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Because it is worth saying, and because I think it is important that people don't feel worried or confused; This is really hard to admit, and I've already sent out a few relevant DMs to those I was close to, but I do not think it is healthy for me to be here. I think from my beginning in this community I was participating unhealthily and did not have anything close to a good framework to practice kink in a safe and nice way. My introduction to this scene was rushed and full of desperation to be something MORE, and that something was not a position I was ready to take. I was not ready to take the role of a domme like the ones I idolized and wanted to emulate. I fought very hard to try and be someone who I was simply not ready to be. I don't know if I'm going to return, and please know that I want to come back eventually, but I am going to need a lot of therapy, a lot of reflection, and a lot of time alone to figure out how to best do this. To my sisters, peers, and devotees, I offer a sincere apology, and the hope that I can be better at this someday when I've matured and grown into someone capable of taking up that mantle again. To those I may have scared, hurt, or put on a pedestal, intentionally or not; I offer the same to you, and promise that this will not be my end. Whether or not it ends with me returning to this beautiful place so many of us call home, I won't let myself fester and rot like I have. I will be better, because the other option is simply not acceptable. I will keep this post and account up for seven days. After that, I am deleting it permanently and not giving myself any chances to come back before I feel that I am ready. Your Regent is not dead, but She does abdicate Her throne, and hopes with all her heart that she will someday return. I love you all. Thank you for this journey. <3

Day 7 of our trip to the Pyrenees. With outdoor temperatures averaging 35°C, we decided to limit today’s ride to about 150 km and headed for our next hotel in the early afternoon—which is early by our standards. The Pyrenees are stunning, but they can be—and often are—very demanding! Even on standard federal, state, and country roads, there is no shortage of curves. The lower the road classification, the more the curves pile up—S-bends, hairpins, switchbacks, steep ramps, 180-degree turns, and even 220-degree loops follow one another like beads on a string. And the higher you climb, the fewer guardrails, barriers, or safety fences you find; up on the mountain passes, the system seems to rely on common sense and the instinct for self-preservation. "Theoretically," you might be allowed to drive at 70 or 80 km/h, but "practically," a single moment of inattention at that speed would be tantamount to suicide—once you're above the tree line, there is absolutely nothing to catch or slow you down if you fly off the road on a hairpin turn. Consequently, most of the few motorized "tourists" around during the off-season drive very sensibly—especially since you always have to watch out for groups of cyclists (ascending or descending), tractors, construction vehicles, dirt, manure, fallen rocks, loose gravel, bitumen strips, broken-down vehicles around a blind bend, roadworks, and so on—to name just a few of the things we’ve encountered over the past seven days. Back home in the Münsterland region, this rarely poses a problem; the roads (even country lanes) are usually wide and offer good visibility. If circumstances force you to veer off onto the verge—say, because a maneuver didn't quite go to plan—you can usually steer into a field rather than colliding with an oncoming truck or tractor. Along the Pyrenees, however, your choice is often between a rock face and a plunge into the valley... 🤔🫣😉🤣 No scaremongering here—just the plain facts, all experienced firsthand. 😉🏍️🏍️🏍️ Mountain passes: Today, coming from Seix, we rode the Col de la Core (1,395 m)—passing the Cap de Bouirex (1,876 m) near Sentenac-d’Oust—and the Col de Portet-d’Aspet (1,069 m), with a coffee break in Aspet. From there, we continued over the Col de Peyresourde (1,569 m, near Garin) before finally arriving at our hotel for the night in Cadéac. Let’s see how far we get tomorrow... 🤔😉🏍️🏍️🏍️

Judge ‘flabbergasted’ as DOJ struggles to defend Trump mail-in ballot scheme. If ever tyranny existed, if ever a political party emulated the oppression of the Weimar Republic under Hitler, todays Trump/Republican administration is following the playbook instance by instance. Michael McDermott Sep 03, 2026 If ever tyranny existed, if ever a political party emulated the oppression of the Weimar Republic under Hitler, todays Trump/Republican administration is following the playbook instance by instance. What could be more fundamental in a democracy other than the unobstructed right to vote. What could be the most despotic action a renegade government could do other than to deny that sacred right, and by instituting laws interfering with the voting process make it impossible for the will of the people to be sanctified. Yet this is exactly what Trump and his criminal Department of Justice (with the Republican Congress looking the other way) are attempting to do. Make no mistake, the Republicans will not allow you to vote, will deny your every civil right guaranteed in the Constitution and install a dictatorship of the plutocracy turning every American citizen into a working slave of the state. The matter of this totalitarianism is before the courts as we speak. But if this judge denies their petition the government spokesman smugly threatened, “We’ll immediately appeal to the supreme Court”. You remember the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court who recently gutted the 1965 Voting rights Act! See this – Boldface mine: Judge ‘flabbergasted’ as DOJ struggles to defend Trump mail-in ballot scheme: report Story by David Edwards • 3h • 3 min read © provided by RawStory A federal judge was shocked by a proposal to test President Donald Trump’s controversial new mail ballot rules on real voters this November as the Justice Department’s own lawyers struggled to explain it. U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani heard nearly two hours of argument Thursday morning in a Boston courtroom, according to Democracy Docket. Talwani is deciding whether to continue blocking a U.S. Postal Service rule that would allow the agency to refuse to deliver ballots in states that do not comply with demands made by President Donald Trump in an executive order. That block expires next week, as Talwani issued the 14-day restraining order on Aug. 27 and refused to lift it Monday, Democracy Docket reported The Department of Justice was largely silent during the hearing, and its lawyers seemed not to understand the rules they were defending, Democracy Docket reported. Instead, lawyers for Texas shouldered much of the defense. The state asked Talwani to block only mandatory compliance, so the Postal Service could still reject ballots in states that chose to go along with the rule voluntarily, the report noted. Texas’s attorneys argued that the arrangement would give the court “real world evidence” of how the rule operates, according to the liveblog. Democracy Docket said Talwani appeared “flabbergasted” at the suggestion. “So we’re gonna do a test run on this election?” she asked. “We’re not talking about an intellectual puzzle game; we’re talking about people’s right to vote.” Some 46.8 million Americans voted by mail in 2024, Democracy Docket reported, and Election Day is fewer than 70 days away. The rule requires election officials to redesign the envelopes they use to send out mail ballots and to assign each one a unique tracking barcode, Democracy Docket reported. States would also have to provide the Postal Service with a list of the names and addresses of everyone who requested a mail ballot for the upcoming election, according to the outlet. The Postal Service has said it would refuse to mail ballots to voters in states and localities that fail to meet those requirements, Democracy Docket reported. Talwani asked Texas’s attorneys what would happen if 9,999 people in Harris County could not vote because of an error with a single ballot, a scenario a whistleblower at the Postal Service had flagged in a report Tuesday, Democracy Docket reported. “We just don’t see that as a real risk,” the state’s lawyer reportedly replied. That whistleblower complaint warned the rule could trigger “mass disenfranchisement,” Democracy Docket reported Talwani said the Postal Service had never explained to the court how the rule would actually work, according to the outlet. The department filed no declaration estimating how many ballots the new requirements could affect. “I have very little from you,” the judge said, growing “increasingly frustrated,” Democracy Docket reported. The challengers filed several declarations warning that millions of ballots could go undelivered if the Postal Service forces states to comply, according to the outlet. The department also argued that challengers must first take their complaints to the Postal Regulatory Commission, an executive branch panel that can take up to 90 days to respond, Democracy Docket reported. There were just 61 days until the November election. “It’s a time question,” Talwani said, according to the outlet. “And I think we all understand a time crunch here.” “We concede nothing,” the department’s counsel reportedly insisted as arguments wound down. Michael Velchik, an attorney with the department’s Civil Division, told Talwani at the outset that the government would immediately appeal to the Supreme Court if she granted the injunction, according to the outlet. Talwani said she would not rule from the bench but aimed to issue her decision as soon as possible, Democracy Docket reported. She gave the department until 3 p.m. to supplement the record. “Now, it is essential that the court move quickly and decisively to block USPS from carrying out this unconstitutional and illegal rule,” said Celia Canavan, executive director of the League of Women Voters, Massachusetts, at a press conference outside the courthouse after the hearing, according to Democracy Docket.

#SPA25CalFall26 #LasMediasRojas El contexto histórico del cuento es crucial para su interpretación. En 1882, no había muchas opciones para las mujeres. Los datos representan las limitaciones de la época. Pienso que el dato mas importante es el número de hijos que las mujeres tenían en promedio. Cuando la única opción es una vida en la casa, no es posible para una mujer tenga un futuro solo para ella. Es obvio en el cuento que la protagonista está confinado a la esfera doméstica. Su tío controla su movimientos, su dinero, y su cuerpo. Alguna posibilidad de escapar es una casada con un hombre. En esta manera, los niños y la familia son una prisión.

CHAOS SHAMANISM Daily Astrology Fri 4th Sept Jupiter is in Leo, and recently, under the influence of a generous dose of psilocybin mushrooms, I experienced myself as an arrow of golden sunlight, doing what I came here to do: Jupiter in Leo. In particular, I mean the books that have bodied forth since 2022. I want to talk about my recent book, CHAOS SHAMANISM: Reclaiming Your Indigenous Soul. It was written as a MANIFESTO FOR A POST-CHRISTIAN CULTURE. Chaos is the potentially fecund spiritual melting pot we now find ourselves in, as well as being the mysterious origin of the universe in ancient Greek Myth. And Shamanism is the universal spirituality of early peoples the world over, founded in the simple experience of belonging to the natural world. The big religions that took over as we became 'civilised' have validity and even greatness at times, but they still represent a narrowing of that early experience, as they became distanced from nature and reduced themselves to just one story. In a way, Chaos Shamanism is for the few, for it is founded on a direct relationship with a sacred natural world, of trusting one's own guidance, and most are not ready for that: that is why we have priesthoods, which are often a necessary step along the way. Whatever forms Chaos Shamanism takes, the collapse of Christianity presents a great opportunity to return to the spirituality that came naturally to early peoples, for which reason I have faith that it is the right way. It is more powerful because it is more open to how things really are, beyond any holy books or figures. That openness leaves room for lots of stories, sometimes contradictory ones, and it can incorporate the mythologies of the big religions too. Chaos Shamanism is a high voltage energy of the spirit, winging its way down from ancient times. It can bring a return of a shared experience of the sacred - the lack of which is slowly destroying our civilisation - but with less susceptibility to dogma and fundamentalism. Read my book, savour it, and join the spirit adventure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28o5qbp4AOU I know I tend to tell people that the songs that were used in Initial D are not a great representation of the genre and that there is A LOT of better stuff out there, but of course, there are exceptions. "Message in a Bottle" is one of those. It has that free-falling quality that is typical for a lot of Eurobeat, especially in the chorus. Also, Claudio Magnani's voice is 👌 And yes, I realize that a lot of Manuel's songs were used in Initial D, however: a) Maybe of his earlier songs were kind of mid, it took him starting to write his own material for things to become epic (and lyrically questionable). b) Him being an Eurobeat artist is AT MOST 10% of the reasons why I love him. See my 6472 other posts about him.

