care of our own" type of mentality. Not in any way actually mafia though & certainly not in the romanticized view of gangsters as I don't actually see the Mogmas being the types to actually commit crimes on the reg. And despite being avid treasure-hunters, they seem to have a general culture of altruistic generosity. By that, I mean that their love language is gift-giving.
Yeti = Norse Viking.
Minish = Borrowers.
Anouki = Inuit.
Lokomo = Possibly Greek?
Zonai = Mesoamerican.
*Lupos = Gaelic, Celtic, & Nordic. (This is a race I made up, if you wanna know more, go to Wolf Link & the Lupos Race.)
Smaller Settlements:
Hateno = I'm getting Gaelic Scottish farming town. Also maybe a bit of Spain, Italy, & Greece. Mostly inhabited by humans & Hylians.
Kakariko = Japanese with maybe a touch of American Old West. While primarily Japanese, there's also some definite South Korean influences. Especially in their cooking.
Mabe = Rustic dairy ranching town vibes because I'm putting Lon Lon Ranch there. Based on how AoC & LA's Mabe was designed, their roofing is colorful terracotta tile & generally has ivy & such growing on their homes, so maybe Colonial Spanish. Mostly inhabited by humans & Hylians.
Goponga = I'm getting rural Luisiana Bayou vibes, most likely due to it being located in a swamp. So, primarily Cajun, French, & Colonial Spanish with some Zora inspiration maybe. Mostly inhabited by humans, Hylians, & Zora.
Deya = Not sure yet, but I'm giving them a vineyard, peach orchard, & making them use them to make moscato, so maybe an old Tuscany winery & fishing village? Mostly inhabited by humans & Hylians. From what we see in the games, it was actually the biggest settlement in Hyrule besides Castle Town, so it could've been a full-on town or city.
Ordon = Has a rural ranching feel & might be inspired by a southern agricultural town in Italy called Ordona. So, maybe rural Italy with American South mannerisms & sensibilities. Culturally, though, I get Gaelic Irish vibes. It might be the smials… Also, maybe a little bit of Welsh too. Either way, it's mostly inhabited by humans & Lupos (more human than Lupos) with the occasional Hylian, Sheikah, & 1 or 2 Gerudo. (For more of their overall culture, go to Ordonian Culture & Ordon Cooking Culture.)
Lurelin = Rural Hawaiian fishing village. Maybe a little bit of Caribbean & Okinawan? With a little bit of Mesoamerican mixed in due to Zonai influence from the nearby ruins.
Ealiyah = Tibetan-flavored Gerudo farming & brewing town. Maybe a little bit of Russian too? Also, interior decoration is eclectic & cluttered but cozy & colorful in a vibrant, rustic Bohemian sort of way. There are also some influences from humans, Hylians, Lupos, & even Sheikah to a degree as several of each race lives there too (all men), but overall, the culture remains mostly that Tibetan-Gerudo sort of style. They do a lot of weaving & sewing as well as dying. (This is a town I made up, for more on its culture & history, go to Ealiyah Town & the Highlands Gerudo.)
Tabantha Village = Norse with Rito, Yeti, & Lupos inspiration. So, old Norse Viking, Aldean, Celtic, & Gaelic with a Russian & Welsh accent. They use a lot of furs in their clothing. Mostly inhabited by humans, Hylians, Rito, Yeti, & Lupos.
Shadow Hamlet = Dwarven possibly, with Goron inspiration. So, very masculine. Maybe a bit of Old Western Mining Town. A mix of Gorons, Hylians, & Humans tend to live here.
Koholint Domain = This is on the Koholina Archipelago, which Eventide Island is the smallest island of & will eventually become a fishing & port town. In-world, it has influence from Zora, Rito, & Lurelin. But, from a real world perspective, it's mostly Polynesian, coastal Native American, & coastal Hindu with some ancient coastal Greco-Roman (even Atlantis-like) influence for the underwater sections of the settlement. As well as in their formal fashion. There would likely be a tiny bit of Carribean & Okinawan influence in there too. The population is made up of Euryhaline Zora (able to survive in both salt & fresh water), Coastal Rito, & Lurelin Hylians/humans. And, much like with how I think the Zora's Domain is built, the settlement's commercial district is on land, while the Zora residential area is underwater. The Rito & human/Hylian residences, as well as the Cheiftain's home, are also on land. (For more on the specifics of this, go to Euryhaline Zora & Coastal Rito Port Town.)
Gatepost, Outpost, & East Post = These are all a package deal. These are mostly military towns, so that'll definitely factor in. They are positioned in such a way as to protect Oldcastle. Mostly inhabited by Hylians, humans, & Sheikah, but with smatterings of the other races too.
Oldcastle = The site of OoT's Castle Town, a.k.a. the Great Plateau, so there'll be some DEEP historical significance going on. As such, it's mostly Medieval Germanic & Arthurian English. Mostly inhabited by Hylians, humans, & Sheikah.
LoZ Cultural Masterlist
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Nacli, Naclstack, & Garganacl
Nacli (#932)
Naclaeus familiaris
General Information: Nacli are Pokémon who’s bodies are entirely composed of rock salt. When they move, they scrape their bodies against the earth leaving behind little bits of salt wherever they go.
 Nacli average at 1’4 feet (0.4 M) tall and 35.3 pounds (16 kg).
Habitat: Nacli can be found in mountainous regions of the world or where large deposits of terrestrial rock salt can be found.
Life Cycles: Nacli are born deep underground, where their parents kept the eggs there for protection and safe keeping from predators and poachers alike.  Not many Nacli are born at a time, often a batch of a handful every few years per parental pair. Nacli are typically born to Naclstacks and Garganacls, rather than other Naclis. This is not because of any issues with Nacli’s reproductive abilities, but rather they are often more focused on survival to evolution than they are on making more of themselves. Nacli are not eaten by much, but they are eaten by very specific types of Pokémon, namely those who eat rocks. As such, Larvitars, Tyranitars, Steelixes, Mawiles, and even the occasional Lairon or Aggron will help themselves to a Nacli. Weirdly, Sabeleyes are not a problem for Naclis, as their Purifying Salt ability deters ghost-type predation. Still, predation on Naclis is limited, and most Pokémon want to keep them alive for their delicious salt-producing benefits.
Their primary predator, Larvitars and Tyranitars, tend to leave Nacli eggs alone—they eat rocks and dirt, not eggs!
Nacli do not have a known upper limit on their lifespan. This isn’t to say one doesn’t exist, so much as they tend to evolve for their own protection before that limit can be found.  
Behavior: Nacli are rarely predated upon and generally well-liked by the fleshier organic Pokémon in their environments, so they have not developed fear responses to other Pokémon—well, except to their predators of course! Because of this, Nacli are rather friendly sorts who live in colonies with each other, and are readily accepted into any habitat that they choose to live in. Even the most aggressive of Pokémon, like Rhydons and Nidos, will allow a Nacli into their territories, knowing that they’re harmless little guys that make delicious life-saving salt.
