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mangalho · 1 year

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Ex-warbot OC

They don’t have names yet.

The two bots with the scary faces were specifically made for war, and now that it’s over, they still maintained their original ‘warface’ even though it has stigma associated to it. Many robots changed their faceplates post-war, as it made it easier to find jobs and not get into unnecessary conflict.

The sleeker looking guy used to be in their company, though he wasn’t made in the same factory as them; he isn’t their ’batch-mate’.

After the war he completely modified his frame, and now has an idol career. He desperately wats to erase his past, as people (and robots alike) will respond better to a ‘new’ and untainted idol.

The two warface bots are “brother and sister” and they do odd jobs here and there to make ends meet and to be able to afford things they want. Rich people hire them as bouncers a lot since they are a symbol of terrible times. Sometimes they earn 15k in one night for just one gig it’s crazy. They both really love clothes since it distances them from their body’s original purpose while simultaneously not erasing their past. Also they look cute and cool!

The idol bot once meets the warfaces by chance in the street and pretends he doesn’t know them AGAHAKALAK I think he’s insane… completely erasing your past and the person you were is psychopathic to me idk. Anyway

There arent a lot of warfaces going around anymore. since they either died during the war or changed their frames. Pre-war bots were re-fitted during the conflicts and just had to go back to their former unweaponized frames after it was all over so they’re fine. All of these robots can download information and i want that type of learning to mostly disappear if its deleted, but if they learn things like we do or experience real events, those memories and skills can’t really truly be erased; if they do try erasing them, they will still remember them, just not with HD video clarity, which brings them immense suffering sometimes. “How to people live like this?!” Well buddy it sucks idk we all cope

Newly minted robots are wack because they don’t exactly have a ‘soul’ yet they just do things they’re supposed to do, but after some time, all of them actually develop real awareness and shit… my war bots had like a 78% chance of dying everyday when they were activated, but they survived and attained sentience at like one year post birth and they wised up rly fast after that. They remember their first year, but they describe it as a ‘weird haze’

These robots feel pain so they wont like dive into a hole or damage themselves too much. Self preservation means longer-lived machines which means less repair costs and less human lives on the line as well.. slay !!!

While the conflicts went on, most robots achieved sentience and decided to stop fighting so there was like a robots rights movement and eventually the war stopped altogether and now the robots have a salary and a normal life mostly. They arent organics, so they need other things. They are solar powered and need oil sometimes and also they need new nanomachines once in a while like we need vaccines. Get your boosters… its not just tetanus and coronavirus anymore now they gotta think about like..the trojan horse 9000

I want them to have this aversion to organic things dying bc they are universally gross. Like they dont like seeing living-machines die either but a rat being squished by a car is also gross!

There are probably some tensions between humans and robots but like i kinda get it bc i wouldnt mess with a guy who has like lead pipes for arms. also most robots ARE normal but some are insane idk 🙆‍♀️🤷‍♀️ just like people are.

mine are normal tho they’re just vibing 💖🗣🤙

#drawans #OC #warface

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foolishlovers · 2 months

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hiii!!! do u have any recs for long AUs??? thank you! :]

of course, i love long good omens AUs, here are some of my favourites:

[you can request more fic recs here.]

Golden Handcuffs by seekwill (E, 70k) Far from any city, near the Scottish coast, Tadfield College has a celebrated history, an unrivaled academic reputation, and two departments at war. When the Biology and English departments are forced to share a building, Senior Lecturer and botanist Anthony Crowley finds himself drawn into the orbit of the polite but strange English professor, Dr. Aziraphale Fell. As the new term begins, two academics navigate the politics of both their offices and academia, and try to solve the puzzle of one another.

Fifty-Two Blue by bendycello (M, 84k) It would be a gross understatement to say that Crowley simply didn't like Aziraphale. He was posh and stuffy and arrogant, and Crowley couldn't figure out why everyone else in the program liked him so much. It hardly mattered; they were competitors, and Crowley didn't need to make friends to become a surgeon. It takes several unleasant encounters, the excessive use of house plants as a coping mechanism, and getting stuck in an elevator for Crowley to start reconsidering his priorities. Or… Crowley and Aziraphale are surgical interns with competitive streaks a mile wide each, and they really do not like each other at all. Until they do.

Waking Up Slow by the_moonmoth (E, 87k) “Then you’ll just have to come back with me," Aziraphale said. “You what?” “You’ll have to come and isolate with me, at my cottage.” The thing about messing with people, Crowley thought, was that sometimes, they genuinely surprised you. After both being exposed to coronavirus, total strangers Crowley and Aziraphale are forced to wait out their isolation together. A tale of soft winter romance by the sea.

Slow Show by mia_ugly (E, 95k) In which temptations are accomplished, grand romantic gestures are made, and two ineffable co-stars only take four seasons of an award-winning television program to realize they’re on their own side (at last, at last.)

Car Trouble by summerofspock (E, 102k) Aziraphale's car breaks down so he takes it to the first mechanic he can find. From there, his mundane life changes drastically as he finds himself befriending the man fixing his car.

on the same page by Chekhov (E, 117k) Aziraphale Z. Fell is a rising star of the spiritual literary genre - the next Eat Pray Love guy - and his version of Chicken Soup For the Christian Soul is flying off the shelves. It's not that he's not grateful, but it's one thing to enjoy a career in writing and another completely to be pigeonholed into a specific genre, so much so that you are almost forbidden from writing anything else. So yes, maybe he has a bit of a secret. An outlet for his less… appropriate urges. And yes, if his typical readership got word of the sort of paragraphs he could put out on a particularly inspired night, they might suffer some form of heart attack typical for their age. But all of that is well hidden, and there is absolutely no way anyone would ever find out about his Arrangement with A.J. Crowley - the most debaucherous romantic fiction author of the decade. That is… until they have to pretend to be married to each other.