Trump's fraud crusader caught promising foreign nationals’ green cards and US welfare While Trump and the Republicans rail about immigrants to this country accessing our welfare system and its benefits, one of his handpicked officials have been offering them out like a pervert with candy at a playground. It seems if America has anything of value Trump and his co-conspiring thieves will offer it for sale to the highest bidder. And talk about hypocrisy, this clown is now acting Labor Secretary whose job they tell us is to eliminate fraud and abuse, while his history seems to indicate just the opposite. Hey, who makes better criminals than cops. See this – Boldface mine: Trump's fraud crusader caught promising foreign nationals’ green cards and US welfare Story by Alexander Willis • 4h • 2 min read © provided by RawStory Acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling, who in May vowed to “eliminate waste, fraud and abuse,” was exposed Sunday for having pitched foreign nationals a real estate investment opportunity with the promise of green cards and access to “America’s Comprehensive Welfare” for their entire families. The revelation was unearthed in a report from Popular Information, which details two trips Sonderling took to China in 2015 before joining the Trump administration. Working at the time with the Florida law firm Gunster, Sonderling delivered multiple presentations on behalf of Premier Capital Group, an international real estate consulting and investment company. One presentation promised Chinese nationals, in exchange for investing in a U.S. resort hotel condominium project, that they could “get a green card in a short time,” and that after “one person applies, the whole family immigrates," according to banners at the event reviewed by Popular Information. Once immigrated, the Chinese nationals and their families were promised access to U.S. welfare, including “unemployment benefits,” “food stamps,” “low-cost public housing,” “Medicaid” and “retirement benefits.” “The China trips were documented extensively by Sonderling in hundreds of photos reviewed by Popular Information that were published to two public Flickr accounts,” Popular Information’s report reads. The pitch to Chinese nationals would utilize the United States’ EB-5 visa program, a program that grants foreign nationals green cards for foreign investors. That same program has been criticized by the Trump administration, with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick calling it “full of nonsense, make believe and fraud” in 2025. “The photos document that Sonderling participated in at least five speaking engagements touting EB-5 visas in China,” Popular Information’s report reads. “Most of these seem to be connected to the same hotel and condo project.” Sonderling was tapped by Trump to lead the Labor Department in June, and also sits as a member of the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud. He did not respond to a request for comments from Popular Information, the outlet reported. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/trump-s-fraud-crusader-caught-promising-foreign-nationals-green-cards-and-us-welfare/ar-AA2bgKJ5? For more free articles on Trump/republican corruption: https://mcdermottm.substack.com/

Republican Speaker Mike Johnson's decision to schedule the vote with few legislative days left before the November 3 elections underscored Republican concerns that Trump's low approval ratings could cost the party its House or Senate majority. "Defending the integrity of the Supreme Court shouldn’t be a ​controversial vote," Johnson said in a statement afterwards, referring to Democrats. "Integrity of the Supreme Court"? "Surprise, surprise, America. ‌It's another ⁠partisan power grab by MAGA, our colleagues who fear for the results in the November election, as their policies have brought us nothing but war, inflation, corruption, lawlessness, and a $40 trillion debt," Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland said in a speech opposing the measure. The court since 2021 ⁠has overturned ​the nationwide right to abortion, expanded gun rights, curtailed the power of federal agencies ​, and allowed the Republican president to execute much of his second-term agenda. SOURCE-Reuters Is that jerk Johnson kidding? IS HE KIDDING? Integrity is the quality of being honest and having strong moral or ethical principles that you refuse to change, even when no one is watching. Neither he OR the Supreme Court has that!

SACRED STORIES Daily Astrology Thurs 3rd Sept Moon conjunct Uranus in Gemini. Humans are herd animals. We don't choose our beliefs: our emotions do that for us, largely based on temperament and on a sense of belonging, of fitting in with those around us. That is why rational discussion is such a rare thing: it requires a lot of integrity to untangle what we want to believe from a cool consideration of the evidence. This is where Uranus in Gemini, activated by today's Moon, comes in. He is the disruptor of comfortable herd beliefs, and in Gemini reveals the multiplicity of stories than we can tell ourselves. His shadow here is postmodernism, the idea that there is no objective truth and all viewpoints, all stories are equally valid. To deal with the shadow, you go to the opposite sign of Sagittarius, a sign that values the sacred. The sacred is an objective need of the human psyche, and the great myths of the world reflect that. If you are an astrologer, the ancient Greek gods and goddesses carry the sacred for you. And maybe other stories too. The scientific stories do not carry the sacred, they tend to deny its possibility. So dwell today in those sacred stories that speak to you. They carry deep truths in a way that scientific stories cannot. They will make you happy (the Moon is emotional needs.) They will give you a metaphysical backbone, and a basis for the rest of your beliefs. All traditional societies have this sacred Sagittarian core. We are probably the first in history not to, and many of our 'progressive' beliefs are a poor substitute for a genuine sense of life itself as sacred. Disruptor Uranus gives the ability to step outside the herd, to wake up to your own blindness, and to live with the judgements that others may throw at you. In the context of the modern West, Uranus allows you to think that maybe humans of the past weren't so primitive and that traditional beliefs, rooted ultimately in the great mythologies, have something going for them.

The fact is, Manhattan could elect a district attorney whose primary focus was criminal cases against corrupt politicians. The New York Stock Exchange is in Manhattan, New York. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and New York Attorney General Letitia James could have hundreds of criminal investigations going this very second and likely sweep this entire administration up in the net. So why won’t they? People are scared to put handcuffs on the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation or to investigate a president. So we need people with the courage or the insanity to just do it anyway. Everywhere. They don’t want their residents harmed, their families attacked, or to create a situation where state law enforcement officers are being asked to arrest the director of the FBI. So they just focus on cases that won’t bring the heat onto them, cases that are unequivocally victories, but do nothing to rein in a lawless regime. The real problem is that once you’ve put a party above the law, you are past the point where elections alone can restore order. Fixing things is not going to be quick. We need years of hammering lower-level offices to restore justice. So the bad news is that this won’t be over soon; the good news is that we can win. We can even make winning inevitable. Source-Christopher Armitage.

Solo | Sunlight Frozen in Time | Part-2 The Medjay rose and spread pairs at the underpass, a knot at the sphinxes, two already moving to cut Victoria Embankment east and west. Ordinary traffic would see only people who looked like they belonged near a closed monument. Nesmin arrived with seven ushabtis and a calm cracking at the mouth. Rain beaded on his braid and did not fall. “You made them bow,” he said. “How quickly servants find a louder master.” Ray turned the axe once. “Last chance,” he said, and he was not speaking to Nesmin. He looked at the ushabtis. “Stand down. You were made to answer a name in a tomb, not steal a city. Surrender. If you refuse, you go back to what you were before the paint.” Three of them stopped. Head-tilts. The painted smiles did not change. One limestone worker set down the little hoe it had carried out of the Stone’s grammar and sat on the pavement like a man off shift. Four did not. Ray did not raise his voice. “Sand.” The nearest disobedient ushabti took one more step and came apart from the ankles. Not shatter return. Limestone forgot it had been a body and ran into a pale heap, already darkening in the drizzle. The second, faience, collapsed to blue-white grit. The wooden one tried to finish its order, jaw working, and went to dry clay that the rain immediately began to ruin. Nesmin watched the heaps with the particular stillness of a man rewriting a thesis in real time. “You cannot unmake a name by barking at it.” “I didn’t bark at a name,” Ray said. “I reminded a tool what happens when it forgets the workshop.” Nesmin spoke anyway. Not Ray’s name. The Needle’s. The obelisk answered in the fillings. Hieroglyphs along the face the ones tourists photographed and forgot lit barley-gold from within. A seam opened at the base, book-narrow, tomb-lime and river-mud. Hands came through. Older than ushabtis. Nesmin’s hunger showed. Also the scholar’s terror of being correct. Ray put his palm on the granite. The Needle was not Nesmin’s transmitter. It was a ray of sunlight frozen in time, and the man touching it had the original noon in his chest. The gold in the glyphs did not go out. It turned, like a face turning toward the person it knew. The seam tried to widen. Ray shut it the way a fighter shuts a distance weight, timing, no waste. The hands snatched back. One stone finger remained on the pavement, twitching. “Enough,” Ray said to the shaft. “You point where I point.” The obelisk’s light settled into a low, even band. Not a spectacle. A standing order. The Victorian sphinxes were another matter. Bronze. English. Wrong century, wrong queen in the joke of the name. They had still sat at the foot of a solar needle long enough to learn the posture of guardians. Ray looked at the nearest one. Rain beaded on its teeth. “Up.” Bronze does not stand. This did not fully animal, not fully statue, a lurch of metal that made the plinth complain. The second sphinx followed, head lowering toward Nesmin as if scenting a man who had used a door without permission. Nesmin stepped back once. Only once. “Those are ornaments.” “They sat in my light,” Ray said. “That is enough.” He did not send them to maul. He sent them to contain. The sphinxes closed the angle to the river, bronze paws on granite, a corridor with no polite exit. A Medjay nearest the water let out a breath he had been holding and did not comment. Nesmin moved. A lector’s last trick: he put a true name on Ray’s mouth, the grandmother-name cut on the scarab’s underside, the one Ray had never been told. Ray’s knees dipped. For a blink he was only a banned fighter holding a museum piece, a priest’s thumb on the lever of him. Seneb hit Nesmin low. No poetry. They went across the plinth. Meryt’s chalk found the braid; the sa she drew there was not kind. The name on Ray’s tongue broke like cheap thread. “Hold him,” Ray said. Two Medjay had Nesmin’s arms before he finished the next syllable. They did not look to Seneb for confirmation. Ray set the axe’s poll against Nesmin’s sternum. Not a cut. The fact of bronze. The smallest coin of sun came through the metal. Enough to brand. Not enough for a headline. Nesmin turned o ash. The household he had meant to fetch went uncollected. Ray turned his head toward the remaining ushabtis the obedient ones, still as inventory. “Go back to sleep. No more walking.” They sat. Some crumbled at the edges into harmless grit, the spell already thinning. Meryt kicked the severed stone finger into the Thames with the side of her shoe. Seneb waited. “The Stone,” Meryt said. “Will sleep if no one reads it like a key.” Seneb’s gaze stayed on Ray. “And the watch?” “Keep the dictionary shut. Keep this shaft from answering anyone who isn’t me.” Ray handed the axe back. His fingers opened slower than he told them to. “If another lector comes, you send word to Cairo. You don’t open the door to see if I’m still the right man.” A younger Medjay almost spoke. Seneb’s look ended it. The line did not bow again. They had already done that. They moved pairs peeling off toward the museum, toward the underpass, toward a night that would have to be explained as humidity and a blocked riverside. Ray walked as far as Hungerford Bridge before he let his hands shake. Downstream the Needle stood in its usual lie, pointing at a sky that did not know Thutmose from a bus timetable. The sphinxes were only bronze again. Anyone passing would swear they had never left the plinth. Ra used few words. London seemed to charge by the syllable. 'The tower is yours. The watch is yours. Do not collect a court.' “I buy bread in Cairo,” Ray said. Good. In the morning a conservator wiped the Rosetta Stone and frowned at a handprint that would not quite leave the glass. She logged humidity. Two miles south, a bronze sphinx stared at traffic and kept its mouth shut. At its base, if anyone had thought to look before the rain finished the work, there was a small fan of blue grit that had once been willing to be a servant, and then was not. The End ( or so it would seem)