Diet: They eat dirt! Just get them some nice potting soil 😊 They’re eating the vitamins and minerals found naturally in soils.
Conservation: Endangered (in the wild), Least Concern (Captivity)
Relationship with Humans: Nacli are beloved Pokémon by humans since time immemorial. They’re little portable Pokémon that make salt. And that means, humans have been using Naclis for millions of years. The Nacli is rarely mistreated, because a well-loved Nacli will stick around of its own accord, but countless family dramas and inheritances and even violent conflicts have been fought over access to Naclis and their evolutions. People go nuts for these little guys, and as such long-ago developed mining techniques for stealing Nacli eggs from the earth, thus forcing Naclstacks and Garganacls to bury their nests deeper and deeper underground in an evergreen Red Queen Hypothesis, leading to the modern day issue of Nacli nests being immensely difficult to track down. Wild Naclis are getting harder and harder to find as the centuries go on, for more and more are being brought into captivity to be cared for by humans.
In days gone by, Naclis were so coveted by humans that dowries would include a Nacli if applicable, and that was often worth more than gold or livestock, and could see a peasant family jump to middle class if their cards were played right.  
Classification: The genus “nacleus” uses “NaCl” (sodium chloride/table salt) as its base word, much like Nacli and its evolutions use it for the base of their names. “Familiaris” refers to the friendliness of Naclis.
Naclstack (#933)
Nacleus fortis
General Information: Naclstack is the evolved form of Nacli. They are able to compress its rock salt into hardened pellets that are then shot out with enough force to puncture sheets of iron! Contrary to population notions about their names, Naclstacks and family contain more than NaCl in their bodies, they contain other varieties of salts, too, based on what minerals they’re able to extract from their food and the environment around them, NaCl just happens to be the most common one.
Naclstacks average at 2 feet (0.6 M) tall and weigh 231.5 pounds (105 kg).
Habitat: Anywhere Naclis can be found.
Life Cycles: Once a Naclstack evolves from a Nacli, its chances of survival increase tenfold. There is very little that will even try eating them, reserved for hungry Tyranitars and risk-taking Aggrons. They will mate sporadically every few years with other members of the Mineral egg group, then bury their eggs deep underground where no one can find them or hurt them. After that, their parental care is incredibly minimal, but they will protect any Naclis that they happen to come across.
Behavior: Naclstack are patient Pokémon with little fear of other Pokémon. They are slow-moving creatures of the mountains and hills and salt beds, with ways that are mysterious to those around it. They don’t form the colonies that Naclis form, but also won’t deter Naclis from following them around for safety and familiarity.
Diet: Naclstack are scavengers. They no longer eat dirt (well, they do a bit, old habits die hard), and instead will happily eat the leftover rotting carcasses of other Pokémon, the parts that no one else wants, including the bones. They are immune to the diseases carried by rotting flesh, both because they use their body salt to cure their food and because as a Living Rock Pokémon (Vivogaiaformes) they don’t have true organic bodies, thus not susceptible to the diseases of organic life.
Conservation: Endangered (in the wild), Least Concern (Captivity)
Relationship with Humans: If you thought Nacli were obsessed over, wait until you meet Naclstacks. They’re bigger, stronger, and produce more salt than Naclis! A well-loved Naclstack was/is a family heirloom, someone who was invaluable to the preservation of meat, household cooking, and trade with others. A family with a Naclstack was a family that would survive winters and plagues.
Classification: They were originally named by Linneaus, by he had erroneously placed them in the same genus as Geodudes, when in fact they are largely unrelated to the other Living Rock Pokémon (Geodude, Rogenrola, Rolycoly, etc.), who are all under the Order Vivogaiaformes.
Evolution: Naclstack evolves from Nacli starting at level 24.
Garganacl (#934)
Nacleus giganticus
General Information: Garganacl is the final evolution of Nacli and Naclstack, and is known as the Rock Salt Pokémon. Their salt is rich in a variety of minerals and is known to have medicinal properties, powers so strong that even severe wounds are known to heal—whether this is a result of the salts themselves or something magical inherent to Garganacls, is unclear. Other Pokémon are known to lick up the salt that Gargancl leaves behind when it walks.
They average at 7’7 feet (2.3 M) tall and 529.1 pounds (240 kg).
Habitat: Wherever Naclis and Naclstacks can be found and beyond. Some are stationary, some are roamers. Their ways are mysterious indeed.
Life Cycles: Garganacls are known to live for centuries as patient and gentle behemoths of the forests and mountains that they call home. Long ago, there were thousands of Garganacls, even tens of thousands the world over, but these days there are perhaps only a few hundred left in the wild, a natural consequence of humans gradually taking more and more from the wild than can be replenished.
Behavior: Garganacls are finally able to stand up to their predators, Tyranitar and Aggron, and will squash Mawiles with a vengeance that is rarely seen elsewhere. They get along well with Tinkatons, likely because of Tinkaton’s proclivity toward hunting steel-types like Aggrons and Steelixes. Other than this, they are gentle giants.
They are known to rub their fingertips together over wounds, healing the injuries of Pokémon and humans alike.
Diet: Garganacls eat the heavily-decayed bodies of other Pokémon, as well as berries and nuts as seen fit. They are omnivores through and through, but do not hunt, only scavenge.
Conservation: Endangered (in the wild), Least Concern (Captivity)
Relationship with Humans: Garganacls are the gentle protectors of forests and mountains, the bringers of life-giving salt to all they encounter. But though they know no fear of predators, they do know fear for their offspring, and will go to great lengths to stop humans and Pokémon alike from stealing their eggs before they’ve even had a chance to hatch.
In ancient times, royalty and religious orders sought to have a Garganacl for themselves, an unmistakable sign of wealth and prosperity understood by all.
There are Garganacls alive today who saw the rise and fall of entire Empires, wars, and countless generations of humans. Some cultures worship Garganacls as life bringers, blessings from the gods, and so forth.
Classification: Garganacls and their pre-evolutions are in a clade all to themselves in the Vivogaiaformes.
Evolution: Garganacls evolve from Naclstack at level 38.
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Hey guess what, if you like my stuff, this is my website where you can find other Pokémon I've written on and more information about the game that I’m slowly making! Check it out! I write books sometimes too.
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kaihavoc · 2 years
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Little Miss Never Swears ; Christian Pulisic
Recommended listening: All Mine (Slowed + Reverb) -  Plaza  Warnings: 18+
“How’s the new boss?” Mason chirps around the parmesan-dusted breadstick currently invading his mouth.