Married at First Sight by Aracloptia (T, 146k) “Well, that was a thing,” Crowley said once they were out of earshot. Without talking about it, they were both heading down the field, towards the lake where the photographer (and likely a few more people from the TV crew) was waiting. “That was a wedding,” Aziraphale replied, surprised at his own annoyance that somebody called a wedding a ‘thing’. “Yeah, obviously, didn’t miss that part,” Crowley said with a shrug, and waved abruptly in Aziraphale’s general direction. “Neither did you, from the looks of it, since you’re dressed like a wedding bride and everything.” “Excuse me, I am a—“ Aziraphale stopped himself, and started over. In which Aziraphale ends up marrying a rude stranger who wears sunglasses.

Old Vines by sevdrag (E, 189k) A.Z. Fell, one of the most respected names in wine and food blogging, has been sent on assignment with his assistant Warlock Dowling to spend six months in California Wine Country. Under direction (by his boss, Gabriel) to use this experience to double his blog followers and write a novel, Aziraphale is both excited and anxious about the opportunity. Anthony J. Crowley is the owner and viticulturalist of Ecdyses, a winery that unexpectedly fell into his lap eleven years ago when he hit rock bottom. He may be in debt, yeah, but he’s paying off his loans — and despite pressure from his lenders and their team of inspectors, Crowley has found a kind of contentment tending his little corner of terroir and producing extraordinary wine. Crowley’s old vines are the heart of his vineyard, and he’s never let anyone in. Crowley finds Aziraphale intriguing; Aziraphale finds Crowley enthralling. Turns out a famous wine expert and an experienced viticulturalist can still learn things from each other. The summer of 2019 unfolds.

What We Make of It (Shotgun Wedding) by charlottemadison (E, 213k) The important thing, Crowley tells himself -- the most important thing -- is Adam, his brilliant, creative, empathetic nephew. Being fourteen's hard enough; the kid didn't ask to deal with the weight of the world on top of it. And if taking care of Adam means Crowley has to tough it out at a job he can’t stand, so be it. And if Crowley's job means that Adam’s charming English teacher is NOT a romantic possibility, well, that's just how things go. But the occasional drink with Aziraphale proves hard to resist. They frequent the same pub, so who can object to them saying hello? Briefly sharing a table? Perhaps a little conversation? The painful knowledge that it can’t be anything more -- not without somebody getting fired or sued or both -- well, that can't be helped. Until Crowley stumbles onto a terribly reckless idea…

#you've come to the right place #i love nothing more than immersing myself in a really long good omens fic shshhs #if anyone has some recs for me PLS go ahead and send them!!#good omens #good omens human au #good omens fanfic #good omens fic #aziraphale x crowley #aziracrow #aziracrow fic #good omens fic rec #foolish recs #go fic masterpost

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mybeingthere · 6 months

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JAN C SCHLEGEL -

OF ALIENS, MERMAIDS AND MEDUSAS

Platinum Prints, limited edition of 5 in the size of 56x76cm (Arches Platinum Rag).

A folio of 12 plates (plus cover page) is available as limited edition of 3

The series „of Aliens, Mermaids and Medusas" was inspired by imagination itself.

Today it seems as if its influence on people is losing its power because we begin to forget or stop noticing how imagination can change our lives. It is the way people approach all kinds of problems with creativity.

We live in a time of crisis when everything in the world has been turned upside down by global warming, ocean pollution, the coronavirus pandemic, and wars (just to mention a few). We have to deal with everyday problems, and this is quite difficult in a state of anxiety. In addition, we are attacked by negative news, and in this information noise, the voice of our imagination that helps us to cope mentally is drowned out.

We do not mean an escape from reality to completely lose touch with it, but a deeper dive into your inner world, where the answers to all questions lie. The ability to imagine, to think outside the box, encourages us to change for the better.

How long ago have you been peering into quirky, chaotic at first glance patterns to discern unusual images in them? How long ago have you laid with a friend on the grass, looking up at the sky and saying, "That cloud looks like a jumping tiger!"? Jan C Schlegel's series of photographs will help you revive your imagination. Just take a closer look at the most primitive, yet incredibly complex creatures: jellyfish.

Jellyfish appeared long before the dinosaurs. They inhabited the ocean 500-700 million years ago, at the dawn of life on Earth. They have no blood, bones or brain, but thanks to evolution, these organisms have developed very cunning methods of adaptation, some secrets of which scientists have not yet managed to unravel. Bizarre camouflage is the most understandable means of adaptation. But there are many unsolved mysteries. Why would a sea creature without a brain need eyes? How can some individuals transform from adult jellyfish to polyps without any limitations, thereby repeating the life cycle and providing themselves with actual immortality?

To date, scientists have described nearly 3,200 species of jellyfish, and the number is only growing every year. The in-depth study of jellyfish has made it possible to advance in solving the ecological problem of plastic emissions into the ocean. Geneticists are grappling with the question of immortality and suggest that the very same immortal jellyfish will help them get a little closer to answering this important question.

It was these amazing, little-studied creatures that attracted the attention of Jan C Schlegel, and he has attempted to show them from a different perspective. The project was photographed in Germany, at the artist’s house, and the Two Oceans Aquarium in Cape Town, South Africa.

