A Turbo-Nerd

Bilal Skaf, the Lebanese Australian ringleader of the notorious Skaf Gang, who assaulted several young women in Sydney in 2000, was sentenced to more than fifty-five years in 2001. The presiding judge described the crimes as "events you hear about, or read about, only in the context of war-time atrocities." Hardly. Only six years prior, Anglo-Australian rapist Geoffrey Michael Haywood was sentenced to just six years for leading the gang rape of a teenager in Burnie, Tasmania...

[Leia] survived Haywood's assault only because the pickup truck in which they were traveling to what he intended to be her burial site crashed into a tree. Skaf's victims, despite coming from a range of ethnic backgrounds including Anglo, Greek, and Aboriginal, were depicted in the media as innocent, white victims of racially motivated crimes. Leia, on the other hand, was degraded in court as drug-taking liar who was fabricating the allegations to avoid being punished by her parents."

Here in Gaza, life in all its forms has come to a halt because of the war😔.

living here has become extremely difficult due to the high and rising prices.

It has become hard to provide the basic necessities we need, like food and drink.

The cost of living for one day exceeds $100.

Please help me, even if just a little.

My name is Fatima, a teacher from Gaza. I used to work in a small school I loved dearly, planting hope in the hearts of children and teaching them that tomorrow could be better. But the war took everything away. My school was bombed, I lost my job, and our home was reduced to rubble. Yet, I refused to give up. I set up a small tent amid the destruction and continued teaching children, showing them that knowledge is a light that cannot be extinguished, even in the darkest times.

My husband, Akram, was my partner and pillar of support. But he was severely injured in an attack targeting civilians. His abdominal injuries are so severe that he can no longer work or even lift basic items. Every day, I see the pain in his eyes and feel the weight of helplessness, but I try to stay strong for him and for our children.

Our eldest, Manar, is four years old, and she’s missing out on her childhood amidst this devastation. Our youngest, Ibrahim, was born under bombardment just a year ago. He has suffered greatly due to the lack of milk and proper medical care. Yet, sometimes, he smiles, and in those brief moments, I find the strength to keep going.

We now live in a fragile tent that doesn’t shield us from the cold or rain. Every day is a new battle for survival. I write these words while holding my children’s hands, with nothing left but my faith in God and the hope that your kind hearts will hear our plea.

Please help us provide milk and food for our children, ease Akram’s pain, and rebuild even a small part of the life the war has destroyed. Every donation, no matter how small, makes a big difference in our lives.

I ask you to share our story and be our support during this harsh and unforgiving time.

Donation link

My name is Fatima, a 21-year-old woman🤰.Just one month before the war, I was engaged, dreaming of a warm home and a small family.But the war tore us apart—my fiancé and I were separated between northern and southern Gaza, with no way to communicate💔.

Despite the pain, we held on to hope. Months later, I left my family and joined him.We got married, believing it was the start of a new life.But the bombing returned, and we were displaced again… Now we live in a fragile tent in western Gaza, awaiting the birth of our first child amid conditions unfit for life🥹😭.

I’m pregnant🤰, and my due date is near🥹. I have none of the essentials I need as a mother or even as a human being🙏.We lack everything: medical care, food, clean water, and basic supplies for childbirth and the baby🥲.

I’m not asking for the impossible—just enough to protect my life and my baby’s

Your donation is our only hope🥹😢.

My campaign is new and has not received much support. Please support me and my family.

https://chuffed.org/project/helpfatema

My name is Maram, I am 25 years old from Gaza. I dreamed of a peaceful life, spending my life with my husband and my three children... but the war turned this dream into an impossible one 💔😭. We lived through this genocide with all its painful details and we are still suffering from it😭. We were so happy when the ceasefire was announced, and we returned to our homes in northern Gaza after being displaced for a year and a half in a tent in the south of the Gaza Strip. After repairing a small room in our destroyed house, we began to live there and start over. Unfortunately, the war came back, and it was even stronger than before 💔. Now, we have no shelter or source of income. We have used up all our savings during the war. I know I created my campaign very late, but that's because I have no other means to help my family 🙏. I am completely confident and hopeful that someone here will help us as much as they can and save my family in these tough circumstances 😔.

I know how painful and frustrating it is to start over from scratch, but I hope to get any amount for my family 🥺🙏.

My name is Mahmoud. I live in Gaza with my family, and we are going through a very difficult financial situation. I tried to create a donation link for my family, but I couldn't find someone to help organize and manage the campaign 🥺💔So my friend Ahmed decided to support me by sharing his own family’s donation link, and we agreed to split the donations between our two families.

Right now, we have almost no food, and the cost of living has become unbearable due to the siege, soaring prices, and the closure of all crossings.Everything has doubled in price in an unimaginable way 🥲🥺

We might be forced to flee to southern Gaza after the announcement of a full invasion of Gaza City 💔

The bombing and destruction never stop — not for a single moment. There is no longer any real life in Gaza. We are just struggling to survive, trying to secure the bare minimum: water and food.

Winter is coming, and we have no winter clothing after our home was destroyed and we were displaced multiple times 😭🥲Please, we urgently need financial help to buy food and store some in case the situation worsens.

This is our donation link.

Please remember: donations are shared between two families. So, for the sake of God, help us, my friend. Save our children, my younger siblings, my parents, and even my older siblings — we are all homeless and hungry 🥺🥲💔

Many of us are taught that slavery came to an end with the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, but for enslaved people in Texas, freedom didn’t come until June 19, 1865.