“Awful,” you answer glumly. Defeated, you eye the almost-empty bread basket as Mason reaches for another breadstick.
“Leave some for the rest of us, will ya?” Christian says, snatching the last breadstick before Mason can stake his claim on it. Your boyfriend offers you the butter-soaked bread but you decline it with the shake of your head. You're too out of it to enjoy carbs right now.
You feel bad, bringing the mood down at what’s supposed to be an upbeat, end-of-the week dinner with Christian and your mutual friends. Christian had even gone all out by making a reservation at an upscale Italian restaurant for the occasion. But you can't find it in you to do anything other than sulk. 
It’s Friday evening and you just got off of work, where your boss had scolded you in front of the entire office. You can feel the tears brimming in your eyes as you recall the embarrassing scene that made you feel smaller than an ant.
“She’s a complete and… witch,” you continue, swallowing back the waterworks. You're so riled up that you would use a stronger word to describe your nightmare of a boss but, growing up in a conservative household, you didn’t often use expletives — even now as an adult.
Beside you, Christian does a terrible job of holding in his chuckle. You brush him off. 
“What happened this time?” Mason prods, sinking his teeth into his main course of spaghetti and meatballs. 
“She doesn't give me any room to breathe! She’s always hovering over me, giving me zero autonomy in my own job. When I put together a new social media plan for a client, she hates everything about it. If I propose reusing an old plan, she says it lacks intentionality. It’s like, I'm danged if I do and danged if I don't!” you huff.
Christian snickers again, and this time you're unable to ignore your boyfriend’s disrespect. You shoot him a brief warning glare.
“Will you excuse me, boys?” you say to Mason and Ben. The latter had recently joined the table settled next to Mason. Ben's blue-green eyes offer you a sympathetic look. “I need to go to the ladies’ room. Christian, can you help me find it?” You look pointedly at your rather impish boyfriend.
“Of course, baby.” Rising to his feet, Christian snakes his tattooed arm around your waist. Dressed in a form-fitting scarlet dress, you can feel Christian’s fingertips drumming against you as he steers you toward the restrooms. He releases you when you push open the restroom door with your heeled foot. 
“I’ll be out here, waiting for—” he begins.
You don’t allow him to finish that sentence, dragging him inside the restroom with you. The space is open and glamorous, filled with the aroma of something sweet, like warm caramel. The lighting is dim and moody, fitting more for a dance club than a bathroom, you note. It’s so over-the-top fancy there’s even a lounging area with a red-cushioned loveseat behind the sinks.
“What’s wrong, baby?” Christian’s unfairly long eyelashes cast a shadow across his chiseled features. He’s so beautiful, you think to yourself and crack a small smile.
At one point, earlier in the summer, Christian had dyed the tips of his lovely brown curls a horrid corn-yellow color—“It looked dope when Jorgi went blond!” Christian explained when you first saw his at-home dye job. And then, to rub salt on the wound, the very next day, he declared he was going to spend the rest of the summer growing a mullet. (“Is this you trying to live out your unfulfilled country singer dreams?” you had groaned.) 
It was like he purposely tried to put your unconditional love for him to the test. Of course, you loved him no matter what, regardless of his hairstyle. Some hairstyles just took longer to get used to than others… But now, he’s back to his classic look. The all-American boy you met and fell madly in love with. With his untamed curls and milk chocolate eyes and millions of freckles, you could never get enough of him.
“I don’t appreciate you laughing at my work problems,” you say with a pout. 
“Aw, baby, I’m not laughing at your situation,” Christian says, approaching you at a tantalizing slow rate. “I’m laughing because of how sweet and innocent you act in front of our friends. Little Miss Never Swears.” He brushes your hair so that it falls to one side of your shoulder. “Only, I know the truth—how dirty Little Miss’ mouth really is.” As his eyes linger on your mouth, his tongue swipes over his bottom lip. And then he breaks into a smirk. 
“It’s not an act. I don’t swear.” You cross your arms over your chest.
“Oh, really?” Christian quirks a thick eyebrow.
“Really.” 
“Liar,” he whispers the word into your bare neck, sending shivers down your spine. Slowly, he begins sucking on your supple skin and softly sinks his teeth into your flesh.
“Ch–Christian, wh–what are you doing?” you breathe. It’s reflexive the way your eyes flutter shut as he continues his amorous assault.
In an instant, Christian pulls you along as he walks over to the loveseat. He sits with his back against the arm rest, one leg sprawled across the cushions, the other hanging over the seat. He draws you in so that you’re sitting between his legs with your back flush against his chest. 
“I’m proving you wrong,” he mutters darkly. His fingers inch their way down to the hem of your dress, shimmying it up to reveal your stomach and thighs. “We don’t have much time. Mase and Chilly will be wondering where we are if we’re gone too long. You’ll be a good girl and play nice, won’t you?”
You gulp and nod, the tingling in the pit of your stomach intensifying at his mere words. The hold this boy has on you is pitiful. The worst part? He knows it. He relishes it.
“Words, baby. Use your words,” Christian purrs in your ear. 
“I’ll be good,” you hiss between your teeth. You reach behind to weave your fingers through his hair when his own fingers brush over that spot.
Chuckling with satisfaction, Christian peels off your lacy white panties and discards the material in the pocket of his jean jacket. He rests his hand on your inner thigh and you’re already writhing with anticipation. Of course, your squirminess doesn’t go unnoticed by the man of the hour.
“Look at you.” Christian clicks his tongue. “You’re a mess and I haven’t even done anything yet.”
“Christian,” you whine, kicking your outstretched legs. “Less talking, more doing.”
“Now, now. Is this how you talk back to authority? No wonder you’re always in trouble at work,” Christian chastises disapprovingly. “That sort of behavior will get you nowhere.”
You roll your eyes. You could give him an earful for bringing up your work, especially at a time like this, but you’re in too vulnerable of a position to risk not getting what you're desperate for. “I need you. Please,” you whimper instead. You lift your hips to meet his cupped hand, the tiny taste of friction not nearly enough relief for you.
“That’s more like it.” As a reward, his fingers work their magic on you, going round and round in a slow circular motion. “Watch yourself in the mirror," he instructs. "Look how beautiful you are when I make you feel like this.” 
Obeying, you turn your head to see both of your reflections in the large mirror above the row of sinks. For a moment, your mind flashes with worry of someone walking in on the two of you like this. But then you watch as Christian slips a finger inside of you and all concern dissipates. You moan, needing more contact, needing his sweet lips on yours.
You tip your head back and, as if reading your mind, Christian lowers his, attacking your lips in a passionate kiss. You gasp as he slides in a second finger, never once neglecting your most sensitive spot at the apex of your thighs. 
“Fuck,” you whimper, squeezing your legs together only for him to gently pry them apart.