Solo | Sunlight Frozen in Time | Part-1 The Thames threw a cold light up the granite. Cleopatra’s Needle did not belong to Cleopatra. Ray knew that before anyone said it. The shaft was Thutmose. The bronze sphinxes were Victorian afterthoughts. The river was English and unimpressed. At 11:40 p.m. the obelisk held a thin heat that had nothing to do with weather. Raymond Fayek stood on the Embankment with his collar up. To tourists it was a monument. To him it was a sentence left unfinished: a ray of sunlight frozen in time, quarried, shipped, and planted in someone else’s fog. A tower of will that had been waiting for the will to return. The scarab under his shirt was only stone. That told him Ra was already leaning forward. A woman in a museum lanyard stopped two paces short. Careful walk. The kind that does not startle old things. “You’re late,” she said. “I don’t work here.” “No.” A twitch at the corner of her mouth. “You work for the thing that does.” Meryt. No surname. Under the streetlamp a faded sa-knot showed on her wrist ( powerful hieroglyph and amulet that literally translated to "protection"), inked small enough to be a vein. Sau-work. Protection drawn, not printed. “The Stone is sweating,” she said. “If you know what that means, follow.” He followed. The British Museum after closing withheld its air. Meryt badged them through. A night guard looked at Ray’s flattened nose and chose not to ask about boxing. They went down toward Egypt, glue and dust. The Rosetta Stone sat in its glass. The glass had misted from the inside. Three bands. The middle one demotic was no longer text. Meaning moved under the cuts like fish under ice. A man in a dark suit stood with his palms on the case. Shaved head. A lector’s braid behind one ear, worn without apology. Nesmin. Chief Lector Priest of a house that no longer admitted it existed. He did not turn. “Medjay sent a girl and a sun,” he said. “How traditional.” Meryt’s jaw set. “You opened a circuit.” “I completed one. The English planted a king’s needle by their river and locked a king’s dictionary two miles north. For two centuries the names have been calling through the same fog. I answered.” On the floor, in a ring the cameras would fail to explain, stood ushabtis. ( Ushabtis/ shabti were placed in tombs among the grave goods and were intended to act as servants or minions for the deceased, should they be called upon to do manual labor in the afterlife.) Ray counted fourteen. Then sixteen. They stepped out of the Stone’s lowest band as if a doorway had been mistranslated into bodies. Meryt flicked her wrist. The sa brightened dull red. Two ushabtis froze, ankles fused to terrazzo. Nesmin looked faintly disappointed. “Sau holds servants,” he said. “It does not hold a name once the name is spoken correctly.” ( Sau are a specialized magical practitioner or amulet-healer who combines practical medicine with protective spells.) He shaped demotic in his throat. The wooden ushabti turned its head toward Ray with the patience of a tool. Ray stepped in. No speech. The angle he would have taken on a southpaw who dropped the right too early. Fist met painted limestone. The face caved. Dust, not blood. The body came on broken legs until Meryt’s knot sat it down like furniture. Nesmin’s eyelid ticked. “Boxer.” “Used to be.” “The god borrowed the habit.” Scholar’s eyes, already filing him. “Ra always preferred a simple instrument.” The scarab warmed. Ray did not give the gallery a sun. Light here meant sprinklers. Sprinklers meant people. People tonight would only feed the circuit. “What do you want them for?” Ray asked. “A household.” Nesmin’s thumb traced Greek without reading it. “Ahmose drove the Hyksos with bronze and spite. His axe remembers the motion. I intend to give it a city that has forgotten the east.” Meryt’s breath caught, small. “The axe is not in this building.” “No. It is under the Needle. Your Victorians buried a capsule in the foundation like children hiding sweets. Jars. Hair. A portrait of their queen. And a crate a Medjay in 1878 still knew how to seal. I have the rest of the name. The Stone finished it.” He walked. The ushabtis walked with him. Meryt’s sa smoked and went dark. She shook her hand as if it had slept. Ray caught her elbow. “Can you walk?” “I can run. Don’t look pleased.” Great Russell Street. Drizzle. Nesmin did not hurry. Ushabtis peeled down side streets. CCTV stuttered. A cabbie swore at nothing. Ray flew. Meryt kept the ugly pace of someone trained to escort priests through riots. The river pulled. The Needle stood against wet water, a frozen shaft of noon that had been patient since Thebes. They were not alone. Seneb waited with a canvas wrap across both palms. Scar through one eyebrow. Behind him, along the parapet and the shadow of the sphinxes, men and women in dark coats. No uniforms. No flags. Medjay the old paramilitary of desert roads-Desert Rangers of the pharaoh, thinned by centuries, not gone. Twenty, perhaps more in the side streets. They had the stillness of people who had been told to wait for a verdict. Seneb saw Meryt first. Relief, then anger that she had brought company. Then he saw Ray, and the anger rearranged itself into something like recognition he did not want. He unrolled the wrap. The Axe of Ahmose I was smaller than legend. Bronze head, lugs still able to catch light. A blade made to split a helmet and later to bury the idea of victory. Seneb did not offer it upward like a gift. He held it level. Then he went to one knee. Behind him the line did the same. Coats whispered. A younger Medjay at the end was slow; the woman beside him put a hand on his shoulder and he dropped. Not theatre. An old reflex meeting an older face. “Ra,” Seneb said, to the man, not the sky. “The watch is yours. Command it.” Ray took the axe. It knew his palm the way a hook knows a glove. He looked at the kneeling line and did not tell them to stand for the sake of modern manners. “Hold the road,” he said. “Nothing leaves the river walk. If a statue walks, you stop it. If a priest runs, you bring him back walking.” Seneb’s mouth tightened once. “On your word.” ( To be continued. )

Solo – The Witch Who Bought the Night I didn't need a realtor. No… What I needed was a man arrogant enough to believe he was in control. By sunrise, I had already found the land that would be mine. Not through advertisements. Not through agents. Not through paperwork. Through magic. I followed the ley lines hidden deep beneath the earth and let the land itself call to the power within my blood. I stood at the edge of the city where the concrete gave way to untouched earth, the heels of my thigh high boots sinking slightly into the damp soil as I closed my eyes. The land was perfect. It was secluded enough to keep curious humans away while also being close enough to New York that the city remained within reach. More importantly, the ground was saturated with old magic. And that magic recognized me. I knelt and pressed my palm against the earth. Crimson light seeped between my fingers with midnight purple soon following. Then the earth beneath my hand seemed to breathe and I smiled. "Found you." The magic moved outward in a silent wave. I could hear the trees whisper and I felt roots shift beneath the soil. The boundaries of the property revealed themselves to me as clearly as if someone had drawn them in glowing ink. My eyes bled red at the edge of my irises as I gazed out over the property. There were thirty acres of untouched land beckoning me to make it mine. It was like it had been waiting for me and it was exactly what I needed. I wanted something that would become a sanctuary for creatures who had spent centuries hiding. A place where witches didn't have to pretend their magic was a party trick. A place where vampires didn't have to pretend they were human. A place where the supernatural could walk through the front doors without fear of judgment. A place where darkness wasn't something to apologize for. 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙂𝙞𝙡𝙙𝙚𝙙 𝙃𝙚𝙭. The name formed in my mind before I ever spoke it aloud. I could already see it. Crimson lights. Midnight-purple velvet. Green accents woven through gold. Music vibrating through ancient stone. Magic hidden beneath every floorboard. A place beautiful enough to tempt the living and dangerous enough to make the dead feel at home. It would be a den where the powerful came to play as girls danced on stage, drinks would flow, and beneath all that would be a space for gambling of all types to fill every pleasure a human or supernatural lucky enough to gain entry could stand. There was only one problem. The land currently belonged to someone else. So I arranged a meeting. The seller arrived later that evening in an expensive suit and an even more expensive attitude. He looked me over the moment he stepped from his car. I watched the way his eyes traveled from my face to my figure before settling back on my eyes. I smiled sweetly. Men like him always mistook sweetness for weakness. "You must be Kaeli Wintersby." "I am." He extended his hand and I took it. His grip lingered longer than necessary. Like he was testing me. Others would flinch but not me. Instead of pulling away, I stepped slightly closer. "Thank you for meeting me." His expression changed. In it I saw a mix of pride, interest, and arrogance. Exactly what I needed. And he didn't disappoint. We walked the property together while he talked numbers. I let him talk. I let him believe he was impressing me. I laughed at the appropriate moments. I touched his arm once and smiled at just the right times. I even lowered my voice when I spoke to feign a sort of innocence and pliability. I was using every feminine weapon men like him believed they had discovered all on their own and could control. By the time we reached the old stone wall at the back of the property, he was convinced he'd already won. Then he said it. "I'll be honest, Miss Wintersby. I'm still not entirely convinced a woman should be putting this kind of money into property." I tilted my head and spoke, "Oh? Is that so?" He chuckled. "Women have other priorities." "Such as?", I asked as if I truly hadn't a clue. He shrugged. "Marriage. Children. Building a family." His eyes moved over me again with a lewd look in his gaze that made my stomach churn. "A woman should be focused on birthing babies, not building businesses." His words were met with utter silence and for several seconds, I simply stared at him. Then I smiled. It wasn't the warm smile I had given him before. This smile was colder and deadlier than any he'd ever seen. This smile was the one that belonged to the part of me he should have known better than to insult. "I see." "I didn't mean to offend you.”, He laughed like he still had power, but the bob of his Adam's apple told me he was nervous. “You didn't mean to offend me.” I stepped closer with my gaze darkening. "You simply revealed exactly what kind of man you are." The wind suddenly stopped and his smile faded. He didn't notice the crimson light that flickered beneath my fingertips. Of course he didn't because he was too busy admiring himself. I leaned closer, my lips near his ear. "Perhaps you're right." His eyebrows lifted in surprise. "A woman should know her place." I smiled. "And I'm about to show you mine." The magic slipped silently from my hand. A thread of midnight purple curled around his wrist then disappeared beneath his skin. His expression changed, "What did you…" "Nothing. Nothing at all." I stepped away. "Now. Let’s finish our transaction." I gestured toward the contract waiting on the hood of his car. When I walked over to where the contract was, his movements became strangely obedient. He tried to fight the pull but my magic was stronger than he ever could be and he walked with robot-like jerks over beside me. He signed every page, every clause and every transfer completely of his own freewill or so he thought. Then he reached into his briefcase, removed the title, and placed it directly into my waiting hand. "Thank you." I looked down at the title in my hand and I smiled. The land was mine. Completely. Legally. Irrevocably. He stared at me, confused. This hasn't gone as he thought it would. He'd planned on making a demand for me to suck his dick for the title. I knew it because it rolled off his aura in waves. He was the kind who used perceived power to force others to do his bidding but tonight he'd met his superior and he couldn't fathom how his plan had failed. "What did you do to me, bitch?" I folded the title carefully, letting him rage but it was his choice of words that had my head snapping to him with my irises bleeding red so quickly that he took a step back. "I've done nothing permanent." His eyes widened and I stepped closer one final time. "But every time you try to tell a woman what she should be..." I paused. "...you'll feel like your balls are being cut and then you'll piss yourself." He blinked like I was crazy. Then…. “You bitch!”, he yelled before grabbing his crotch and crying out. “Aargh!!!” His face reddened before he looked down to see the stain of his piss spreading across the fabric of his trousers between his thighs. The smile on my lips was one that came from the dark part of myself, “I told you.” "Fuckin bitch..” His words were garbled due to the cry of pain coming from him as he dropped to his knees and looked at me clearly horrified as more of his piss flowed. I turned away and made a face from the scent of his putrid piss in the air. Then I laughed softly when he shouted something I couldn't quite make out behind me. It was probably another opinion about what women should or shouldn't do because he cried out in pain again. “You should crawl away and get cleaned up.” I turned back toward him, letting my power flare once more. "𝙊𝙗𝙡𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙨𝙘𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙢𝙚𝙞 𝙚𝙩 𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙘 𝙣𝙤𝙘𝙩𝙚𝙢.” The spell, for him to forget me and this night, once spoken came to be. I saw his eyes glaze over for a moment before they cleared and he looked around like he was lost and unsure how he got there. "𝙉𝙪𝙣𝙘 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙘𝙚𝙙𝙚.” I turned my back to him again and heard him crawling toward his car. Once he drove away, I walked to the center of my new land and stopped. Then I looked toward the distant glow of New York. The magic in the land had done its job and called me to it. The city waited beyond the trees. And now so did The Gilded Hex. I held the title between two fingers, watching crimson magic dance across the paper before disappearing. This wasn't just land. It was the beginning. A foundation. A sanctuary. A kingdom. I smiled as midnight purple magic curled around my boots. "Welcome to the neighborhood, New York." My eyes lifted toward the skyline. "You just gained a witch." I looked down at the earth beneath my feet. "And she brought her darkness with her." The Gilded Hex wasn't a dream anymore. It had an address. It had a foundation. And now… It had a queen.