The jellyfish placed in large aquariums moved chaotically, and their movements were meditative and calming. These are the moments when the magic of the imagination happens. The relaxed mind is attuned to observation. The smooth movements of the jellyfish seemed to show some pictures, and Jan only had to follow them and catch the moment.

Each person has their own unique experience, so we guess you'll see something of your own. You can look at the jellyfish silhouette as a whole or you can gaze at a particular element. You can focus on the pattern of the tentacles or the unusual fibers that make up the jellyfish's pileus. All of Jan's photos are chosen so that with a little effort you can see something really unexpected. Just take a closer look.

Let's consider one example that might help you engage your imagination at Jan C Schlegel's series. The box jellyfish, considered one of the most dangerous creatures on Earth, has another name: the sea wasp. Its venom can kill an adult in a few minutes if the victim is not treated in time. And yet in the photo from the series „of Aliens, Mermaids and Medusas“ she appears in a slightly different guise, more peaceful. The pattern of her head resembles the gaze of an elephant. As soon as you notice this look, your imagination will add the recognizable elephant skin texture and it will be very hard to get rid of this image, it will stay in your memory for a long time.

There is no point in telling what Jan l saw in all these amazing creatures. We'll just ask a few guiding questions to stimulate your imagination. Could you see a single jellyfish as a forest on a lonely planet? Would you have thought of the idea that a close friendship might develop between a jellyfish and a fish? Or maybe some picture reminded you of your childhood fears when you didn't want to get out from under the covers, being afraid of the monster under the bed? Would you find a woman's profile in one of Jan C Schlegel's works? As you look at the dancing tentacles, will you hear a melody dear to your heart?

The Series is dedicated to Ksenia Chapkayeva who also wrote this introduction. Her inspiration, encouragement and support were vital to see the series realized.

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ralphlanyon · 7 months

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i was going through my notes and found an old write-up from 2020 of modern au headcanons for "the charioteer" characters during covid-19 quarantine (back when "how would fandom X characters handle quarantine?" was a tumblr trend). apparently this was how i was coping with the stress of peak corona times, lol. anyway finally publishing this, three years later!

laurie: his introverted homebody ass is THRIVING in social isolation and wfh. no more awkwardly dodging party invites from people he hates, being dragged to nightclubs, or having to see his stepfather. he gets to stay home all day with ralph and their dog and finish all the books he meant to read, and he is LOVING it. receives a lot of requests to show off his dog during his work zoom meetings.

ralph: is Doing His Duty by staying home on furlough but also going completely stir-crazy. tries to stay sane by feverishly working on dozens of home improvement projects and cleaning the house several times. basically the epitome of that ben wyatt “do you think a depressed person could do THIS???” meme. has gotten into numerous arguments with people at the supermarket who refuse to wear masks or are hoarding enormous supplies of toilet paper (one of these ends up going viral).

andrew: is very sad about being separated from the rest of his religious community now that the churches are closed, but tries to keep a positive outlook on things. shares a lot of resources online about how to help out and staying in touch with one’s faith during “unprecedented times.”

alec: overworked and sleep-deprived nhs junior doctor directly taking care of covid-19 patients. hasn’t physically seen most of his friends or family in months. writes lengthy screeds on social media decrying the dearth of ppe for health care workers and ranting about politics. frequently gets into online fights with strangers who think coronavirus isn’t a big deal. sends ralph unsolicited articles about self-care and mental health tips during a pandemic that ralph pointedly ignores.

sandy: also overworked and sleep-deprived, but much better at concealing it online than alec. has a popular medical instagram where he posts selfies of him and alec with lots of hashtags. obsessively binge-watches cooking videos on youtube in his spare time.

bunny: an essential retail worker who brings this fact up constantly in conversation. secretly flouting social distancing guidelines on his off days to go to parties and hook-up with men on grindr. has the most aesthetically pleasing cloth masks but can’t bother to wear them properly.

#the charioteer

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zvaigzdelasas · 2 years

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It has been around six months since the start of the war between Russia and Ukraine. During this time, the world has keenly witnessed seismic shifting trends across economic, geopolitical and cultural lines. But perhaps the most profound impact the conflict has had (and continues to have) on the world is the acceleration it has inspired towards multipolarity—that is, global power more evenly distributed amongst several advanced economic nations rather than contained within a single hegemonic power, which in this case is the United States. Underpinning much of this acceleration, moreover, is the trend of de-dollarisation.

It should be highlighted from the outset that de-dollarisation has been, observably, a long-term process that emerged over the last two decades. A March paper from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) found that the dollar still plays “an outsized role” in global markets despite the US economy representing a shrinking share of global output over the last two decades and that its dominant role in global trade, international debt and non-bank borrowing still far outstrips the US’ share of trade, bond issuance, and international borrowing and lending.

But the IMF also noted that central banks today are not holding the greenback as reserves in the same quantities as yesteryear. “The dollar’s share of global foreign-exchange reserves fell below 59 percent in the final quarter of last year, extending a two-decade decline, according to the IMF’s Currency Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserves data,” the paper stated. “Strikingly, the decline in the dollar’s share has not been accompanied by an increase in the shares of the pound sterling, yen and euro, other long-standing reserve currencies…. Rather, the shift out of dollars has been in two directions: a quarter into the Chinese renminbi, and three quarters into the currencies of smaller countries that have played a more limited role as reserve currencies.”

Why is this the case? Seemingly, a multitude of factors are responsible. For one, it appears the world has reached something of a tipping point this year. With around one-quarter of the global population suffering from the direct impact of US-led economic sanctions, which invariably diminishes their ability to trade and perform other necessary economic and financial activities that are often priced using the dollar, it should perhaps come as no surprise that de-dollarisation has intensified across the world. Indeed, this trend often simply reflects the desperation of some countries to survive, let alone thrive, with brutal sanctions having remained on countries during the COVID-19 pandemic proving devastating in some cases.