CeCe Rogers on Facebook writes: "Two Black Tennessee lawmakers were physically escorted out of chambers this week while Republicans quietly held a hearing to approve gerrymandered maps that would eliminate the state's only majority-Black congressional district.

No referendum. No special election. No public vote.

Because they know what happens when voters actually get a say — just look at Virginia, where the people spoke so loudly that Republicans had to drag the courts in to override them.

This isn't new. During Reconstruction, Black Americans held more congressional seats than at any point in the prior 90 years of American history. And white supremacists spent the next several decades tearing that down, through gerrymandering, poll taxes, and voter intimidation.

150 years later, the same tools. Different suits.

The audacity of escorting Black lawmakers out of their own chambers while dismantling Black political representation, and then telling us the courts aren't political, is breathtaking. These are the same courts they're counting on to make it stick.

Lavernius Tucker...

I've mentioned before that I have Tex and Church return in synthetic human bodies (based on DNA samples from the Director and Allison, but they aren't identical clones). They can still do AI things, plus the other Fragments are back thanks to data from the deconstructed Epsilon returning to the AI units, reviving them (they can visit with everybody else, but mostly live in Church's head). Some dramatic stuff happens, also lots funny stuff, the whole gang is back together, and they get to catch their breath on Earth for bit... but some bonkers stuff ALWAYS has to be a problem, so back into their armor and into space they go!

One of the things they go back to deal with is on Chorus; President Kimball has been doing a good job fixing the rift between all the people who used to be divided as Feds/News, and she has also offered a chance for the former "space pirates"; instead of just going back to the rather unfair treatment of the UNSC, if they stay on Chorus and do some community service, she can get their sentences reduced (and some even forgiven. half of these guys were only criminals because they followed illegal orders and then got thrown under the bus, but ALL of them only did the space pirate bit because it was do THAT or die. all of Chorus got tricked into killing each other, and it makes them all guilty, but if Kimball is giving a new chance to everybody, Locus, and herself, she's also giving this chance to the space pirates too). Some of them take the offer,some of them try their luck escaping altogether to avoid any punishment (but if they apprehended outside of Chorus, the punishment will be harsher). Oh, and Kimball has reached out to the original inhabitants of the planet, or at least their descendants, to reunite them with their home and the technology.

Some people don't like this situation. Unfortunately, several jerks start causing trouble again over petty disagreements, but that's not the worst part... the worst part is, Hargrove still wants the power held in these temples, and it is harder than ever to "quietly exterminate" any witnesses. May as well go big! He had a back-up of the Meta Suit made, this one intended to hold copies of the Epsilon AI/any of AI memories, which would have been scanned after the final fight on the Staff of Charon. The problem is, the AI memory unit of the suit is already full. Well, Hargrove didn't plan for this, but... he can make it work.

Somebody liked the idea of making a "back-up copy" of his brain, so he could have an "extra life" if he ever died. He didn't really understand what Price was trying to tell him about the Meta and the AI, or how a back-up worked. The last moment sent from his suit before he died became the core of his back-up; when the new Meta suit is activated, the AI running it is a copy of Felix. He kinda filled with a lot of rage and betrayal over how his life ended (al LOT of this aimed at Tucker and Locus, obviously), and obsessed with destroying everything he hates. Hargrove has the suit rigged to switch off if Felix leaves the planet without getting control of the temples, so he's got work to do in addition to the personal revenge.

There are several situations in which an AI copy of Felix hops into a regular robot body, and the others kill it (everybody gets to take a swing at him. this may not be the best way to work through complex emotions, but it sure is cathartic in the moment). Felix is frustrated, and he starts making more than one copy of himself at a time (this is ALMOST similar to Alpha creating Fragments... but they aren't very "stable"). Felix also wants his sword back, but it still identifies him as "dead". He finds a temple that is meant to "give life to echoes of those who have died", and thinks maybe it will revive him somehow. On the one hand, the sword DOES work for him! On the other, he now hears the voice of Dyle telling him "It was mine before it was yours". Felixe now has to deal with Doyle, and a couple other previous wielders, heckling him.

After several more failures, Felix is going scorched-earth; he's going to activate a secret temple that will allow him to control all of them at once, include the turbo-death temple. That is not good! Even though everybody wants to try and stop him, they get swamped with hundreds of robots running on partial-AI clones (they don't have any "complex" thoughts, they just know murder-death-kill). Tucker manages to break through, so it is a show-down between him, the full Meta suit Felix, and their swords. Felix has his own AI copies running all the equipment of his suit. Tucker has Church, Tex, and all the Fragments. Tucker has also some experience with this... after all, he did something similar before, with Epsilon. This time, it is so much MORE. He's got more experience, he's got an extra power-house with him, and this time they're all going to survive TOGETHER.

So, they have a lightsaber battle, yee-haw. Obviously, Tucker wins, but he doesn't bother killing the final AI of Felix. He doesn't need to; in a fit of rage, Felix tries to keep multiplying himself, copying his data again and again, but that CORE of his memory is resurfacing, the memory of being defeated, abandoned, and dying... in this desperate state, all his copies are experiencing that moment over and over. This is worse than Tex and the "failures". This is like turning into an ouroboros made of hate and death. Felix finally destroys himself, and Tucker picks up the sword (he gets a little glimpse of Doyle before the echoes fade away). Because Tucker already has his own sword, it doesn't link to him, and he's able to give it back to locus.

The other Felix robots finally shut down, and Chorus gets a chance to CHILL again. With the arrival of some Sangheili visitors, Tucker is greeted with a surprise; JUNIOR IS HERE! Other problems will pop up eventually, they always do, but for now, they get a happy reunion~

The Rivals

Dark v Light

But for real