„Zdekonstruuj to poczucie bezsilności. Częścią mitologii, której cię uczą, jest to, że nie masz żadnej władzy. Władza to nie brutalna siła i pieniądze; władza jest w twoim duchu. Władza jest w twojej duszy. To to, co dali ci twoi przodkowie, twoi starzy ludzie. Władza jest w ziemi; jest w twoim związku z ziemią.” Winona LaDuke WINONA LADUKE, RDZENNOAMERYKAŃSKA AKTYWISTKA, EKONOMISTKA I PISARKA, POŚWIĘCIŁA SWOJE ŻYCIE WALCE O KONTROLĘ RDZENNEJ LUDNOŚCI NAD ICH OJCZYZNĄ, ZASOBAMI NATURALNYMI I PRAKTYKAMI KULTUROWYMI. ŁĄCZY PODEJŚCIE EKONOMICZNE I ŚRODOWISKOWE, ABY STWORZYĆ PROSPERUJĄCĄ I ZRÓWNOWAŻONĄ SPOŁECZNOŚĆ DLA SWOJEGO REZERWATU WHITE EARTH I RDZENNEJ LUDNOŚCI W CAŁYM KRAJU. Winona LaDuke urodziła się w Los Angeles w Kalifornii 18 sierpnia 1959 roku. Jej rodzice to Vincent i Betty (z domu Bernstein) LaDuke. Jej ojciec, znany również jako Sun Bear, pochodził z plemienia Anishinaabe (lub Odżibwejów) z rezerwatu White Earth w Minnesocie. Był aktorem, pisarzem i aktywistą. Jej matka była artystką i aktywistką. LaDuke jest członkiem plemienia Anishinaabekwe (Odżibwejów) w Mississippi Band Anishinaabeg. Jej ojciec zabierał ją na powwow i inne uroczystości plemienne, wydarzenia, które wywarły głębokie wrażenie na młodej LaDuke. Rodzice LaDuke rozwiedli się, gdy miała pięć lat, a ona przeprowadziła się z matką, która była rosyjsko-żydowskiego pochodzenia, do Ashland w Oregonie. LaDuke często odwiedzała White Earth i, za namową matki, spędzała lata w społecznościach rdzennych mieszkańców, aby wzmocnić więź ze swoim dziedzictwem. LaDuke studiowała na Uniwersytecie Harvarda i ukończyła go w 1982 roku, uzyskując dyplom z rozwoju gospodarczego obszarów wiejskich. Podczas studiów na Harvardzie zainteresowanie LaDuke kwestiami rdzennej ludności wzrosło. Spędziła lato pracując nad kampanią mającą na celu powstrzymanie wydobycia uranu na terenach zamieszkiwanych przez Navajo w Nevadzie i zeznawała przed Organizacją Narodów Zjednoczonych w Genewie w Szwajcarii w sprawie eksploatacji ziem indiańskich. Po ukończeniu Harvardu, LaDuke objęła stanowisko dyrektorki liceum w rezerwacie White Earth Odżibwejów w Minnesocie. Wkrótce zaangażowała się w proces sądowy wytoczony przez lud Anishinaabeg o odzyskanie ziem obiecanych im na mocy traktatu federalnego z 1867 roku. W momencie podpisania traktatu rezerwat White Earth obejmował 837 000 akrów, ale polityka rządu pozwoliła firmom drzewnym i innym grupom nieindiańskim przejąć ponad 90 procent ziemi do 1934 roku. Po czterech latach procesu pozew został jednak oddalony. Niewywiązanie się z pozwu zmotywowało LaDuke do dalszych działań na rzecz ochrony ziem rdzennych mieszkańców. W 1985 roku pomogła w założeniu i współprzewodniczyła Sieci Kobiet Rdzennych (Indigenous Women's Network – IWN), koalicji 400 rdzennych kobiet-aktywistek i grup, której celem jest zwiększenie widoczności rdzennych kobiet i umożliwienie im aktywnego udziału w polityce i kulturze plemiennej. Koalicja dąży zarówno do zachowania rdzennych praktyk religijnych i kulturowych, jak i do odzyskania ziem rdzennych mieszkańców oraz ochrony ich zasobów naturalnych. W 1989 roku LaDuke ukończyła studia magisterskie z zakresu rozwoju ekonomii społeczności lokalnych na Uniwersytecie Antioch. W tym samym roku założyła White Earth Land Recovery Project (WELRP), wykorzystując fundusze przyznane jej przez Fundację Reebok na rzecz praw człowieka. WELRP to organizacja, której celem jest odkupienie gruntów rezerwatów, wcześniej nabytych przez ludność niebędącą rdzennymi mieszkańcami, w celu wspierania zrównoważonego rozwoju i zapewnienia rdzennej ludności szans ekonomicznych. Obecnie jest to jedna z największych organizacji non-profit działających na terenie rezerwatów w kraju. Inicjatywy WELRP w zakresie zrównoważonego rozwoju obejmują działania w zakresie energii odnawialnej, rodzime rolnictwo i lokalne systemy żywnościowe oraz poprawę warunków sanitarnych. Kupowana ziemia jest wykorzystywana do produkcji energii wiatrowej; organizacja pomogła chronić lokalne uprawy dzikiego ryżu przed patentami i inżynierią genetyczną; promuje spożycie tradycyjnej żywności, aby zwalczać rosnącą liczbę zachorowań na cukrzycę typu 2 w społeczności; prowadzi również serwis pieluch, który pozwala oszczędzać pieniądze i ogranicza ilość odpadów z pieluch jednorazowych. Organizacja zbiera fundusze poprzez sprzedaż tradycyjnego rzemiosła, biżuterii i żywności, aby finansować te programy. Choć LaDuke była zajęta pracą w WELRP, kontynuowała działalność rzeczniczą w ramach Sieci Kobiet Rdzennych Amerykanów. Na początku lat 90. zorganizowała ogólnopolski cykl koncertów z zespołem muzycznym Indigo Girls, aby podnieść świadomość młodzieży na temat problemów rdzennych Amerykanów. W 1993 roku LaDuke i Indigo Girls wspólnie założyły Honor the Earth, organizację zajmującą się wspieraniem i pozyskiwaniem funduszy, która działa na rzecz rdzennych organizacji ekologicznych. Od momentu powstania Honor the Earth przekazała ponad dwa miliony dolarów ponad 200 społecznościom rdzennych Amerykanów. W latach 1996 i 2000 LaDuke była kandydatką na wiceprezydenta u boku Ralpha Nadera z listy Partii Zielonych w wyborach prezydenckich. Partia Zielonych określa się jako partia niezależna, kładąca nacisk na demokrację oddolną i ekologiczną kondycję planety. List LaDuke zdobył 0,7% głosów w 1996 roku i 2,7% w 2000 roku. LaDuke powróciła do polityki wyborczej w 2016 roku, kandydując na przewodniczącą rady plemiennej White Earth, jednak jej kandydatura zakończyła się niepowodzeniem. LaDuke otrzymała wiele wyróżnień za działalność rzeczniczą. W 1994 roku magazyn Time umieścił ją na liście Pięćdziesięciu Liderów Przyszłości. W 1998 roku magazyn Ms. Magazine uznał ją za jedną z Kobiet Roku. W 2015 roku otrzymała tytuł doktora honoris causa Augsburg College w Minnesocie, a w 2017 roku LaDuke zdobyła Nagrodę Uniwersytetu Kalifornijskiego im. Alice i Clifforda Spendlove w dziedzinie sprawiedliwości społecznej, dyplomacji i tolerancji. LaDuke jest autorką i współautorką licznych książek poświęconych problemom stojącym przed społecznością rdzennych Amerykanów. Na przykład jej praca „Native Struggles for Land and Life” (1999, wznowienie 2016) opowiada o oporze rdzennych mieszkańców wobec zagrożeń kulturowych i środowiskowych. LaDuke zrezygnowała ze stanowiska dyrektora wykonawczego White Earth Land Recovery Project w 2014 roku, ale nadal walczy o interesy środowiskowe rdzennych Amerykanów. Była liderką protestów przeciwko rurociągowi Dakota Access Pipeline w 2016 roku, których celem była ochrona dostępu do wody i świętych ziem rdzennych mieszkańców Dakoty Północnej. Obecnie, matka sześciorga dorosłych dzieci (trojga biologicznych i trojga adoptowanych), poświęca większość swojego czasu rolnictwu. Na jej farmie, położonej w rezerwacie White Earth, uprawiane są tradycyjne warzywa i konopie. LaDuke stara się promować zalety konopi dla środowiska: wymagają mniej wody do uprawy niż bawełna; mogą zastąpić syntetyczne materiały na bazie ropy naftowej w odzieży i innych produktach; i pochłaniają dwutlenek węgla z atmosfery, zamiast go uwalniać. Winona's Hemp & Heritage Farm to jej najnowsze przedsięwzięcie; farma i organizacja non-profit, której misją jest stworzenie gospodarki kierowanej przez rdzenne kobiety, opartej na lokalnej żywności, energii i włóknach, która jest przyjazna dla Ziemi. https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/winona-laduke

I am a 3L finishing up my last year in law school. I have studied some property and intellectual property law, both of which are at the center of the current discussion around whether or not a customer "owns" the games they buy. I've seen a lot of discussion online surrounding this topic, but–as most things are in the legal world–there is a disconnect between language use between the general public and lawyers in the courtroom. I am going to try and explain the differences in how Sony and the public define "ownership" and how the court might balance these competing definitions. When you say "I went to Game Stop and bought a game," the average person would probably assume you went to the store and bought a disc. What is really being said is, "I went to X retailer and purchased a physical copy of X game." With the physical copy of that game, much like if you were to buy a music CD or DVD movie, you would be able to use it without the internet, resell it on the second-hand market, loan it to a friend, etc. That makes sense to us as normal people. If you waived around your disc to your friend and said "I own this game," your friend would likely agree with you. We both know I can't make copies of my copy to redistribute and make a profit off of–that would be illegal. DVD's display federal copyright law warnings with this same message before you get to the menu screen. None of us have a problem with this because most of us aren't trying to burn copies of our DVD's. But in both cases, neither of us dispute that I own the copy of the game or movie I bought. The "own the copy" part is just assumed. So what the hell is Sony talking about when they say "digital game ownership is impossible"? Well, they're not talking about your copy of the game, and they're not even talking about the limited license you buy when you spend money on their digital storefront. When Sony talks about "ownership," they are talking about the distribution and intellectual property rights of their video games. Let me give you an example to make this more clear. Game Rant published an article that demonstrates the clear confusion in the definition of "ownership." "Sony then cites an example, claiming that if "Plaintiff Jason Mendoza" had purchased Resident Evil Requiem on February 14, 2026, then "Plaintiff Edward Heycock" would not have been able to purchase the same game on February 25, as Mendoza would have owned the game then, not Sony. Essentially, Sony is claiming that it's impossible for a consumer to own a digital game like they would a physical copy, as the digital game cannot be traded, sold, or given away in the same manner." This is confusing because of the difference in definition being used. Under Playstation's logic, if someone were to truly "own" the digital game they bought, then, upon purchase, Sony would transfer the distribution rights, intellectual property rights, etc. surrounding the video game code. I find it hard to believe the plaintiffs or any other consumers are making such a ridiculous request. Rather, the plaintiffs argue they simply want the same control they have over a digital game as they would a physical copy–to be able to play that sole copy of the game offline, indefinitely, and to be able to resell that copy on the second-hand market. Hopefully, the plaintiff's lawyer is able to make this distinction clear to the court or the case might go sideways due to poor lawyering. On the other hand, the case seems to be narrower in issue–focusing on whether Sony violated a California statute requiring digital storefronts to make clear to consumers of the license limitations they agree to when making transactions online. It may be the issue of clarifying what ownership means doesn't even get brought up in court. In any case, it's probably going to be a while before Sony's lawyers understand what exactly is being asked when the layperson says "I want to own my digital game." It really just sums up to "I want the right to reasonably control the single copy of the game I paid full price for."