“The destructive impact of said measures at the national level, plus their extraterritorial implication, together with the phenomenon of over-compliance and the fear for ‘secondary sanctions’, hinder the ability of national governments in procuring even basic medical equipment and supplies, including coronavirus test kits and medicine,” a joint March 2020 letter from the governments of China, Cuba, Iran, Nicaragua, North Korea, Russia, Syria and Venezuela—all bearers of US-led sanctions—to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) read. The letter called for an end to sanctions, which “illegal[ly] and blatantly violate international law and the charter of the United Nations”, and that it was a “hard if not impossible deed for those countries who are currently facing the application of unilateral coercive measures” to cope.

Sanctions have also played a critical role in the ongoing conflict in Eastern Europe. Indeed, as the schism has continued to widen this year between the West, dominated by the United States, the European Union (EU) and Japan, versus the Eastern powers of China and Russia, there have been a number of concerted moves by the latter to wean themselves off their reliance on the greenback. For Russia, de-dollarisation began around 2014 after it annexed Crimea, which was executed in response to what it perceived was a US-backed coup d’état in Ukraine. The Western sanctions that followed the annexation drastically reduced Russian entities’ ability to raise capital in Western markets, which forced Moscow to reduce its dollar holdings and dramatically increase its exposure to alternative assets, such as gold.

Since the outbreak of war this year and the imposition of further economic sanctions against Russia in response, Moscow has only further expedited this de-dollarisation process. Having been excluded from the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) system, which banks use globally to transfer funds, Russia first hiked its key interest rate to 20 percent to protect the ruble, imposed further capital controls to prevent excessive currency from leaving its shores and insisted that all “unfriendly” countries pay only in rubles for its vast exports of fossil fuels.

More recently, Russia has been busy agreeing on bilateral fuel deals with several countries involving at least partial payment in rubles rather than dollars. For instance, it signed a roadmap for economic cooperation and trade with Turkey worth $100 billion a year, with Ankara agreeing to pay for gas imports in rubles. Turkey also confirmed that five of its commercial banks would use the Russian Mir payment system, helping Russian tourists in Turkey to use their currency.

Domestically, meanwhile, Russia’s largest exchange, Moscow Exchange, announced on August 8 that it would halve the maximum threshold of dollars it can accept as collateral to underwrite transactions from 50 percent to 25 percent. Any sums exceeding this limit would have to be converted into “friendlier” alternatives. And Moscow Exchange has also started trading bonds denominated in the Chinese yuan to attract Asian investors and further diversify away from the greenback. “Debt instruments denominated in the Chinese yuan open up an additional source of forex liquidity for Russian borrowers,” said Gleb Shevelenkov, head of the debt market at Moscow Exchange.

Speaking of the yuan, China’s rapidly growing global economic might may pose the biggest threat to the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency. And its recent forays into Middle Eastern markets—Saudi Arabian oil in particular—could ultimately go a long way towards tipping the scales in favour of widespread adoption of the Asian superpower’s currency. Indeed, part of how the US dollar rose to global supremacy in the first place has been down to its role as the de facto currency used in global commodities markets. Commonly known as the “petrodollar”, the requirement for the massive value of global oil sales to be denominated in the dollar has gone a long way towards guaranteeing the credibility of the currency, particularly after the US left the Bretton Woods system of monetary management in 1971, which severed the dollar from its backing of gold bullion.

Since then, the petrodollar has thus been crucial in maintaining global dollar hegemony. “The oil market, and by extension the entire global commodities market, is the insurance policy of the status of the dollar as reserve currency,” economist Gal Luft, co-director of the Washington-based Institute for the Analysis of Global Security and co-author of the book De-Dollarization: The Revolt Against the Dollar and the Rise of a New Financial World Order, explained to the Wall Street Journal. “If that block is taken out of the wall, the wall will begin to collapse.”

Cue the “collapse”? Perhaps not completely or imminently, but relations between the US and Saudi Arabia have visibly soured in recent years at the same time as the world’s largest oil exporter has demonstrated a distinct warming to China. Over one-quarter of Saudi oil exports were snapped up by China in 2020, while state oil behemoth Saudi Aramco also recently concluded a $10-billion deal with Chinese petroleum companies. And with reports suggesting that oil transactions between the two countries could well be priced in yuan in the near future, this would dramatically raise the Chinese currency’s global profile and severely dent the petrodollar’s worldwide dominance.

With China extending billions of dollars of investment funding to Saudi Arabia this year and relations between President Xi Jinping and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on the rise, therefore, things could develop rather quickly in favour of the East. “The dynamics have dramatically changed. The US relationship with the Saudis has changed. China is the world’s biggest crude importer, and they are offering many lucrative incentives to the kingdom,” an unnamed Saudi official told the Wall Street Journal in March. “China has been offering everything you could possibly imagine to the kingdom.” And while some analysts believe a wholesale shift onto yuan pricing is unlikely, others believe that a partial shift would enable payments to Chinese contractors currently involved in mega projects within the kingdom.

Other than the petrodollar, the US has also historically propped up its currency by issuing government debt to other nations, which has helped to finance its budget deficit. During the 2008 global financial crisis, China came to the US’ rescue by purchasing enormous quantities of US Treasury bills. Indeed, by 2010, China held more than $1 trillion in US Treasuries, and between 2008 and 2013, its foreign-exchange reserves—US debt-instruments holdings—expanded by a mammoth $2 trillion.