“What was that?” he hums. You can see amusement all over his face through the mirror. “Did you just… swear?”
“No,” you lie. You don’t know why, you’re just too caught up in the mind-boggling pleasure. 
Christian abruptly ceases all activity. “There you go, lying to me again," he admonishes. What happened to your promise to be a good girl?”
“Another lie?” you offer. As soon as you say it, you know you shouldn’t have.
“As defiant as ever,” Christian growls. He slides out from underneath you, shrugging out of his jean jacket and setting it under your bum. Roughly grabbing your thighs, he digs his fingers into your soft skin. He dives between your legs, his tongue swirling inside of you.
“Fuck!” you cry, your hand fisting through Christian's locks, grasping onto anything to prevent yourself from shattering entirely. 
“Shhh.” The sound vibrates against you, heightening all the delicious sensation of his tongue and touch.
“That feels so fucking—” You’re unable to finish that sentence because while Christian’s tongue is lapping inside you, his nose teasingly grazes that sensitive spot.
“Christian. Christian. Christian.” His name falls from your lips like a heavenly mantra as you ride out your high. When your body convulses for a final time, Christian comes up from between your legs to kiss you lovingly, allowing you to taste yourself.
“Tell me now, who doesn’t swear?” Christian asks, wiggling his eyebrows at you. He straightens out your tight dress before helping you stand you upright. 
“Not me,” you reply innocently. Inspecting yourself in the mirror, you smooth out your dress before swirling around and holding out your hand for Christian to return your panties.
“You are so in for it when we get home,” he mutters as he shakes his head. He walks straight out the ladies’ room, denying you your lacy undergarment for the rest of the evening.
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tomorrowusa · 7 months
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The Great Salt Lake is drying up and the Republican government of Utah is doing little to save it. They constantly cave to the usual groups: agricultural interests, mining, homeowners who like spacious lawns in an arid region, and big industry.
The largest saltwater lake in the western hemisphere has been steadily shrinking, as more and more water has been diverted away from the lake to irrigate farmland, feed industry and water lawns. A megadrought across the US south-west, accelerated by global heating, has hastened the lake’s demise. Unless dire action is taken, the lake could decline beyond recognition within five years, a report published early this year warned, exposing a dusty lakebed laced with arsenic, mercury, lead and other toxic substances.The resulting toxic dustbowl would be “one of the worst environmental disasters in modern US history”, the ecologist Ben Abbott of Brigham Young University told the Guardian earlier this year. Despite such warnings, officials have failed to take serious action, local groups said in their lawsuit, which was filed on Wednesday. “We are trying to avert disaster. We are trying to force the hand of state government to take serious action,” said Brian Moench of the Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, one of the groups suing state agencies. “Plaintiffs pray that this Court declare that the State of Utah has breached its trust duty to ensure water flows into the Great Salt Lake sufficient to maintain the Lake,” reads the lawsuit, which was brought by coalition that includes Earthjustice, the Utah Rivers Council, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club, among others.
Political pressure has not been very effective in a state dominated by Republicans. The state's response is lukewarm at best. That's in addition to bizarre proposals.
The state’s Republican governor, Spencer Cox, has suspended new claims to water in the Great Salt Lake basin and appointed a commissioner to oversee response to the lake crisis. Last year, Utah’s legislature passed several conservation measures, including a $40m trust to support lake preservation projects. But Abbott and his colleagues, who authored a sobering report on the lake in January, found that those measures increased flows to the lake by just 100,000 acre feet in 2022. About 2.5m acre-feet a year of water will need to flow into the lake to bring it to a healthy level, the researchers estimated. That water will likely have to come at the expense of agriculture, which takes in about three-quarters of the water diverted away from the lake to grow mostly alfalfa and hay. Cities and mineral extraction operations each take up another 9% of diverted water. But wresting water away from agriculture is politically complicated. Officials have explored propositions to pay farmers to fallow land and use less water, though such proposals have yet to gain much tractions. Lawmakers have also offered up a series of out-of-the-box solutions – including cloud seeding, which uses chemicals to prompt more precipitation – or building a giant pipeline from the Pacific Ocean.
Seriously, a pipeline from the Pacific Ocean? This is a classic idiotic GOP way to deal with an environmental catastrophe which doesn't get to the root of the problem.
Already, the lake has lost 73% of its water and 60% of its surface area, and is becoming saltier, threatening native flies and brine shrimp. A diminished lake may be unable to support the more than 10 million migratory birds that stop over in the region. A white pelican colony recently abandoned a nesting site on the lake, potentially due to declining water levels. “In addition to the millions of people who live here, so many plants and animals depend on the lake,” said Deeda Seed, Utah campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The health of northern Utah’s entire population depends on the Great Salt Lake’s survival and I hope this lawsuit can help save it.”
^^^ emphasis added
Yep, take their asses to court to save the body of water which gave the state's largest city its name.
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n0brainjustvibes · 5 months
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Tagged by @vikugnavikugna!
coke or pepsi? beverage BITE miette?? beverage STING her tongue like the insect??? jail!!! jail for beverage for One Thousand Years!!!
disney or dreamworks? dreamworks did HTTYD, right? them.
coffee or tea? tea
books or movies? books hehe
windows or mac? never used mac so windows it is
dc or marvel? ok, exposing myself here, worm was like my 2nd superhero media ever. i haven't read either 🙈 i have seen a few marvel movies but i'm not sure whether that should count for or against them
x-box or playstation? mine crafdt on my laptop
dragon age or mass effect? mass effect bc incuriouscat on youtube makes sick ass fan PMVs
night owl or early riser? night owl
cards or chess? chess, you can narrate stories about the pieces and thoroughly annoy your opponent (sibling) even as you lose >:3
chocolate or vanilla? chocolate all the way!!
vans or converse? wgat
Lavellan, Trevelyan, Cadash, or Adaar? I can't tell if these are fantasy names or antidepressants
fluff or angst? uhhhhdfcgvhbjnk gonna have to say fluff
beach or forest? beach
dogs or cats? cats 100%! (or secret third option: fish...)
clear skies or rain? clear. god. please... 🙏🙏
cooking or eating out? cooking :P
spicy food or mild food? Mild by any sane standards, but spicy according to my family and/or BBC Food haha
halloween/samhain or solstice/yule/christmas? chris mas :))
would you rather forever be a little too cold or a little too hot? uuuhhhh .. hh. hard one here. gonna have to also go cold
if you could have a superpower, what would it be? SUPERSPEED!! Or time powers. My irl friend has convinced me of their usefulness.
animation or live action? animation
paragon or renegade? renegade, it's the name of my serial killer dark forest!hollyleaf fanfic (only half kidding...)