Did Donald Trump Rape a Thirteen-Year-Old as Alleged? It certainly seems as though rather than pursue criminals and bring their crimes to light, the FBI, under the control of Trump’s personal lawyer is doing everything in his power to keep evidence of child sexual abuse by the President under wraps. Whether the Epstein documents reveal evidence that Trump and Epstein did rape a thirteen-year-old child is impossible to discern at this juncture because the documents are kept from the Courts and the people. Now, finally, the Court is acting as if it has had enough with the stalling and delaying tactics. If there is nothing to hide why are the files being hidden? See this – Boldface mine: Todd Blanche stares 'down the barrel' as Jeffrey Epstein-case judge urged to 'start threatening jail' if DOJ doesn't release files Story by Lesley Abravanel • 5h • 2 min read Attorney General Todd Blanche and the Justice Department face an imminent threat of contempt of court over their failure to release records under the Epstein Files Transparency Act fully. A legal analysis by attorney Michael Popok on the "Legal AF" podcast highlights that the Department of Justice is "staring down the barrel" of federal sanctions. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan is being urged to issue a formal contempt finding and begin threatening jail time if the agency continues to resist transparency. The legal battle stems from a lawsuit filed by journalist and attorney Katie Phang against Blanche. Phang alleges the DOJ has improperly redacted and withheld critical records related to deceased child rapist Jeffrey Epstein. The friction between Judge Sullivan and the DOJ centers on several specific failures. The DOJ is refusing to turn over handwritten FBI agent notes regarding a woman who alleges President Donald Trump sexually abused her at age 13. Donald Trump Faces Child Sexual Assault Allegations Trump was accused in a 2016 civil lawsuit of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl in 1994 at a gathering associated with Epstein. Still, the plaintiff voluntarily dropped the lawsuit later that year before it went to trial, allegedly due to death threats against her and her family, and Trump has categorically denied all allegations. A woman filing under the pseudonym "Jane Doe" (sometimes referred to in public commentary as Katie Johnson) filed and then refiled a civil lawsuit in 2016 alleging that Trump and Epstein abused her in New York when she was 13 years old. The DOJ responded to court orders with a brief, two-page filing that Popok described as "gibberish unsupported by any affidavit," which primarily complained about attorneys working late at night and on holidays. Government lawyers claimed they do not typically produce handwritten interview notes in these matters. Phang's legal team quickly disproved this, citing over 100 prior examples where such notes were released under the Transparency Act. In previous flawed document releases handled by Blanche's department, the identities, addresses, and sensitive photographs of Epstein's victims were accidentally exposed. 'Start Threatening Jail' After months of claiming full compliance, Blanche's department abruptly shifted tactics right before a strict judicial deadline, choosing to appeal the disclosure order rather than hand over the missing files. Legal experts predict that Judge Sullivan has reached his breaking point and may soon impose strict contempt penalties, including jail time, to compel the DOJ to comply. "I think Judge Sullivan's had it," Popok said. "Bring the contempt already. Bring the contempt. Order the production of the FBI notes by a date certain, or people will be found in contempt of court. Start threatening jail. That's where we're at." For more free articles about Trump/Republican tyranny; https://mcdermottm.substack.com/

お気持ちなので読むの自己責任で ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ お気持ちなので読むの自己責任で(※大切なことなので2回言いました) ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ 新人さんのチャット欄晒し上げられて叩かれてるのきつい こないだの応援のぼりの件もそうだけどリスナー叩き煽動がもうずっとひどい 「マナー的にどうなの？」て問題定義する形ですらなく「ちょwwwwwみんなみてこれwwwwおもろwwwww」みたいな感覚でインプレ稼いでるのきついよ チャット欄は見ないっていう選択肢があるけど、あんな風にバズって他人のおすすめ欄に載るのが最悪(かなり調教してるわたしのおすすめ欄にも野次馬のバズツイが回ってきた) 　 挙句野次馬にまで広まって待機所荒らされて可哀想だよ あの匿名箱アカウントマジでいい加減にして あとあのアカウントに叩き誘導する投書投げてるやつはもちろんだけど「○○推しです！この配信/ボイスおすすめです！！」て無邪気に送ってるバカは自分の推しに恥かかせてるリスナーですって自己紹介してるだけだからやめな 「匿名箱やってる愚痴垢なんか珍しくないじゃん、そんな突出してひどい匿名箱アカウントいるの？」ってぴんとこない方は調べないでください、知らない方が幸せです もうとっくに前から運営には報告済みです

HOW TO BE BRILLIANT Daily Astrology Wed 2nd Sept On last week's lunar eclipse, the Sun and Moon were exactly square to Uranus, which added to its catalytic effect. The Sun in Virgo is still squaring Uranus. Uranus is the unexpected, he shakes us out of our comfort zone, not entirely unlike an eclipse. So whatever has been catalysed in recent days, stay open to it, let it unfold. Let Uranus do his ongoing work. There may be ways you don't want to change, and that can be uncomfortable. And there may be welcome developments and inspirations in ongoing projects. Uranus and the Sun are both in Mercury-ruled signs, so watch that it doesn't become too cerebral. Ground yourself in the natural world: Virgo is analytical, but also has Ceres, a nature goddess, within her stars. Ground yourself too in being of service and being practical, which are also attributes of Virgo. Virgo is not a noisy sign, it quietly gets on with. It is organised, so it does not like the disruptive effects of Uranus. On the other hand, it is a mutable sign, so it easily adapts. There can be brilliance in this combination: original ideas that are also practical. So go for it in the few days that are left of this transit. Everyone has their own genius, their own particular way of seeing the world, a native intelligence that is not the same as IQ: a high IQ is a gift, not something you have earned, and thinking you are smart can get in the way of this direct seeing. That is the tricksiness of Uranus in Gemini. If you want to be original, ignore what everyone else says, however authoritative, and go back to first principles and your own experience. That is the difficult bit, which few people can do. And then make your own observations and draw your own conclusions.

While sexuality was obviously a major theme throughout, the one that I felt the strongest was in relation to being on the Asexual spectrum. There are so many places on it one can find themself, and being in a weird middle ground between having feelings for someone, while feeling little to nothing when it comes to sex can make you feel like such an outsider, even in a relationship. Yes you care about them, and with some people you do feel rare fleeting moments of libido but it isn’t the same as what others feel. Taking it a step further are the themes surrounding kink, particularly kinks that are “unrealistic”, out there, in some cases not even possibly in the real world. It already feels weird to not be interested in things like sex, but to then turn around and be interested in something like that? The absurdity, it’s comedic, which we see a lot of in this film. These are things that can sometimes only be expressed and engaged with through wild contrived scenarios, and roleplay, due to their outlandish nature. (I also really liked the importance the film placed on consent when engaging in these scenarios with others, and how you shouldn’t worry, they aren’t real) It sometimes feels impossible for anyone who isn’t also into these strange things to even comprehend how you feel. Trying to explain it to others will make you look like a crazy person! But, there are people like you. If you can find them, hold onto them. The communities I have seen surrounding weird niches that make no sense to people not into them are always so tight knit, and care for one another. If someone refuses to accept or understand you, you don’t need them, you can find those who will. The most bliss you will ever feel is when you are free to be your own weird self with someone who gets it, no matter who might be judging. There are so many specific details that pushed it even more and more to feeling like a 1-1 mirror image of my life and experiences but the core theme I saw is what I really wanted to talk about.

Solo | The Hunt | The desert beyond Cairo shimmered beneath the crushing weight of noon. Heat rolled across the dunes like invisible tides, bending the horizon into liquid gold. Above the ruins of ancient Heliopolis, the sky stood vast and merciless. A lone jackal, sleek and cunning, prowled the dunes near the ruins of Heliopolis, its golden eyes scanning for prey. It had no idea it had just become the target of something far greater. High above, Ray stood on a crumbling temple pillar, the scarab mark on his chest glowing white-hot. In a burst of golden light, his body dissolved into pure solar energy and reformed instantly. Where the man once stood, a sleek peregrine falcon now perched compact, powerful, with sharp golden eyes and feathers that shimmered faintly with solar energy. Ray launched off the pillar with a powerful beat of his wings. Within seconds, he was slicing through the cold night air at terrifying speed. Pigeons exploded from ruined pillars in terror. Sand spiralled upward in violent whirlwinds seconds after the thing had already passed. The wind screamed past his streamlined body as he climbed higher for his reconnaissance. Every feather shimmered faintly like polished bronze beneath the sun. Tiny threads of living sunlight coursed between the plumage like veins of molten gold. His eyes glowed with predatory brilliance, twin solar embers scanning the earth below with terrifying precision. The world had slowed for him. At nearly five hundred kms an hour, the sky itself became fluid. Air pressure folded around his wings in rippling distortions. Every gust spoke to him. Every thermal current carried whispers. Ra’s instincts flowed through him effortlessly, divine mastery over the oldest hunter beneath the sun. Far below, moving between scattered black rocks and dry brush, prowled a jackal. Lean/Dark-furred/Alone. But It trotted lazily through the desert as if unaware of the predator above. But Ray had already seen it from miles away. From high altitude, his falcon eyes pierced the shimmering heat haze with unnatural clarity. He could see the twitch of its ears. The rhythm of its heartbeat. The exact pattern its paws made against the sand. Every movement mapped perfectly inside his mind. The jackal paused atop a rocky ridge. That was enough. Ray folded his wings. The sky detonated. He descended like a bullet fired by the sun itself. He entered his dive. Wind shrieked across his feathers. Four hundred kilometres/Four-fifty/Faster. The dive became invisible. Only a flicker of sunlight flashed across the dunes. The jackal sensed danger at the final possible instant. Its ears snapped upward. Golden eyes widened. Too late. WHAM. Talons slammed into its side with explosive force. Sand erupted outward in a violent crater as the jackal rolled across the ground with a startled snarl. Then silence. The falcon was already gone. The jackal sprang up furiously, teeth bared, scanning wildly left and right./Nothing/Only desert wind. A low growl rumbled from its throat. Then / CRACK/ Another strike from nowhere. The falcon hit from behind this time, claws raking across the jackal’s shoulder before vanishing again in a blur of gold. The attack had lasted less than a heartbeat. The jackal spun in circles, snapping at empty air. Above, Ray soared upward again, exhilaration surging through him. Every flap of his wings carried the power of divine sunlight through his body. Far beneath him, the jackal barked angrily toward the empty sky. The creature was trying to anticipate him now. Clever. Raymond angled one wing slightly. The world tilted. He dropped again. This time the dive was even faster. The jackal heard it & lunged sideways, but Ray was already there. His talons struck the creature cleanly across the muzzle before he twisted mid-air with impossible precision and shot forward again. The jackal yelped in outrage, tumbling head over heels through the sand. Again the attacker vanished. /Invisible/Untouchable. Only tiny spirals of drifting sand marked where the falcon had been. Minutes passed like this, the predator and prey dancing beneath the merciless sun. Except this was no true hunt There was no killing intent. Only exhilaration. Challenge. Instinct. At last the jackal stopped moving. He was completely still. Its ears twitched once. High above, Ray narrowed his glowing falcon eyes. Something changed. The jackal slowly lifted its head toward the heavens and smiled. The jackal’s body erupted in black-gold fire. The desert darkened momentarily as divine power unfolded outward in ancient waves. Fur became robes. Claws became hands. Golden eyes transformed into blazing celestial stars beneath the head of a majestic black jackal. The god stood tall among the ruins. Anubis, the Guardian of the dead and / also /the son of Ra. Ray landed gracefully upon a broken pillar, still in falcon form. Golden sunlight swirled around him before his body unfolded back into the towering figure of Ray. "You knew the whole time,” Ra 𓅃 muttered. Anubis crossed his arms with amused dignity. “You struck me fourteen times, Father. The fourth attack gave you away.” Ra 𓅃 laughed “Then why keep running?” The jackal god tilted his head slightly, ancient eyes gleaming. “Because it has been centuries,” Anubis said softly, “since I last saw Ra happy enough to play.”