But in July, it was revealed that China’s holdings of US debt had fallen back under $1 trillion for the first time in 12 years, extending a trend of offloading US Treasuries that began in 2017 as the trade war waged by the US against China intensified. Given the further deterioration in relations between the two economic heavyweights that has transpired this year, it would thus appear that China is now keener than ever to rid itself of its dollar exposure. “They’re unhappy with the way the U.S. keeps using financial sanctions around the world,” David Dollar of the Brookings Institution’s China Center told Marketplace in July. Referring to the decision to kick Russia off SWIFT, Thomas Hogan of the American Institute for Economic Research added that this was “a major wake-up call” for China and other nations not fully aligned with Western political goals. “They realize that the SWIFT system could be used as a political weapon to harm them economically.”

Even developing nations are getting in on the act in clear acts of defiance against the dollar empire. Egypt, for example, has suffered greatly under the weight of borrowing as it seeks to stabilise its economy and prop up the value of the Egyptian pound. Indeed, the country’s sovereign debt has roughly quadrupled in the last 10 years as it has repeatedly sought financial support from US-led development institutions such as the IMF. But the cost of servicing this dollar-denominated debt has seriously dented Egyptians’ living standards amidst a deteriorating global economic landscape.

Cairo’s solution? Issuing yuan-denominated debt to raise funding in the Chinese bond market for the first time, a move announced as a realistic option by the Minister of Finance Mohamed Maait in May 2022. “The growing mountains of debt and high cost of borrowing in USD is forcing Egypt to seek alternative windows for funding to avert a potential sovereign debt crisis and a collapse in EGP’s purchasing power, which could destabilise society and the government,” Magdy Abd Alhadi, an Egyptian economist, told The New Arab news publication. Independent analyst Firas Modad added, “Egypt imports a large amount of goods and services from China, including for the construction of the New Administrative Capital. This requires Egypt to have access to the yuan. It is likely cheaper to borrow in yuan than to borrow in dollars and convert to the yuan.”

What does all this say about the dollar’s credibility in 2022? For some, de-dollarisation can be viewed as an expression of a loss of confidence in the US currency as a safe haven—a status that the dollar has enjoyed for decades—and a preference for seeking safety in alternative assets, such as gold and other currencies.

A survey published in June by the World Gold Council (WGC), for instance, found that 80 percent of the 57 central banks it surveyed expect to expand their gold reserves within the next year, particularly those within emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs). “More EMDE respondents regard ‘shifts in global economic power’ as a relevant factor in their reserve management decisions, which could indicate growing concerns over the threat of a decoupling between major economies amid ongoing tensions,” the report stated, adding that 42 percent of respondents expect the dollar to decline as a proportion of total reserves in the next five years as they—EMDE central banks in particular—are now less confident in the role of the US dollar as a global reserve currency.

Of course, one might well scoff at the notion of the world being governed by any currency other than the US dollar in the near future. But as this year has shown, global dynamics can shift quickly. As one of Russia’s most revered figures [lol] famously said, “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” We are now observing such “weeks”. Given the massive power plays undertaken by the US, China, Russia and many other nations, the seemingly unstoppable rise of global multipolarity can only mean the further weakening of the dollar’s supremacy. One wonders whether the US has the wherewithal to successfully pivot away from its prevailing foreign-affairs approach to prevent it.

even demons know

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ukrfeminism · 1 year

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2 minute read

The number of people seeking treatment for porn addiction has trebled since the pandemic, according to new figures. More than 36,000 people sought support for porn addiction with UK Addiction Treatment Group (UKAT) - Britain's biggest private rehab provider - in 2021.

This is up from around 10,500 in 2020 - a rise of nearly 250 per cent. The proportion of women seeking treatment rose from 25 per cent to 38 per cent during the period.

Major cities like London, Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol and Leeds had the highest figures in the country. But nearly all areas covered in the UKAT data saw their numbers at least double - and the company can no longer meet demand.

One patient, Tom, 38, told BBC Radio Newcastle he spent over £100,000 on a cocaine and pornography addiction and was watching sex videos for up to 15 hours a day. "Once I got cocaine I just had to watch porn for that rush," he said. "It really affects your libido in real life, sometimes nothing happens because you're so anxious.

"It affected me being with women, because I was so used to watching porn. Addiction is a disease, it's an illness. I was just a mess, just absolutely broken. "One night I spent £2,000 in lockdown on escorts and cocaine - that was my worst night but over the years it's well over £100,000 on the drugs and porn."

UKAT, which treats over 3,000 people for addiction every year, says help for pornography is now the second most common addiction men seek help for behind alcohol. Director Simon Stephens said: "The first thing I say to clients is that this is not always about sex, this is about learning how to deal with emotions in a way that is less destructive.

"Availability of this material that allows people to create a stimulus that creates dopamine in the brain, one of the effects of that is to surpress feelings. We can offer a small amount of help but in no way can we meet demand."

UKAT says the coronavirus pandemic fueled online addictions, including pornography.

Nuno Albuquerque, a treatment consultant from UKAT, said: "Self-isolation and restrictions had a big impact on people, on their well-being and mental health and we can't lose sight of that, living on fear and uncertainty sees addictions grow - and porn for some was a coping mechanisms, especially as couples in some cases, could not be together with space for intimacy."

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mariacallous · 5 months

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An official investigation into a pandemic would seem an unlikely source of sordid entertainment. But such is the nature of contemporary politics in Britain that the inquiry into its official response to COVID-19 has been reduced to just that.