baths or showers? shower
team cap or team ironman? hm. remember when I said I watched a few marvel movies? yeah none of them were this one :(
fantasy or sci-fi? fantasy baybey!!! but I adore both
do you have three or four favourite quotes, if so what are they? oh god okay. hm... "Where did we learn it, this talent for insatiability?" from The Handmaid's Tale still Lives In My Head from high school english. If song lyrics count, then, "You don't know me / don't you question my love" from Berlin, Without Return. "Sometimes a hypocrite is just a man in the process of changing" (I don't recall the exact wording) from... Oathbringer? is my fav cliche cosmere pick. Oh! And I forget the episode or even who said it, but at some point during the s3 All Might/AFO fight in MHA, one of the side characters stuck on guard duty said "You're confusing difficulty with importance", and that changed my life.
youtube or netflix? youtube :) it has fun little AMVs
[REDACTED] [Clearance Level 9]
when do you feel accomplished? when I bake something! making concrete stuff is really fulfilling, especially if I'm baking for other people.
star wars or star trek? spaceballs (jk, star wars, but I haven't seen star trek so sw wins by default)
paperback books or hardcover books? paperback
to live in a world without literature or without music? [sad character song assigner noises]... without music.
who was the last person to make you laugh? that would be @ty-bayonet-betteridge with several lines in their riley fic hehe
city or countryside? city! much as I complain about missing nature :') ideally a city that's near the sea
favorite chips? anything plain sea salt and properly crunchy 🤌
pants or dresses? pants, though dresses are fun for fancy occasions!
libraries or museums? is it a natural history museum? pleamse?? if so museum! otherwise library all the way.
character driven stories or plot driven stories? I don't really have a preference ngl
bookmarks or folding pages? i was one of those heretical kids who just plonked their books face down open 🙈😭 and now I mostly read online so... idk? Probably bookmarks.
Dream job? honestly would love to be on the management council for a small nature conservancy. second choice would be ecological research, but data-based, not fieldwork (animals scare me >.<)
What gives you comfort? thinking about The Characters...
what are some of your favorite song lyrics? literally ANY pun or double meaning lyric by idkhow!! gonna go with "lose yourself inside the city / lose your mind inside a week".
favorite ice cream flavor ever? chocolate my beloved...
first fandom? warrior cats......
deep ocean or deep space? (personally, i gotta pick ocean, because theres fish in there 👍😊)
Your desert island band?
@thesternest @seroquelfan @chaoticrushu, but no pressure to answer, and anyone is welcome to join! add your own question at the end if you answer :]
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An anon said they have already seen louis’ film and he addressed Harry tricking them deliberately and breaking up one direction, there’s a lot of Freddie, he says he is straight and says it’s weird that he has so many gay fans as a straight man, he says he hates that fans can’t accept he has a son and larries are responding by saying “rip his career”
Lmao 💀
I always find it fascinating that they don’t clock how pathologically unkind it is to hold this man’s career at ransom based on an opinion they’ve chosen to have.
Louis: “It upsets me that my fans aren’t just happy for me for having a son.”
Fans: “Fuck you, why are you hurting me like this? I’ll end you.”
Louis: “This is how I personally identify and it’s strange to me that I have so many fans of another identity that isn’t mine, in a why did they pick me way”.
Fans: “YOURE HOMOPHOBIC FOR SAYING YOURE STRAIGHT I WILL END YOUR CAREER”.
Like it’s just so bizarre?
And what’s REALLY weird about it is they always act like he’s somehow lead them on when Louis has been openly calling larrie bullshit for the entirety of his career - over a decade 💀 It’s interesting that they are so much more vindictive towards Louis when he’s always been very transparent about how he feels about larrie, women, his sexuality, his fans, and yet never call out Harry who is very obviously intentionally keeping things vague and has always coddled “larrie” far more because he likes taking their money tbh and doesn’t like annoying fans of any kind with the truth, whether it be conservatives, queer fans or larries.
Like they really don’t get that Louis has been very openly telling them the truth for over ten years and begging them to wake tf up, meanwhile Harry is Mr Vague marketing his entire fandom for one reason or another.
Obviously grain of salt re the anon but I would be fascinated to finally see a member acknowledge in public that Harry backstabbed them a lil with the hiatus run around. Imagine Harry going on and on about Zayn being unprofessional for leaving due to his mental health, only for Harry to actively lie to the remaining three about them state of the group 😬
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moregraceful · 1 year
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bound my first little fic zine with my own seminal dumbass gay hockey rpf fanfiction top to the bottom, just cool!! i followed these perfect and thorough instructions on binding a fic zine from @eat0crow and typesetting the text block was done according to these incredible instructions by @armoredsuperheavy. i really would have had no idea where to start without their instructions. i started with a fic zine bc all my favorite fics are under like 25k and i'm not sure i want to invest in all the tools necessary for larger works when i'll be binding such short fics generally.
musing on process and future plants and mistakes i made under the cut - not due to the instructions but simply bc i am a moron 😌
this took about an hour and a half to make (not including typesetting), so it was pretty quick. (it might help that my first job in college was doing book conservation for an academic library, so i sort of have the skills in my toolbox, they're just hella rusty.) this is a 6.5k fic on 28 pages so it was a thin and manageable first work. i made several mistakes but it was good to try a first one and i'm pretty proud overall! i made a little zine of my fic!!!
mistakes...so first i printed it on the long edge despite eat0crow specifically calling out to pay attention to how you print it. i simply. have zero reading comprehension lol. so now i have a tidy 14 pages of paper that i will be cutting up into squares make paper cranes with! we love to reduce, reuse, and recycle in this house.
my next mistake was buying this beautiful decorative paper from two hands paperie for a cover, then receiving it and realizing that it was much too thin for a cover, and then buying OTHER colored paper that was also too thin and deciding i would split the difference and simply glue the decorative paper on the colored paper. i didn't glue it onto the paper before i bound it! it ended up okay. i'm honestly not entirely sure if it would have worked out for me to glue it on before binding it? it might not have had enough give when i bound it? so that's something to continue playing with future bindings. i bought more decorative paper specifically for other projects, but i'm going to keep playing around with it on my own fics until i figure out the best way to do it.
i also fully dropped into 20yo kasper being fussed at by his boss to NOT take shortcuts. DO everything slowly, she said. DON'T try to do too much at once! so i tried to cut down page creep page by page but i wasn't satisfied so i took my exacto knife and hacked it down all at once and then it looked worse lol. could hear my boss sighing from across the country. i don't know if i will keep trying that one honestly, i might be too lazy to do it when a book has more than on signature. this was only 28 pages so it was manageable but i typeset a work that was 72 pages last week and having done 28 pages and being unsatisfied, i really don't think i have the energy to do 72 pages and still be frustrated with the results.