I don't wanna get too sappy (I've cried like 5 times in 2 days) but I wanted to let everyone know how important MACH2 was to me. I really don't think these words will make sense to anyone who is outside of this community, but that final day of Mach 2 was the greatest day of my life. This game and this community have changed my life countless times over. For the last 7 years I've put everything I had into it, and lost hope many times over. Still, thanks to all of you, I got back up, and tried again. So to finally see everything fall into place like this... there are no words. The only way that day could have been better is if there were more of us, screaming louder, and crying harder. I remember telling people my dream was to be at EVO and winning LLB grands on the main stage, but I accepted that this would realistically never happen. Beyond me just being a nervous nelly who can't pull through and gets second place whenever the stakes are high, I just didn't think an event like this could ever happen in the first place. Oh man, was I wrong. This was so, so, so much more than that. To see everyone, spend time with you all, hug, laugh, drink, and scream together... it has meant the entire world to me. Hyhy - my absolute GOAT, it's all thanks to you - said it best: "This community never ceases to amaze me." To see everyone there, and have everyone just be so amazing in person... I promise to cherish these days for the rest of my life. There are too many people I need to thank, so I'll keep it brief. To my friends, whom I cherish more than life itself - thank you To my mentors, who made me into the player I am today - thank you. To my students, who allow me to share my passion - thank you. To every attendee, who made this the greatest (and most well dressed) FGC event of all time - thank you. To those who helped organize, run, and promote the event, creating something beautiful - thank you. To everyone who tuned in and immortalized this day - thank you. To all of you, and to the entire Lethal League community - thank you. I'll be taking some time away from competitive play for a bit, but I want to dedicate this win to the talentless, the stubborn, the hard-working, and the absolutely deranged people who refuse to give up, no matter what. This wasn't just me. There were 100 people up on stage that day. Now it's your turn. Raise your head. Carry the flame. Reach new heights. The way of the Tiger. Thank you all for sharing your [ LOVE ]

Republicans are using anti-trans issues in a desperate attempt to motivate their base For some reason Trump and his dangerously incompetent Republican administration seem to think attacking gays and trans will reduce inflation, make gas and food less expensive, take our minds off the useless war they started and lessen our grief for our dead soldiers, restore slashed budgets for Medicaid, SNAP benefits for hungry children, and make housing more affordable. By trying to camouflage their political ineptness behind a smokescreen of racist and homophobic slurs they think we won’t remember they cut veteran benefits, did away with subsidies that kept Medicare affordable for our senior citizens, are driving our economy into a morass of unaffordability, reduced taxes on people with wealth beyond belief while average voters spend sleepless nights in recognition they will never be able to afford college tuition for their children. They really think the older we become the more prejudiced we become, and we will laugh at their sophomoric jokes and not notice they are trying to do away with Social security as we know it and put the fund in the stock market where they can charge fees until one bad day when it will all disappear. Yeah, they’ll wave the rainbow flag in front of us like we are animals in an arena and will be surprised when they get a horn up their … See this – Boldface mine: Republicans are using anti-trans issues in a desperate attempt to motivate their base Story by John Gallagher • 3h • 4 min read By every account, Republicans are facing a disaster in this fall’s elections. Donald Trump is incredibly unpopular and seems intent on doing everything possible to increase his party’s unpopularity. The odds are very high that Republicans will lose the House, and Democrats are increasingly optimistic about capturing the Senate as well, with competitive races even in deep-red strongholds like Texas and Iowa. Faced with looming electoral disaster, Republicans are turning to their old standby, anti-LGBTQ+ attacks. This year, the focus is on anti-trans attacks, including anti-trans ballot initiatives in four states. Ballot measures in Washington and Arizona would prohibit trans athletes from participating in sports, while a ballot measure in Missouri would ban health care for trans youth. The fourth state, Colorado, has both types of initiatives on the ballot. “This is absolutely being used as ballot candy,” Quentin Savwoir, director of programs and strategy at the left-leaning Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, said last spring. In the past, that was certainly the case. Witness the rash of anti-marriage initiatives two decades ago, which Republicans used to juice turnout. Now, however, the tactic smacks of desperation. The fact is that there’s not much the GOP can do to distract voters, even their own, from Trump’s disastrous presidency. Far and away the top issue for voters these days is the economy and Trump’s ongoing attempts to sabotage it. A recent Marquette Law School poll found that half of those surveyed cited inflation/affordability, and the economy more generally, as the most important issue facing the country. So where does concern about trans issues rank? Just about at the bottom of polls. A Fox News survey released in April found that 0% – yes, zero – cited trans issues/wokeness as their top concern. In that survey, 43% cited economic issues as the top issue, followed by corruption and the Iran War. Now, the 0% doesn’t mean that absolutely none of the 1,001 registered voters surveyed cited the issue. What it does mean is that so few responded that trans issues were a top concern that it was statistically insignificant. Just as interesting, 56% of voters said that Democrats would handle trans issues better, compared to 43% for Republicans. For Republican candidates looking to pull some swing voters onto their side, that lopsided split isn’t a good sign. What Republicans are hoping to do is motivate their base to show up on election day. However, even the base is in no mood to vote for Republicans. Party operatives are panicked at what they are seeing in their outreach efforts. Approximately one in five GOP voters is at risk of sitting out the election or (gasp!) voting for a Democrat. On top of that, voters who picked Trump in 2024 are more likely not to vote regularly. No wonder Trump is going around telling people that they should vote as if he’s the candidate. “Pretend, please, I’m on the ballot,” he said last week. The problem Republicans have is that they want to pretend that he’s not because he is such a drag on candidates. They are already taking tentative steps to separate themselves from Trump. That’s a vain exercise, given how much they fear him and have tied themselves to him already. Of course, the anti-trans initiatives owe a lot to Trump himself. He discovered that bashing trans people was a popular applause line at his rallies, so he keeps returning to it. In fact, he chastised attendees at a press conference for not applauding when he spoke about banning trans athletes. He is probably also under the illusion that the anti-trans ad attacking Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential campaign helped put him over the top. (There’s evidence that the ad, which got far more play in the political press than bigger issues, wasn’t nearly as important as the Harris campaign’s refusal to come up with a forceful rebuttal.) Republicans seem to have forgotten just how well they did the last time they hammered on anti-trans issues. Just last year, Virginia gubernatorial nominee Winsome Earle-Sears made attacks on trans rights a centerpiece of her campaign. Voters turned out in record numbers, alright. Earle-Sears lost by more than 14 percentage points. That election was widely seen as a referendum on Trump. Since then, Trump started a war that no one supports and that has no end in sight. If Republicans think that attacking trans people is a brilliant distraction from all of Trump’s baggage, they should ask Earle-Sears how that worked out for her. For more fee articles on Republican treachery: https://mcdermottm.substack.com/

RECLAIMING THE MASCULINE Daily Astrology Tues 1st Sept Mars in Cancer is in exact square to Saturn. Mars is not at ease in watery Cancer. He prefers direct action to the sideways movement of the crab. We looked at this aspect last Thursday when it was building, and I talked about the red mist of anger that men can be subject to. Cancer is feeling-based, and can be murky, moody and resentful. But Cancer is also caring and nurturing, and Mars here is well-placed to fight on behalf of others. The exact square to Saturn in Aries is asking us to look with fresh eyes at this warrior god. It is his energy and courage that has built our civilisation. We sleep peacefully at night because there are men who are prepared to use force on our behalf. Mars has a great protector quality. It is the daring and adventurousness of Mars that spread humanity across the globe, and inspires us with fresh possibilities for the future. Nowadays we are told that masculinity is suspect, even toxic, and it has left men unsure of themselves. Sure, Mars has a shadow, as does Venus: the ruthless, envious, devouring female - think of the evil stepmother in Snow White. But it is not something to think of as fundamental, or to be identified with: that is the shadow of Venus at work. A friend bringing up two sons in the 90s said it was very difficult, because of the prevailing culture, to impart a positive view of masculinity to her children. It has been going on a long time. Mars is essentially noble and awe-inspiring. If you are a man, let Saturn help you stand up straight again. If you are a woman, allow your essential attitude to Mars to be one of admiration, and find him in yourself.

трошки опишу цей делюжен в группи сталкерів коротше у них є якісь такі ліві в твіттері. згідно їх делюжену ці ліві з твіттера вважають що жінка без роботи і з чоловіком (тим паче східним) шльондра. (реальні ліві так не вважають звісно і в твіттері також...... тим паче я заходила в твіттер постити про це я думаю самі пости виглядають дивно бо ти в суті описуєш чийто делюжен, іллюзію). далі - "вона має жити з лівими з твіттера" тобто вони описують таке ніби фізичне місце де ліві з твіттера разом живуть і куди люди тікають ну там від партнерів і сімей. абсолютно іллюзія не знаю чо їх плавить якась дика уявна річ. типу вони придумали в голові якусь комунну де ліва людина вільна і куди тікає від всіх інших. кажу ж там всю цю шайку неймовірно плавить і тут не знаю потрібні вже спеціалісти. вони наприклад не розуміють що тзв ліві політично люди звичайні люди яки живуть сім'ями а не якась окрема коммуна чи місце. до того ж одержимість лівими з твіттера коли багато хто з лівих тусується на блюскай чи тамблері. задовбала ця ситуація, навіть родина вже накручена. треба вивести їх з іллюзії. ще непокоїть що вони одержимі конкретно мною як зазвичай при сталкінгу буває це лякає. у них іллюзія що у них наді мною овнершип що я їм належу і вони повинні приймати за мене життєві рішення. родина хоче мені відпочинку а не щоб я сиділа і постила про це і це зрозуміломені народжувати я маю ЛЕЖАТИ і нічого не робити. доречі вони вважають що лежати і нічого не робити в лівих гріх та то окрема історія.