Over the past few weeks, in an office building near Paddington Station in west London, some of the United Kingdom’s most distinguished lawyers have questioned those at the heart of the British state about their response to the pandemic. The inquiry is set to reach its peak in a few weeks’ time, when investigators question former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other key ministers, including current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who was then the chancellor (finance minister), and Matt Hancock, the former health secretary, whose reputation has been little enhanced by his decision to quit politics after a very public extramarital affair and instead become a reality TV star.

Already, the inquiry has shone a light on the bombast and buffoonery in Downing Street, led by and personified in the then-prime minister, Boris Johnson. Most of the coverage so far has been focused on the questions of who said what to whom. And it has been colorful—women denigrated with sexist slurs, other civil servants dismissed with elaborate insults, multiple hatreds laid bare— with most of the vulgarity emanating from the testimony of Dominic Cummings, a self-styled Rasputin figure who had been at Johnson’s right hand until they spectacularly fell out and became archenemies.

While the palace intrigues have caught the media’s attention, the more important failures—the gradual erosion of the publicly funded National Health Service (one of very few state institutions in Britain that remain overwhelmingly popular) and the wider weaknesses of state structures—have yet to receive a proper airing. (That time may yet come. The inquiry has been split into five so-called modules, and it is only midway into the second.)

The state’s dysfunction, however, needs to be seen in a wider context. At the onset of the pandemic, Britain was mired in self-delusion. Years of austerity had drained public services of the ability to do anything more than muddle through, with no slack in the system in case anything went wrong. A sense of entitlement among a small group of Conservative Party politicians, all educated at elite schools, had reinforced a foppish self-belief rather than self-awareness. And decades of denial about the U.K.’s real place in the world had infused, in politicians of all parties, a view that Britannia did still rule the waves.

How else to account for Johnson’s approach to the pandemic, painfully laid bare by several of his former advisors? In devastatingly deadpan evidence, the deputy head of the civil service, Helen MacNamara, said she struggled to think of a single day when Downing Street adhered to the emergency rules it had set, which many citizens were prosecuted for failing to follow.

She described how in the crucial period leading up to the first lockdown, Johnson declared that the United Kingdom’s “world-beating” systems would cope better than all others. For 12 crucial days, people were allowed to go about their daily lives unaffected, even after the World Health Organization declared on March 11, 2020, that the coronavirus outbreak was a pandemic.

The disease, Johnson blithely told colleagues, would be no worse than swine flu. He and his officials had no interest in learning from others, such as from countries that had coped with the SARS virus. MacNamara revealed how ministers fell about laughing when they were told about European states shutting down, mocking the Italians for rushing to do so.

This sense of go-it-alone braggadocio, very much a Johnson hallmark, had seemingly been turned into a governing principle since the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union.

As early as March 13, MacNamara marched into the prime minister’s office to tell him that the National Health Service would be overwhelmed. “I think we are absolutely fucked. I think this country is heading for a disaster. I think we are going to kill thousands of people.” Johnson finally declared a lockdown on March 23. By then it was already very late, and many lives were lost that otherwise might have been saved.

That was just the start. Texts and WhatsApp messages have also provided a treasure trove of material attesting to the government’s inability to cope. The head of the civil service, Simon Case, wrote to a colleague he had “never seen a bunch of people less well-equipped to run a country.” He described the atmosphere inside Downing Street as “mad” and “poisonous.”

Throughout the two-year pandemic, Johnson would repeatedly get the science wrong, veering between desperation and complacency. One of his officials’ diary entries noted that he had expressed the belief that the coronavirus was “just nature’s way of dealing with old people.”

Nor were government structures properly equipped. The head of the health service admitted that there was a “disconnect” between government and the realities on the ground. Very few senior civil servants had any science background.

Other faults cited by experts in the inquiry and outside it have been overcentralization in the health service and a failure to consult regional authorities across broader policymaking, and a lack of understanding of demographics. Differential impacts on poorer people or ethnic communities were accepted as inevitable. Epidemiological data was inconsistent and disorganized. There were not enough hospital beds or dedicated wards. Supplies of personal protective equipment for health workers were in shambles, as was testing, and tracing was a nonstarter. Borders were not closed for many weeks. Throughout the crisis, informal procurement policies bordered on the corrupt, with several companies linked to friends of ministers receiving large contracts and sometimes producing equipment that failed to work.

In short, contingency plans for governing in an all-consuming crisis of the kind that arrived with COVID-19 did not exist. But this was not only a matter of Johnson’s administrative incompetence. The British political system has for centuries been based on the so-called good chap theory of decent people playing by informal rules and doing their best. Regulations and structures are habitually dismissed, usually by the political right, as stiflingly un-British. At the apex of power, the relationship between the prime minister, his or her cabinet, and senior officials is blurred and subject to interpretation by each set of incumbents. Civil servants have a duty to political impartiality and to not making public statements, leaving them invariably to being blamed for government mistakes. Although these pressure points have always existed, morale is said now to be at an all-time low.

The watchword now is resilience, and it is at the heart of preparations that the opposition Labour Party, which has a consistently large lead in opinion polls, is making for government after a general election that is most likely to take place between May and October in 2024. The task is considerable. Politics based in precedence and making it up as you go along may have worked in the past (although as ever in Britain, the country’s performance is seen through rose-tinted spectacles), but there’s little reason to think they will be adequate to present and future transnational crises—from climate to migration to natural resources to another pandemic.

What is required is a thorough reconstruction of the United Kingdom’s governance. One of the key figures in any future Labour government is a top civil servant who shortly after delivering her report Johnson’s “party-gate” scandals announced that she was moving to be chief of staff to the likely next prime minister, Keir Starmer. Her main task, which she has already begun planning, is an overhaul of structures, rights, and responsibilities of government departments. This is expected to be wide-ranging.