which brings me to my next thing! this was a manageable 28 pages and i think that was a good length! but the next one i want to try binding is the second fic in the series brother let me be your shelter. i've been struggling in the salt mines for literal days trying to typeset it into sensible signatures and currently it's 48 pages long in signatures of 16 so i could bind them with french binding but i think 16 pages on 20lb paper might be too thin for french binding! so i'm going to have to keep messing with it. i had to make the font 10.5 pt to get it to fit to 48 pages. 10.5pt i think is fairly standard for a fic zine but i kind of think that if i am going to have to/want to bind multiple signatures anyway, i should just suck it up and make it bigger and play around with sizing. i really want to try french binding (here is a demo video from the preservation lab).
my final and probably biggest mistake is that i was using a rubber ruler i've had since freshman year of college, so it's completely warped and made cutting in a straight line a complete pain in the ass. might be why when i was cutting down page creep they looked like complete ass. so i gotta buy a metal ruler lmao.
the next fic after brother that i want to try (or maybe i should try it first if i am so determined to do french binding lol) is the baby sharks fic, which is only 10k, but the spacing is odd due to the format of the fic, which is why it is 72 pages (signatures of 24 pages). that will be a french binding project, but i'm still trying to decide how to do a cover if i do only french binding, since i foolishly bought paper before my first project and now have a shit ton of gorgeous but very thin paper - french binding doesn't have a cover so i gotta do some research. and after THAT i got permission from ash to bind two thousand miles away, but i can see you a fic that i love so much and which has similar framing (short scenes, social media posts, texts threads). it contains chapters which is a different challenge. also the anxiety starts to kick in when i'm working on other people's fic, so i want to have done the baby sharks fic first so i can see at least what that kind of spacing will look like and how to work with it. this is why i do not do podfic lol i have so much anxiety about honoring people's creative works appropriately and respectfully.
AND THEN. i feel like i shouldn't even say this so as not to spoil the surprise, but i'm already deep into the post and i don't know who is still reading. i know i would have refreshed tumblr to close the cut tag and gone to look at something else by now. anyway i want to try to bind all of lorna's witch verse, which i initially chose because eat0crow said their instructions worked best for fic that is 5k-20k and i thought well it's 27k so i'll just split it in half and treat every fic as a chapter. but now that i've seen how it goes with a 6.5k fic and also experienced HOW MUCH OF A PAIN IN THE ASS word is, i think i might try coptic binding to get it all done at once! (here is a video example.) i was rly reluctant to do any kind of hardcover binding as i didn't want to store davy board and all the tools necessary for davy board, but i'm in love with lorna and ella (who asked for a copy when she found out i am making one for lorna!) so now i'm like ok i better go for broke on this one lol.
anyway great to have a new hobby. my friends are always fussing at me to engage my brain other than writing fic or watching sports, and it's good to stretch muscles that have been dormant for a decade. excited to try new things, as you can see by the amount of paragraphs in this post. i always wanted my own bone folder in college and now i have one!!!!! sorry to my boss who spent so long and so much effort teaching me book conservation, i know you wanted me to be an academic conservation librarian and i feel bad every day that i threw your hard work down the drain and now work in a public library and decided to use the skills you taught me so carefully and gently thirteen years ago to bind gay fanfiction about hockey players.
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theculturedmarxist · 1 year
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Yves Smith asks:
What if Russia Won the Ukraine War but the Western Press Didn’t Notice?
She points to several headlines which, despite decisive Russian victories like its taking of Soledar, present the Ukraine as winning the war:
Nevertheless, Soledar has fallen and the loss of Bakhmut looks baked in, absent horrific Russian errors. The so-called Zelensky line is breaking even before Russia has put its recently-mobilized forces to work in a serious way. Regular commentators are waiting for the Russian hammer to fall, although Russia may simply grind more forcefully by pressing harder at more points along the very long line of contact. Remember one concern on the Russian side is avoiding “winning” in a way that leads to NATO panic and desperate action ... not that the Collective West’s fragile emotional state can be readily managed.
With that context, you’d expect some members of the press to have worked out that things are not going very well for Ukraine and the classic cowboy movie rescue of the calvary riding over the hill (here in the form of tanks and artillery) will be too little, too late.
Instead, the media seems to be trying to integrate snippets of facts on the ground with the heroic tale of inevitable Ukraine victory.
That is certainly correct for the wide majority of the stories, which claim that Soledar and Bahkmut, are irrelevant towns, but some pieces are creeping up that differ. A few days ago the Washington Post headlined:
Bloody Bakhmut siege poses risks for Ukraine
Ukraine faces difficult choices about how much deeper its military should get drawn into a protracted fight over the besieged city of Bakhmut, as Kyiv prepares for a new counteroffensive elsewhere on the front that requires conserving weapons, ammunition and experienced fighters.
Russia has escalated its assault in the area in recent days, unleashing savage fighting that has underscored the high cost of the battle. Russian mercenaries and released convicts from the Wagner group pushed into the neighboring salt-mining town of Soledar and inched closer to Bakhmut, the capture of which has eluded them for months despite an advantage in firepower and the willingness to sacrifice troops.
The piece quotes several Ukrainian soldiers which speak of huge losses on their side. But the U.S. is still egging them on:
The senior U.S. official cautioned against completely dismissing Bakhmut or neighboring Soledar as nonstrategic places that Kyiv can simply relinquish, noting that the salt and gypsum mines give the area economic significance. Theoretically, the Russians could use the deep salt mines and tunnels to protect equipment and ammunition from Ukrainian missile strikes. Moscow has also endowed the city with import.
“To some degree, Bakhmut matters to [Ukraine] because it matters so much to the Russians,” the senior U.S. official said, noting that control of Bakhmut is not going to have a huge impact on the conflict or imperil Ukraine’s defensive or offensive options in the country’s eastern Donbas region.
The official added, “Bakhmut is not going to change the war.”
I believe the senior U.S. official to be very wrong. Soledar and Bakhmut are bleeding the Ukrainian army dry. That is of relevance. Look at the insane number of Ukrainian units deployed on that only 50 kilometer (30mi) long sector of the front.
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I count the equivalent of some 27 brigade size formations in that area. The usual size of a brigade is some 3,000 to 4,000 men with hundreds of all kinds of vehicles. If all brigades had their full strength that force would count as 97,500 men. In a recent interview the Ukrainian military commander Zaluzhny said that his army has 200,000 men trained to fight with 500,000 more having other functions or currently being trained. The forces which are currently getting mauled in the Bakhmut area constitute 50% of Ukraine's battle ready forces.
Zaluzhny has pulled units from other fronts like the Kreminna and Svatove sector further north in Luhansk province to feed them into Bakhmut. That has minimized any chance that the Ukrainian forces in those sectors will be able to make any progress.
What nearly all reports from Ukraine seem to miss is the huge damage that Russia artillery is causing on a daily base. Ukraine has little artillery left to respond to that and whatever it still has is getting less by the day.