Solo | The Unpassing | Part-2 The first death-ray was not a beam from a film. It was a line of concentrated sun, thin as wire, screaming as it came. It kissed the flagstones at Am-Ankh’s feet. Stone ran. Not cracked ran, like wax given a second, hotter life. The fountain’s rim slumped into a bright orange throat. Iron shutters fifty paces off went from solid to white to vapor with a sound like a ripped sheet. Am-Ankh screamed in a language older than the coffin. A fraction of a second had been enough. The stolen youth on the left side of his face blistered down to wrapping, then to black glass. He staggered, and the town shuddered with him. Somewhere a stopped clock tried to tick and failed. “You burn the borrowed,” Am-Ankh hissed. “Burn the man too, Ra. He is only a boxer. I can smell the ring on him.” Raymond came forward the way he had once come forward from a stool. No flourish. Weight on the back foot, then the step that ends arguments. Ra let him. The champion’s body knew distance. The god knew fire. Am-Ankh shed the pretty skin. What stood in the square then was the Duat’s unfinished business: a tall geometry of resin, bone, and hungry script, the heart still sewn inside because no jackal-god had been allowed to weigh it. Sand poured from the ribs and turned to beetles that did not live long in that light. He struck like a collapsing tomb both arms, a wave of vacuum that sucked banners inward and popped the windows in a ring. Raymond took it on the shoulder and went to one knee. Blood came. Then the blood steamed and closed. The scarab ticked. Again, said Ra. The second ray was wider. It caught Am-Ankh across the chest. Linen became smoke. The lead-ghost of the coffin, still clinging to him like a habit, ran off his spine in silver tears and hit the square as hissing beads. He slammed into Raymond anyway priest-strength, chaos-strength, the strength of a thing that had been denied rest and had decided to steal it. They went over a stall. Dried beans scattered and instantly browned to ash where they touched Raymond’s sleeve. Am-Ankh’s hand found Raymond’s throat and began to drink. For one awful second Raymond was only a man again. He saw Nour’s tray. He saw the Riyadh lights. He saw his grandmother’s mouth shaping the word wait. Then Ra took the hands. The third ray did not come from the sky. It came from the scarab, through the sternum, out the palm that closed over the mummy’s wrist. Point-blank. No fraction. A white coin of sun punched through resin and script and the hidden heart together. Am-Ankh tried to speak a name that would unmake kings. The name boiled in his mouth. He broke away, trailing smoke, and fled up the minaret stairs because even chaos understands elevation. Raymond did not chase on foot. Gold tore him the falcon-wings so fast the square only saw a streak. Wings cut the heat. He hit the balcony as a man again and the fourth ray followed his pointing hand like a spear thrown by noon. The minaret’s metal cap vaporized. Brick flushed to slag. Am-Ankh, caught in the open, finally understood the old warning about mercury and lead. They had not been prisons for a body. They had been shade. There is no shade from the Eye when the Eye has decided the account is closed. He leapt. Raymond met him in the air. They struck the square together. Stone became a shallow crater of glass. Am-Ankh’s remaining arm locked around Raymond’s ribs and squeezed with the last of a town’s stolen hours. Raymond’s mouth was at the thing’s ear the champion’s grind, the god’s verdict. “You were kept from the afterlife,” he said. “I am sending you the short way.” The last ray was not aimed. It inhabited him. For a heartbeat Raymond Fayek was a vertical sun. Every metal clasp on the mummy’s wrappings vanished into concentrated sun-beam. The script went white, then absent. Am-Ankh the Unpassing came apart without leaving pieces worth burying. What remained was a smell of hot sand and a clean hole in the air where Isfet had been cheating. Silence. Then Ra did the second half of kingship, the half men forget when they only want fire. Light ran backward through the streets. The woman on the step blinked and frowned at her cold tea. The boy picked up his football, annoyed that it was dusty. In the clinic a nurse checked a pulse that had been gone and found it rude enough to return. No one screamed. No one remembered sitting down to die. The hours Am-Ankh had swallowed were put back like chairs after a gathering. Faces smoothed. Dogs stood. The loudspeaker cleared its throat and finished a call to prayer as if it had only paused for breath. Raymond stood in the glazed crater and watched a town become ordinary again. The warlock’s body, far off in the restricted shaft, was only a warlock’s body. The mercury had already begun to crawl back toward the empty lead, a habit without a purpose. Sector Seven would be resealed. The file would grow another lie. Nour would never hear this part. Raymond’s hands were his own again. They shook once, the way they had after hard fights when the arena lights were too bright. The scarab cooled to the temperature of skin. "Ma’at is not mercy", Ra said, almost mild. "It is return. They will not carry this. You will." Raymond looked at the glass in the square, already dulling as the true sun the one that belonged to the sky and not to a man’s bones took the hour back. “I know,” he said. He bought the nigella bread on the way into Cairo, because an aunt had asked, and because the living still needed supper. Behind his eyes the first king watched the road, and the Eye of Ra, new-made in a banned fighter’s flesh, did not close. The End.

Solo | The Unpassing | Part-1 The Valley of the Kings was not empty. It only pretended to be. Behind the last tourist rope, behind the last painted sign that lied about restoration, there was a shaft the maps did not print. The Ministry called it Restricted Sector Seven when they called it anything. Lead-lined. Sealed in 1923, again in 1954, again after a surveyor vanished in 1991. The official file said unstable ceiling. The older file, written in a priest’s hand and locked in a drawer that smelled of natron, said something else. Do not lift the mercury. Do not name what sits in the lead. If it breathes, the town will forget how to die properly. The warlock did not care about files. He was old in the way paper is old-dry, yellow, convinced that age itself was a kind of spell. He had spent eleven years buying names from men who should have kept silent. On a moonless night he came with three hired backs, a block and tackle, and a hunger that had outlived every god he had tried to wear. They cracked the outer plaster. The shaft exhaled a breath that had been held for three thousand years. At the bottom, in a basin cut from living rock, sat a coffin of lead the color of a dead tooth. It floated in a skin of mercury so still it looked like a mirror that refused faces. The warlock spoke the unbinding in a language that hurt the gums. The mercury crawled away from the lead as if it had been insulted. The lid did not open so much as remember how. What rose from the coffin had been a man once. A lector-priest of a forgotten side-chapel, a man who had bargained with Isfet so that judgment would never find him. Osiris had been denied his due. The scales had never seen his heart. He had been stopped between worlds and pickled in mercury so the Duat could not claim him and the living world could not feed him. His name, when the warlock was foolish enough to finish saying it, was Am-Ankh the Unpassing. The warlock had expected a servant. Am-Ankh put two fingers against the warlock’s mouth and drank the years out of him. The old man folded like wet cloth. His hired men ran. They did not run far. The thing that had been a mummy did not chase. It inhaled. Their running became a stumble, their stumble a kneeling, their kneeling a quiet that left the shaft colder than before. Am-Ankh walked into the night wearing a stolen youth. By dawn a town on the west bank small, ordinary, famous only for a weekly market and a clinic with one ambulance began to fail in a way no doctor could name. People sat down in doorways and did not get up. Fruit wrinkled on the stem. Dogs lay with their eyes open and their ribs still. The mosque loudspeaker crackled and forgot the rest of the call. Children aged a season in an afternoon, then a decade, then went still, as if someone had turned a tap inside them and left it open. Am-Ankh sat in the clinic’s white room and let the town pour into him. Each life made the wrappings under his stolen skin tighter, brighter, more like flesh. Isfet loves a cheat. A soul that will not pass is a hole in Ma’at. The hole was getting larger. Raymond Fayek felt it from Cairo like a bad tooth. He had been buying bread. Nour’s aunt had sent him for the kind with the nigella seeds. The scarab under his shirt went from warm to white. The street tilted. For a second the sun was not overhead. It was inside the bone. Ra did not ask. West, said the first king, and Raymond’s hands were already finding the keys. He reached the town at the hour when shadows should have been long. They were not. Light lay on the streets like a held breath. A woman sat on her step with a bowl of unspilled tea. A boy’s football rested against a gutter, still turning from a kick that had happened an hour ago. No flies. Even the flies had been taken. Raymond stepped out of the car and the heat of him changed. The man was still there — the banned champion, the quiet walker of flower-sellers, the one who had gone up a burning stairwell. Behind the man’s eyes the disk came forward. "I am Ra," this time he did not bother to borrow courtesy. "You have kept a corpse from my brother’s hall and called it life. That ends." Am-Ankh came out of the clinic as if he had been invited. He looked like a man of thirty who had never been hungry. Beautiful, in the way a painted coffin is beautiful. The mouth was wrong. It remembered linen more than lips. “Sun,” Am-Ankh said, almost fond. “They put me in lead and silver water so I would not reach you. A priest of dust has done your work for you. I only want what was stolen. Duration.” “You want the living,” Raymond said. His voice was his own and not. “You want a town instead of a verdict.” Am-Ankh smiled with stolen years. “A verdict is a kind of death. I have declined.” They met in the market square, between a dry fountain and a row of shuttered stalls. Am-Ankh moved first. He did not strike with fists. He pulled. The air between them thinned. Raymond felt his pulse try to leave through the skin. An ordinary heart would have emptied. Raymond’s heart was no longer only a heart. The scarab flared. The pull hit a wall of sun and came back ragged. Then Raymond became the Eye. It was not a costume. Gold unstitched along the tendons of his arms. His shadow on the stones grew a falcon’s head and a disk that did not belong to the hour. When he raised his right hand the sky answered as if it had been waiting for the cue.

RECLAIMING THE FEMININE Daily Astrology Mon 31 Aug The Moon in Aries conjoins Saturn then opposes Venus. It is a day for a fresh look (Aries) at the relative values we place on career (Saturn) and motherhood (Moon). The population is in decline because women are not having enough children. There is a valuing of, and connection to life itself that is the preserve of women. This has gone awry as women feel that career is more important, that it is even a bit shameful to mainly be a mother. That is the negative side of Saturn. But Saturn also contains the answer, because he stands for tradition. What was the relationship between men and women for 95% of human history, before the big civilisations came along? The men generally occupied the public roles and did the dangerous jobs. Women had charge of the home and were the judges of character, and were listened to by the men. Any return to tradition is now seen by many as a reversion to domination of women by men, but that is not how it was. So allow yourself to think in this traditional way, in which men and women lived according to their inherent natures. This is now the fresh vision of Aries. Both genders have lost their way, women for reasons given, and men because they have been told to mistrust masculinity: this consideration sits in today's square from Mars to both the Moon and Saturn. The Moon moves on to oppose Venus. The 2 feminine planets lining up. Venus in Libra has an exquisite sensitivity, love and relatedness. The Moon in Aries wants to claim it as a value that is equally important as the obvious worldly values of Saturn. It will always need claiming, because humanity tends to value what is obvious over what is more subtle and inward.

Scammed! I want to notify everyone of this embarrassing incident. I was scammed by a phone scheme to the tune of $3000 dollars. I received an email from Huntington bank (or so I thought) saying someone tried to charge my debit card $900 dollars. It asked did I make this transaction. I replied no. This came from the legitimate Huntington number. Less that a minute later I got a phone call from a supposed representative of Huntington. It came from the same phone number on the back of my debit card. This person who I assumed was from Huntington informed me that my debit card had been compromised and that I had to take steps to secure it. He walked me through scenarios that would secure my card, knowing the sequence of each page along the way. At first they were legitimate. Then he asked me if I had used that card in any cash sending apps. I told him yes, in Venmo, PayPal, and Cash Ap. He said that all those had been compromised and needed to be secured and to refund transactions made against them. He walked me through steps on each platform, again knowing the sequence of each page on each platform. At first the transactions were denied. He reassured me that that was correct. He told me that I was reversing charges and that the account was a manager from each entity. Eventually the transactions went through. He assured me this was normal. By then I trusted him and went along. He then told me my savings account had been compromised. He advised me to move everything from my savings into my checking as that account had been secured. I foolishly did that, still unaware that I was being scammed. A left the call with an appointment to receive a call from him the next day. He also told me not to access my account as their investigation would be compromised if I did. Later that night I was running this scenario over in my head. I realized it was a scam. I know numbers can be spoofed but the fact that it was coming from the Huntington number had convinced me. I immediately went into my account and moved everything back to my savings which I know can’t be accessed. I also secured my debit card every way I could. There were no reachable after hours numbers at Huntington, PayPal or Venmo. The transactions had not cleared my Huntington account yet. In the morning I contacted Huntington and put a block on one of the transactions from PayPal and alerted them that the two charges from Venmo were illegitimate and they assured me they would dispute these charges. I put in an online dispute to PayPal explaining all the details. Within 2 hours they declined my dispute, saying the transaction was legitimate. I called Venmo and got a rep who was very nice and took down my complaint and assured me the fraud department would look into it. Tonight I got an email that my complaints had been denied and that the transaction was legitimate. I have been a customer of PayPal for at least 15 years and Venmo for at least 10. I have numerous transactions and accounts for them to research to verify my legitimacy. I’m sure the accounts to whom I erroneously sent money had been established recently and are probably gone now. I identified the criminal accounts to them and gave them explicit descriptions of how the fraud occurred. There is no excuse for either company to not ascertain who was legitimate and who was a criminal. And yet they sided with the criminals against me. This not only insults me but encourages the criminals to continue to use these platforms to steal from people. As far as I’m concerned, PayPal and Venmo are accessories to the crime. They provided the means to defraud me and protected the criminals instead of their long-term customer. I’m waiting to hear if Huntington can help me. If not, I’m out $3000. I will never use these companies again and I recommend you don’t either. When the shit hits the fan, they are not on your side.