It has been necessary and, indeed, instructive—and possibly entertaining—for the COVID-19 inquiry to delve into the miscreance of Johnson and his cabal. But it has so far been insufficient in terms of addressing deep-rooted systemic failings.

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exprimis · 4 months

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The author's bio is a treat:

Charles S. Faddis served for 20 years as an operations officer in the Central Intelligence Agency, including as a department chief at the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center and as a chief of station in the Middle East. He earned his B.A. from Johns Hopkins University and his J.D. from the University of Maryland Law School. He is the author of several books, including Willful Neglect: The Dangerous Illusion of Homeland Security and Beyond Repair: The Decline and Fall of the CIA.

I wonder what he identifies as the failures of the CIA? Let's see:

The CIA had no sources inside Al Qaeda to tell us about the 9/11 plot.

The CIA didn't immediately attribute COVID-19, known to be descended from bat-borne coronaviruses, to the bat coronavirus gain-of-function research in the Wuhan lab.

Bureaucracy and a risk-averse culture.

Loss of skills, but also loss of mystique: "The people who run our government [...] have done their best to turn the CIA into just another federal agency. [...] We act as if anyone can be taught to conduct espionage—as if this is no longer an arcane craft to be practiced by a select group of unique people."

"The CIA has proved unable to put a source inside a Chinese bio lab, within the leadership structure of the Taliban, or next to Vladimir Putin."

The CIA has been politicized: backing Hillary Clinton in the Benghazi inquiries, aiding the Trump dossier investigation, and former intelligence officers decrying the Hunter Biden laptop as Russian propaganda.

The first point is transparently false; read the 9/11 Report and you will learn that the CIA had "real-time intelligence" on Bin Laden as early as 1996, with a plan to capture the known terrorist financier in place by the fall of 1997. That Bin Laden was planning to hijack civilian airliners was known as early as 1998.

The second point is still a matter of contention.

The third point is true of every part of government, but is especially true in international politics, geez.

The fourth point makes Charles Faddis sound like he's been reading too many spy novels where there's no risk of war from getting found out.

The fifth point is false as to Al Qaeda and laughable as to Putin. And if the CIA had any assets in Wuhan, their existence would be so totally classified that the CIA would hesitate to use their information in public, because the CIA prefers to not have its spies tortured and executed.

The sixth point reads like the seething cope of a man whose ideology is opposed by the Deep State, whether or not his facts are right. It is incredibly ironic that he complains that the CIA, which historically reported only to the President, was a political tool of the presidential administration of a Democrat.

So what does he identify as solutions?

Fire a lot of people.

"Recruiting must be completely revamped. Quotas are absurd. Focusing on color, gender, and sexual orientation is at best irrelevant. We want the best, and that means those people who possess the unique blend of skills and abilities that enable them to do what everyone else considers impossible."

Make training tougher.

Flatten the org chart and make it all about ops, not about analysis or support.

... for a man complaining that the CIA wasn't able to put spies in specific locations, he seems awfully invested in removing the ability of the CIA to recruit people who will blend in in those locations due to their color, gender, and sexual orientation.

#cia #charles faddis #imprimis #the cia #osama bin laden #exprimis #hillsdale college

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beardedmrbean · 1 year

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Around half a million female North Koreans, some as young as 12, are hiding in border regions of China, according to a new report by an international human rights law firm Global Rights Compliance. Activists warn that women and girls remain at critical risk of exploitation even after fleeing their homeland.

Working with multiple NGOs and human rights organizations to comply evidence and testimony from refugees, Global Rights Compliance found over 4,340 documented cases of human trafficking of North Korean women from China in the last decade and at least 80,000 reported abuses of human rights.

'Staggered and moved'

Sofia Evangelou, the law firm's lead legal advisor on North Korean human rights and global rights compliance, said many accounts are harrowing to read.

"I have read some of the testimony and I find myself staggered and very moved at what these women have gone through," Evangelou told DW.

"Many of these women, even after they have reached safety in South Korea, say they are still suffering from feelings of anxiety, of shame, or post-traumatic stress disorder," she said.

"Each of these women has had a different experience and is coping with it in their own way, but there is a clear pattern of women suffering physically, emotionally and psychologically as a result of their experiences."

The report states the women are not safe even after completing the perilous journey over North Korea's heavily fortified border with China — where Pyongyang has introduced a shoot-to-kill order for anyone suspected of attempting to flee the country.

They are still forced to hide after reaching the so-called "Red Zone" in eastern China, as the Chinese authorities hunt defectors before sending them back to the North. Reports suggest that first-time escapees can get away with a spell in one of the North's brutal prisons, although the punishment for repeat offenders can be far more serious, including execution.

Lockdowns introduced on the Chinese side of the border to try to halt the spread of the coronavirus has made the situation even more risky. Typically, the defectors have little money, no access to food and cannot continue their journey to safety in a third country.

Data gathered from defectors by groups such as the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights and the Transitional Justice Working Group indicates that as many as 80% of female North Korean refugees fall into the hands of people traffickers and are sold into sex trade, which is estimated to generate more than $105 million (€97.5 million) a year for Chinese and North Korean organized crime networks.

'Black hole' of silence around abuse

Within the Red Zone, women and girls are reportedly often subjected to systematic rape, sexual slavery, forced marriage, unwanted pregnancy, forced labor and cybersex trafficking. Such mistreatment has become "normalized” in the region, the report claims, with women beaten in public and being sold for as little as a few hundred dollars.