A few weeks ago the Russian military started a systematic counter artillery campaign which has since made great progress. The typical western way of detecting enemy artillery units is by radar. The flight path of the projectile is measured and the coordinates of its source are calculated enabling ones own artillery to respond. But counter-artillery radar itself depends on radiating. It is thereby easily detectable and vulnerable to fire. Over the last months Russia deployed a very different counter-artillery detection systems with the rather ironic name of Penicillin:
Penicillin or 1B75 Penicillin is an acoustic-thermal artillery-reconnaissance system developed by Ruselectronics for the Russian Armed Forces. The system aims to detect and locate enemy artillery, mortars, MLRs, anti-aircraft or tactical-missile firing positions with seismic and acoustic sensors, without emitting any radio waves. It locates enemy fire within 5 seconds at a range of 25 km (16 mi; 13 nmi). Penicillin completed state trials in December 2018 and entered combat duty in 2020.
The Penicillin is mounted on the 8x8 Kamaz-6350 chassis and consists of a 1B75 sensor suite placed on a telescopic boom for the infrared and visible spectrum as well as of several ground-installed seismic and acoustic receivers as a part of the 1B76 sensor suite. It has an effective range for communication with other military assets up to 40 kilometres (25 mi) and is capable to operate even in a fully automatic mode, without any crew. One system can reportedly cover an entire division against an enemy fire. Besides that, it co-ordinates and corrects a friendly artillery fire.
The Penicillin system can hide in the woods and stick up its telescopic boom to look at and listen to the battlefield. As it does not radiate itself there is no good way for an enemy to detect it.
The system pinpoints Ukrainian guns as they fire. They are then eliminated by immediate precise counter-fire. As the artillery relevant part of today's 'clobber' list provided by the Russian Ministry of Defense claims:
Operational-Tactical Aviation, Missile Troops and Artillery of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation have neutralised an artillery ordnance depot of 114th Territorial Defence Brigade near Veliky Burluk (Kharkov region), as well as 82 artillery units at their firing positions, manpower and hardware at 98 areas.
Counterbattery warfare operations have resulted in destruction of:
one Polish-manufactured Krab howitzer near Peschanoye (Kharkov region);
one U.S.-manufactured M109 Paladin howitzer, and one fighting vehicle equipped with Grad multiple-launch rocket system (MLRS) near Lozovaya (Kharkov region);
one D-20 howitzer near Terny (Donetsk People's Republic);
two Giatsint-B howitzers near Maryinka and Orlovka (Donetsk People's Republic);
two Akatsiya self-propelled howitzers near Nevskoye (Lugansk People's Republic), and Preobrazhenka (Zaporozhye region);
five D-30 howitzers near Zmiyevka, Novokairy (Kherson region), Sofiyevka (Donetsk People's Republic), and Orekhov (Zaporozhye region).
Four U.S.-manufactured counterbattery warfare radars have been destroyed:
two AN/TPQ-50 stations near Mylovoye and Dudchany (Kherson region),
one AN/TPQ-36 counterbattery warfare radar near Ugledar (Donetsk People's Republic),
one U.S.-manufactured AN/TPQ-48 counterbattery warfare radar near Senkovo (Kharkov region).
Air defence facilities have shot down six Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles near Kremennaya (Lugansk People's Republic), Nikolskoye, and Petrovskoye (Donetsk People's Republic).
14 rocket-propelled projectiles launched by HIMARS and Olkha MLRS have been intercepted near Udy (Kharkov region), Smolyaninovo (Lugansk People's Republic), Donetsk, and Khartsyzsk (Donetsk People's Republic).
One U.S.-manufactured anti-radiation missile has been shot down near Radensk (Kherson region).
One Ukrainian Tochka-U ballistic missile has been shot down near Berdyansk (Zaporozhye region).
The above is the equivalent of two artillery companies (batteries with six guns each) eliminated in just one day. Ukrainian counter-battery fire against Russian artillery is no longer possible as the necessary detection equipment gets eliminated and as Ukrainian counter-fire is shot down by Russian air defenses.
This Russian counter-artillery campaign has been going on for several weeks. It has disabled large parts of what was left of Ukrainian longer range capabilities. Meanwhile the Russian artillery keeps on knocking down Ukranian troops that hold the frontline. Only when all parts of the Ukrainian trenches have been hit by intense fire will the Russian infantry move in to clean up whatever is left behind.
This form of battle is causing huge losses on the Ukrainian side while the Russian forces incur just a minimum of casualties.
In his recent talks Col (ret.) Douglas Macgregor put the deaths in Ukraine forces at 150,000 and casualties at 450,000. I, like Yves Smith, doubt that number of wounded is that high. As the system of Ukrainian battlefield extradition and hospitalization is in a bad state there will be less wounded and likely more dead.
In a huge contrast to U.S. waged wars, the civilian death count on the Ukrainian side is remarkably low:
Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian presidential staff, said at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos, “We have registered 80,000 crimes committed by Russian invaders and over 9,000 civilians have been killed, including 453 children.”
Feeding more troops into the battle in the Bakhmut sector, as the Ukrainian side has been doing, is not a good use of resources.
We can state that Ukraine has by now lost the nominal equipment of two larger armies.
At the beginning of the war the Ukrainian army was said to have some 2,500 tanks, 12,500 armored vehicles and 3,500 large artillery systems. It is doubtful that more than half of those were in a usable state but they may have received enough repair to be workable.
The Russia military claims that most of those have been eliminated:
7,549 tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, 984 fighting vehicles equipped with MLRS, 3,853 field artillery cannons and mortars, as well as 8,081 units of special military equipment have been destroyed during the special military operation.
If one doubts those numbers one has to ask why the Ukraine has needed to import so many more weapons and is still short of them:
410 Soviet-era tanks delivered by NATO members in former communist bloc, including Poland, Czech Republic and Slovenia.
300 [Armored/Infantry Fighting Vehicles], including 250 Soviet-designed IFVs from former communist states.
1,100 [Armored Personnel Carriers], including 300 M113 troop carriers and 250 M117s.
300 towed howitzers. 400+ pieces of self-propelled artillery, of which 180 is on order.
95 [Multiple Rocket Launchers]
There were also a number of fighter airplanes, helicopter and air-defense systems. The above was the second army, after Ukraine's original one was mostly gone, that has by now been nearly eliminated.
The Russian clobber list now regularly reports of combat with Ukraine forces that kills, for example, one tank, three armored vehicles and a number of pick-ups and motor vehicles:
One Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group has been eliminated near Liman Pervy (Kharkov region). The enemy has lost over 50 Ukrainian personnel, one tank, two infantry fighting vehicles, and two pickups. … [In Donetsk direction] over 60 Ukrainian personnel, one tank, three armoured fighting vehicles, and six motor vehicles have been eliminated. … Two AFU sabotage and reconnaissance groups have been eliminated in the area to the north of Levadnoye and Vladimirovka (Donetsk People's Republic). The enemy has lost up to 40 Ukrainian personnel, two armoured fighting vehicles, and three motor vehicles.
