The Lurker's Hidey Hole

[DUMPLINGS: STIMBOARD]

CREDIT:

Yes, because the Washington state government activated like a sleeper-cell and ruthlessly, systematically hunted them down and annihilated them.

“Y2K came to nothing amirite?”

Yes because an army of software engineers working around the clock, losing sleep, and busting ass till the last minute prevented it from happening.

“Remember the hole in the ozone layer?”

You mean the one that was fixed through rigorous world wide government action?

One of the root problems of our society is a refusal or inability by media to articulate that all those “it’s gonna be an apocalypse” disasters were not disasters because we collectively did something about them.

The good news is this is actually quite correctable. I maintain my firm belief that we as humans are capable of solving almost all of our problems, when we decide to do so.

And I still think that’s going to happen. I don’t know when or how, but I do know that abandoning hope won’t help bring it about.

The annoying thing though is that there are absolutely tons of articles out there that talk about all the things that could have gone wrong but didn't because of concerted human efforts. y2k, murder hornets, etc are and were serious concerns that could have been considerably worse, but were made less so because of said concerted efforts, and if you look for even half a second you can find dozens of articles, interviews, books etc talking about them.

leaf obtained, purpose unclear

ground:

unclear

sibling obtained, purpose: biting

Obvious disclaimer that you shouldn't have wild animals as pets.

But like, cheetahs are the only large cats that keepers will do free contact with. Hell, even most small cats don't get free contact. (Because small cats can be VICIOUS. They'll have a baby pallas cat wearing thicker gloves than when handling an owl. Because small cats can just be vicious.)

Like I think the only other cat at our zoo where I've seen free contact with was servals? Because I know they've used servals in shows to demonstrate their natural jumping ability. But I know servals can sometimes have a mean temper as well. Meanwhile they'll do the cheetah run and afterwards put the mic by the cheetahs and it's just like an engine with them purring. It's fascinating to watch when the message in every other large animal is "no free contact because it's dangerous even when they're born in captivity".

We are seeing one of the best rebranding campaigns ever. The problem is the rebranding wasn’t made by the so-called brand rather by its so-called competitors. Imagine that Pepsi had rebranded Coca-Cola as poison. The campaign had two steps to it that were implemented almost simultaneously on a global level.

Step 1. Jew has been rebranded as Zionist. Anything you used to say about Jews and was considered antisemitic you can now say about Zionists instead and it is completely acceptable. “I’m not antisemitic I’m anti Zionist” then spit out some of the most antisemitic shit you’ve heard for centuries. Most people haven’t even heard of Zionism up until 22 months ago.

Step 2. Using the fact that most people haven’t even heard of Zionism up until 22 months ago, Zionism has been rebranded as evil, colonialist, racist and genocidal. Zionism is now the root of all evil and the cause and source of everything that is wrong. From pollution to trafficking, from cyber crime to unemployment rates. Zionism has become the magic bullet. The world would be a perfect place if it weren’t for Zionism and Zionists. They are acceptable and legitimate targets for violence, harassment, intimidation and discrimination. But remember! They are Zionists not Jews so it isn’t antisemitism and is justified.

This is a literal "Hammerhead" shark created by artist Matt Sanders.

The sculpture is made from 685 reclaimed steel hammer heads and weighs 500 lbs (about 227 kg). It took approximately 2,500 hours of work to weld together. Sanders even used sledgehammers for the eye sockets and ball-peen hammers for the eyes to give it a realistic look.

He's slashed the budget, forced removal of DEI history and contributions at NASA, and caused many NASA workers' unemployment. I have worked closely with people in these spheres and know that the budget cuts have deeply jeopardized the future space missions, space exploration, and space science.

My close friends and colleagues, especially those relying on DEI programs, have had such a difficult time during this administration, and we still are. This program found some success with Artemis II and beyond in spite of the current administration's lack of support and lack of funding.

"Copy. Moon joy."

"I have two Microsoft Outlooks, and neither one of those are working."

"Houston, if you could give me about 20 new superlatives in the mission summary for tomorrow that will help out my vocabulary a little bit, that would be great. Thank you."

“If you’ve ever seen the top of the spotlight of the top of the Luxor at night in Vegas, this looks like what it wants to be when it grows up.”

"To all of you down there on Earth... we love you, from the moon."

"We just went sci fi."

"It is so great to see Earth again. To Asia, Africa, and Oceania: we are looking back at you. We hear you can look up and see the moon right now. We see you too."

"We will always choose Earth. We will always choose each other."

The conventions on war and what constitutes a "war crime" is set up specifically to keep evil shitheads like Hegseth, Hamas, the IRGC, Putin, and others from having an incentive to basically go, "Ah ha, I'll do this One Simple Trick to get myself a temporary battlefield advantage!"

And that One Simple Trick can be:

Dress up my soldiers in the enemy's uniforms so the enemy will think I'm on their side before we start shooting them.

Dress up my soldiers in civilian clothing so that the enemy will think that we're not soldiers before we start shooting them.

Dress up my vehicles in civilian colors so that the enemy will think that it's not military before we start shooting them.

Dress up my soldiers to look like doctors so that the enemy will think that we're not a threat before we start shooting them.

Hide my weapons, soldiers, and armored vehicles in civilian areas so that the enemy will risk killing lots of civilians and we can shoot at them with impunity.

Force civilians to stand around my soldiers so that if they get shot at, it's more likely that one of the civilians gets hurt, so I can shoot with impunity.

And so forth.

The problem is, as soon as someone starts doing that, the soldiers on the other side can and will say "Fuck it, if they're dressing their soldiers as civilians, then we shoot anyone who looks like a civilian, because we can't tell if they're a soldier or not."

Which means that the One Simple Trick has now made it open season on civilians, because no commander worth his salt is going to risk his men going up against a risk like that.

We've been there before, we've seen the damage that does, had the mass graves that ensue, and basically went, "Okay, this list of One Simple Tricks is Off The List Of Acceptable War Tactics because the consequences just makes everything worse. And if you do them and the other guy shoots anyway, you're at fault of the war crime, not the person doing the shooting."