"I was sold to a Han Chinese living in Yanbian," one woman said in her testimony, according to the report. "We lived together for one year and we couldn't have a child, so he beat me. He kicked me. He kicked my head a lot."

A woman who was caught and sent to a prison in North Korea witnessed another prisoner, who was concealing her pregnancy, collapse while she was performing hard labor collecting rocks from a river. She drowned, but when guards realized she had been pregnant they stripped all the other female inmates naked to check for more hidden pregnancies. They then carried out immediate forced abortions, according to the account gathered by the activists.

"A black hole of information currently exists around China's Red Zone, which means that many more North Korean women and girls are falling victim to China's sex slave industry," said Evangelou. "The current situation leaves North Korean women and girls exposed to the stark reality of either being sold into a lifetime of sexual and mental abuse, slavery, forced labor, or reaching freedom."

Evangelou urged the end of the "pandemic of international silence" on the issue.

"The illegal sexual slavery of women and girls will not stop until a concerted international effort is mobilized," she added. "The international community can no longer turn a blind eye to the atrocities being committed against women and children, fleeing for their lives and — in too many cases — those of their unborn children."

Seoul pushing for more accountability

Meanwhile, the government of South Korea seems to be growing more interested in Pyongyang's human rights violations and holding the leaders of the isolated state accountable.

Park Jung-won, a professor of international Law at Dankook University, said the previous South Korean administration of President Moon Jae-in was "silent on the situation around human rights abuses in the North," but that tides are shifting under President Yoon Suk-yeol.

"There has been a significant change in the attitude of the government and South Korea this month jointly sponsored a United Nations draft resolution on human rights in the North, for the first time in five years," he said, pointing out that Yoon has also appointed a new ambassador to promote human rights in North Korea.

"This is a complete change from before and a very positive thing for human rights in the North," he said. "I am hopeful that this government will continue to push on this matter, raising questions at the UN and other international forums to increase the pressure on Pyongyang."

The pressure from Seoul will "enable the international community to take more concrete action to respond to these terrible human rights abuses in the North and this very dangerous border zone," Park added.

#nunyas news #wonder what the odds are this is the result #of a agreement between china and nk #made to discourage trying to flee nk

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scotianostra · 1 year

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youtube

Birthday, singer and actress Lorraine McIntosh born 13th May 1964 in Glasgow.

Lorraine was brought up in Cumnock, Ayrshire from about the age of three. She has been a member of one of Scotland’s favourite bands Deacon Blue since they formed in Glasgow in 1985.

Lorraine didn’t have an easy upbringing, she lost her mother and she said her Dad coped for a while then fell apart, hitting the bottle he started missing rent payments which led to them being evicted, she said the council waited until she had turned 18, a week after that the were out. In an interview for The Big Issue Lorraine poured her heart out saying………..

“I got a phone call from a social worker saying I wasn’t to go home, as dad had been evicted. I was at the bus stop with my friend, but couldn’t get on the bus. She phoned her mum and I ended up staying with them at first. No clothes, no nothing. We lost everything. It just got put in the street. And the saddest thing was I lost all my mum’s things, her clothes, wee bits of jewellery, all put on the street. Gone.”

I empathise with this entirely except I actually got home from school and found all our belongings on the street after we got evicted, I was 13 at the time………..

Lorraine was a regular on the Scottish soap, River City, she has also appeared in three episodes of Taggart playing different roles, more recently she turned up on Outlander last year as Mrs. Sylvie, the owner of a popular brothel in the town of Cross Creek. Also last year Deacon Blue’s 10th album, City Of Love, shot to No 4 in the UK album rankings the week before lockdown, giving the Glasgow outfit their biggest chart success since 1994.

During the pandemic, as well as coping with the strain of lockdown, Lorraine, who lives with Ricky in Glasgow, was taken ill with coronavirus in the early stages of the outbreak.

She said: “It has taken quite a while to get over it completely. I was in bed for three weeks, and then recovered.”

In 2020 Lorraine joined up with the Simon Community’s Nightstop campaign, to encourage people to open their homes to vulnerable young people. The Nightstop service offers young people aged 16 to 25 a safe place to stay when they find themselves in a crisis. All the volunteer hosts are fully vetted and trained. Since starting in Glasgow last year, eight families have provided 96 nights of emergency accommodation. She and her husband, Deacon Blue frontman Ricky Ross, are considering signing up as hosts – but only if the Simon Community think that their high profile won’t get in the way.

I really like Lorraine, and Ricky’s humanity, specifically Lorraine visited Rwanda two years ago to raise awareness of sexual violence against women when she was moved to tears by the testimony of victims. She has recently spoken out against the plan to send refugees coming to the UK to the country and said the country was still recovering from a genocide inflicted during the civil war in 1994 and for ministers to consider sending asylum seekers there is deplorable.

On her trip, she heard of shocking conditions, including child slavery, youngsters being burned to death, and rape being used as a weapon of war to destroy communities.

On her final day in Rwanda, she made a pilgrimage to one of the most infamous genocide sites in the country called Nyamata where thousands were slaughtered in and around a church.

She said: “I was unprepared for the sight of thousands of items of clothing from the fallen folded and piled up on the church pews. The ceiling pockmarked with bullets and a line around the bottom of the wall which our guide tells us is the blood line from the carnage. A river of blood. In the gardens outside 50,000 people lie buried.

Hubbie Ricky made a simple tweet yesterday, the post read "33 years today ❤️" with the photo

Lorraine is set to appear in the new season of Shetland.

The song is my favourite where she sings a strong vocal.

#scotland #scottish #musician #singer #actress #happy birhtday #Youtube

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