Pick-ups and unarmored motor vehicles should avoid the frontline and certainly not be part of force attacking the immediate frontline. If these reports reflect the current structure of Ukrainian forces, as I believe they do, than its state is indeed dire.
In his Economist interview General Zeluzhny has requested a third army to be delivered to him immediately:
“I know that I can beat this enemy,” he says. “But I need resources. I need 300 tanks, 600-700 IFVs [infantry fighting vehicles], 500 Howitzers.”
As the Economist writer dryly noted:
The incremental arsenal he is seeking is bigger than the total armoured forces of most European armies.
The stocks of two complete armies have by now been destroyed in Ukraine. The resources for a smaller third one will be delivered in the next rounds of 'western' equipment deliveries during the next months. Russia will dully destroy Ukraine's third army just as it has destroyed the first and second one. It is doubtful that the 'West' has enough material left to provide Ukraine with a fourth one.
That then leaves only two options. Send in 'western' armies with the equipment they still have or declare victory and go home.
The neo-conservatives as ever favor the first option. President Joe Biden may still be against sending U.S. soldiers but this could change if he indeed gets blackmailed into doing it:
[A]s the ‘classified documents’ scandal gains momentum, the malleable president will likely fall-in-line and do whatever the hawkish foreign policy establishment demands of him. In short, the documents flap is being used by behind-the-scenes powerbrokers who are blackmailing the president to pursue their own narrow interests. They have Brandon over-a-barrel.
There is no evidence that this is happening but the signs are there.
The second option is to declare a non-existent victory and to forget about the whole issues.
But will the 'western' media, as Yves asks, notice any of this?
As commentator David correctly remarks at Yves' site:
I’ve said for a long time now that the West will be able to claim “victory”, or at least not defeat, by establishing fantastical victory conditions that the Russians never had and never wanted, and then claiming credit for frustrating them. With luck, this will just about enable western elites to hang onto power, at least temporarily.
"Putin tried to conquer Europe but we stopped him after he took only half of Ukraine," will sound like victory. But it is of course extremely far from the truth. Anyway, the media may well buy it:
But in the wider sense, we’re seeing the latest and most degenerate stage of the stupidity and ignorance which has afflicted the western media and pundit class over the last year. They didn’t know about the war in the Donbas, nobody told them Russia had the strongest army in Europe, nobody knew about the defensive lines in Donbas, nobody understood the seriousness of the Russian threats, nobody realised the Russians hoped for a short, sharp war to bring the Ukrainians to their senses, nobody understood why Russia went over to Plan B while it mobilised, nobody realised the Russians had been stockpiling weapons and ammunition for years; nobody knew what attrition warfare was …. In other words, the most disgraceful example of ignorance and stupidity of any ruling class in modern times. It will go on to the end, and “victory” will be proclaimed.
The war the U.S. provoked in Ukraine has been won by Russia even when no one wants to note it.
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mitsdriveswhere · 9 months
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I think I just like mine tour guides.
This is the deepest shaft mine in Colorado, dropping you 1,000 feet below the surface. In order to get into it, you have to take a, conservatively, 3.5ftx3.5ft skip elevator down into the depths with 6-7 other passengers quite literally squished against you.
Once you arrive at the bottom, you'll be given a tour of the mine, old and current mining equipment, and the history of the maze you're walking through.
Now, this mine sits at an easy 55° F (13° C). So what's this frost-like white shit on the walls?
One of my fellow tourists had the same question as she reached up to the wall and rubbed some off with her finger.
My immediate cave brain was like "don't fuckin' touch anything!" but luckily our tour guide chose chaos instead. He immediately launched into the most straight-faced answer he could. I will do my best to convey the gist:
"Well, this mine is safe for people to walk through and breathe in, but not touch. The white stuff you see on the walls, if it gets on your skin, will be melted by your body heat and the oil in your skin and be absorbed by your body. Once that happens, we have a max of 20 minutes to get you to the surface, because that is the second most powerful laxative on the planet."
This poor woman, was suddenly and furiously wiping her hands on her pants, everyone turning to her and whispering amongst each other.
Our tour guide waits maybe another 5 seconds before bursting out laughing that he was joking, that the white you see is in fact Epsom salt containing cinnabar. Cinnabar (HgS) is poisonous to humans because it contains mercury, which is why the Epsom salt can't be mined itself.
"It's fine to touch briefly, just don't lick it," the guide - again, laughing - continues his explanation. "Sorry, but thank you for that. That was fun."
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coochiequeens · 1 year
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HBO is drawing attention to drag queens in conservative areas and then pointing the finger at others when there is push back from the community. 
The showrunners behind HBO's reality drag show "We're Here" say a pending episode in St. George produced the most extreme political fallout they've seen in three seasons.
Catch up quick: The series stages professional drag shows featuring locals alongside its team of drag stars, mostly in conservative cities where LGBTQ+ communities historically don't have much support.
St. George city manager Adam Lenhard resigned under pressure last month after he issued a permit to the show to stage and film a drag show for 2,000 people this summer in the town square for an episode that will air next month.
Amid right-wing protests against the show, Lenhard said in messages obtained by the St. George Spectrum that denying the permit would violate the First Amendment and lead to costly lawsuits.
Driving the news: In an interview with Axios, executive producer Steve Warren said the retaliation against city staff for permitting a town square drag show is "very, very disturbing."
What they're saying: "St. George … is the canary in the coal mine, where there are a few misinformed, very disproportionately loud voices that are taking over city governments," Warren told Axios. "We're seeing this happen across the country."
The latest: After The Salt Lake Tribune reported Lenhard's confidential $625,000 settlement, crowds again gathered this month at city hall, some protesting anti-LGBTQ bigotry, and others complaining that the "pride community" is too "welcomed" in St. George.
Yes, but: Warren said southern Utahns have told him that the show, with "all those people in that park, ignited a movement there."
"You can try and push us into the darkness, but we won't let that happen," Johnnie Ingram, also an executive producer, told Axios. "We're going to come, we're going to celebrate, and we're going to live our lives brightly and authentically and show that we come from a place of love."
Zoom out: The show has gotten an array of reactions in the towns it has visited.
In South Dakota and Texas, for example, local mayors supported the show's right to perform and film in public.
But in Indiana, a Methodist pastor was fired for performing in drag on the show to support his daughter.
What's next: The episode will air Dec. 9, with the show's team returning to St. George on Dec. 7 for a fundraiser screening with Pride of Southern Utah.
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