The original Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag from 2013 remains one of my favorite games of all time. Ever since I was a child, the Golden Age of Piracy was one of my favorite periods of history to learn about. So when murmurings began popping up about a Black Flag remake, I was very intrigued. I had dropped off the series after Unity, having only played about half of Syndicate and Origins, and never touching Odyssey or Valhalla. But the announcement of Black Flag Resynced did inspire me to try Shadows, which I thought was fine but nothing special (I got my money's worth but I got the game on clearance, let's put it that way). Surprise surprise, I still love this game! I 100%'d the original version twice, and now have 100%'d the remake including all achievements. All said and done, I sank about 70 hours into the game. Steam reports 110, but I have an awful habit of letting games idle. Anyway... I enjoy the world, I love the characters and the world building and the ship combat, and this remake does enhance a lot of that. There's more depth to the ship combat, plus an upgrade in difficulty, and a lot of the characters get more to do this time around. Anne Bonnie's stint as quartermaster in the original really only amounted to replacing Adéwalé, but here she actually has things to do. The Assassin's Bureau characters really only existed within the context of their side quests in the original, but in the remake they're actually given things to do in the endgame and it adds to the payoff of having done those missions during the main story. Rhona giving Edward a hug at the end made me smile, and that just didn't exist in the original! It helps sell Edward being accepted into the brotherhood in a way that the 2013 game didn't really fully realize. The combat and stealth additions are welcome changes from the 2013 game too. The combat is still a bit too easy, but back in the 2013 game it was effectively just RPS. And the stealth has crouching! Plus with the overhaul in the combat system, you have more reason to want to play stealthy since getting ganged up by multiple enemies can pose an actual threat now (well, at least until you master the counter system). That said, some of the new content is... questionable. The three new officers are fine, and their stories are inoffensive, but it does make them awkward during their integration in the main story because these "major characters" that are "integral to the story" simply didn't exist in 2013. And the Blackbeard treasure hunt and the Robert Maynard stories are both just bad imo. Edward is sent on a treasure hunt because he happened to read a note addressed to him that happened to be in Blackbeard's hat that happened to address him in the event that Blackbeard died, and the end result of that storyline is... Edward Kenway gets some gardening tools and it shows the origin of the flower from the end scene? Like... okay? And I love 'Ezio's Family', and I'm fine with them utilizing the song in this game but... what the fuck does Blackbeard have to do with Ezio????? That was so out of place. Then with the aforementioned Robert Maynard storyline, the actually story is *okay*, but within the context of when it happens in the story, it doesn't make any sense. I understand wanting to give Anne Bonnie a large quest, but for Edward to keep getting the runaround because he's falling for the promise of gold at a point when his character is supposed to be past the desire for material objects. It was just really out of place. What's good about the original's narrative is intact, and I still do believe this is among the best (if not the single best) narrative in any of these games. And I do think the elaboration of existing characters is well done. But the addition of the new characters and the additional plotlines are mediocre at best and actively detrimental at worst. Oh, and I guess I should mention, the Sage twist simply doesn't work without the modern day segments. But I don't necessarily miss them. So, is Resynced the definitive version of Black Flag? Probably! Is this the perfect way to play Black Flag? Ehh, no. Because with either version, you are going to have compromises. But alas, the game is good.

Hoy hablé con mi amiga sobre el concierto de Karol G en Santa Clara al que ella atendió. Mientras me contaba sobre el concierto y el momento en que salió Karol G, me dijo: “Me puse existada” en vez de “me puse emocionada”. Este fue un gazapo porque mezcló la palabra en inglés excited con el español y creó “existada” sin darse cuenta. Esto me mostró cómo a veces mezclamos los dos idiomas cuando hablamos, especialmente cuando una palabra en inglés nos viene más rápido a la mente. #Cazagazapos102AF26

He Whom Fire Chose Raymond Fayek had not thrown a punch in four years. In another life the world had called him unbeaten. Thirty-one fights. Thirty-one wins. Twenty-four by knockout. A southpaw with a left hook that arrived like a falling pillar and a chin that refused to learn fear. Commentators used words like granite and inevitable. Then one night in Riyadh the inevitable met a man who would not wake up. The punch had been clean. The referee had been slow. The hospital had been quieter than the arena. By morning the opponent’s name was on every headline and Raymond’s belt was already being discussed in the past tense. The commission did not wait for the inquiry to finish. Banned. Indefinitely. The word sat on the paper like a tombstone. He went home. Not to the villas and sponsorship suites. Home. A rented flat in a dusty quarter of Cairo where the call to prayer still climbed the brick and laundry lines stitched the alleys together. His grandmother’s scarab hung under his shirt on a worn leather cord dull green faience, chipped at one wing, warm from his skin. She had pressed it into his palm the week before she died. "The old gods do not retire, ya habibi. They only wait for a body that can carry them." He had smiled then. He did not smile now. He sold flowers some mornings for an old man who could no longer lift the buckets. That was how he met her. Nour was eight. Small for her age, wrists like bird bones, a voice that could cut through traffic. She sold jasmine and cheap roses from a tin tray near the metro steps, shouting prices as if the city owed her a living. The first time Raymond bought a single stem she looked him up and down, noted the thickened brow, the slightly flattened nose, the way he stood like the ground might try something. “You box?” she asked. “Used to.” “You lose?” “No.” She nodded, satisfied, as if that settled a law of the universe. After that she saved him the least-wilted jasmine and charged him extra on purpose. He paid it. Some evenings he walked her two streets toward home until her aunt appeared in a doorway and waved him off. She talked. He listened. She decided he was allowed to be quiet. It was the closest thing he had to peace. Then the cylinder went off. It was not a blast. It was a kitchen. A leaking pipe. A spark. Then the whole block seemed to inhale fire. The sound arrived as a slap against the chest. Glass leapt from frames. A column of black smoke punched the afternoon sky over the next street her street. Raymond was already running before the second explosion folded the air. People poured the other way. He went through them. A man grabbed his arm and shouted that the building was gone. Raymond tore free. Heat hit him at the entrance like an open oven. The stairwell was a throat full of orange. He climbed it anyway. “Nour!” Smoke made the name small. He found her on the second floor, curled behind an overturned table, tray still clutched as if flowers could bargain with fire. Her eyes were wide and dry with shock. He scooped her up. She weighed almost nothing. Her fingers locked in his shirt. “Hold on. Don’t look.” He turned for the stairs. The beam came down without warning a burning timber from the floor above, thick as a man’s thigh, trailing sparks like a comet. It caught him across the shoulders and the back of the neck and drove him to one knee. The world went white, then red. Nour screamed into his chest. The scarab against his sternum flared so hot it should have blistered him. It did not. The fire did not stop. Something inside the fire spoke. "I have watched you refuse the dark." The voice was not in the room. It was the room. It was noon given a throat. It was the first word spoken over water when there was no land yet. "You put the belt down when blood asked you to. You ran toward the child when every other body ran away. You carry my grandmother’s little scarab on your heart and you still think it is only stone." Raymond could not breathe. The beam pinned him. Nour’s hair smelled of jasmine and smoke. "I am Ra. I am the Sun and the falcon and the king who first sat the throne before thrones had names. I do not ask the dying. I choose the living who will not leave a child in the fire." Gold unstitched itself from the scarab. It ran through his blood like molten wire. The pain in his back became light. The light became law. "You will not age. You will not end. This flesh is mine now, Raymond Fayek vessel, avatar, walking noon. I will move through you as heat moves through bronze. And when the world requires the king and not the man, I will take the hands." He rose. The beam slid off him as if it had forgotten weight. Flame recoiled from his skin. In the smoke his shadow on the wall was briefly wrong a man’s shoulders, a falcon’s head, a disk like a second sun. He carried Nour into the street. Paramedics took her. She was coughing, alive, furious that her flowers were gone. She looked back once and frowned, as if the man who had gone in was not exactly the man who had come out. Raymond stood in the ash-light and felt the city the way a falcon feels thermals. Every window was a facet. Every heartbeat on the block was a small drum. The scarab against his chest was no longer warm. It was awake. He was still Raymond Fayek. The quiet man. The banned champion. The one who walked a flower girl home. And underneath that, older than the river, the first king opened his eyes behind Raymond’s eyes and watched the smoke thin toward evening. Ra did not need to shout. The sun had already entered the ring. Raymond became The Eye of Ra

- чому це нормально в лівих? відповідь: Бо в основі лівої думки є дещо глибше, ніж просто «не хочу працювати». Це питання: **для чого взагалі існує економіка і що робить людину цінною?** Ліва ідеологія традиційно більш скептично ставиться до ідеї, що людина повинна постійно продавати свою працю, щоб заслужити право на нормальне життя. Якщо суспільство вже виробляє достатньо ресурсів, то виникає питання: чому людина повинна працювати 40–60 годин на тиждень просто для того, щоб мати житло, їжу й безпеку? Тут особливо важлива феміністична частина. Історично жінки могли не мати оплачуваної роботи, але при цьому виконували величезну кількість домашньої праці. Ліві феміністки звернули увагу на парадокс: суспільство залежить від цієї праці, але називає її «нічогонеробленням», бо за неї не платять. Тому вони й не хочуть автоматично прирівнювати **зарплату до корисності**. А ще ліві зазвичай більше цінують ідею свободи від економічного примусу. Якщо людина може дозволити собі не працювати, це з їхньої перспективи не обов'язково проблема. Навпаки, це може означати, що вона отримала частину того, чого прагне ліва політика: **більше вільного часу і менше примусу працювати заради виживання**. При цьому вони можуть вважати проблемою не те, що дружина не працює, а те, що вона *не має іншого вибору*. Тобто «я добровільно не працюю, бо так влаштоване моє сімейне життя» — зовсім інша ситуація, ніж «я не можу піти від чоловіка, бо без його грошей залишуся без житла». І тому для лівих головне питання часто не «чи працює ця людина?», а **«чи має вона реальну свободу вибирати, як їй жити?»**. - але якщо це мій вибі обговорений з партнером? відповідь: Так — і саме тут твоя позиція цілком може бути сумісною з лівим підходом. Якщо ти **сама обрала** не працювати, а у шлюбі ви домовилися, що партнер забезпечує сім'ю, то з лівої перспективи немає автоматичної проблеми в самому факті, що ти економічно залежиш від партнера. Навіть більше: ліва ідея свободи якраз може підтримувати можливість сказати: «Я не хочу присвячувати своє життя кар'єрі». Емансипація не обов'язково означає, що кожна жінка має стати фінансово самостійною через роботу. Якщо для тебе хороше життя — це сім'я, дім, вагітність, майбутня дитина, творчість, відпочинок або просто життя без постійної гонитви за кар'єрою, то змушувати тебе працювати лише для того, щоб відповідати певному ідеалу «незалежної жінки», теж можна вважати формою примусу. Тут є дуже цікава різниця: «Я не працюю, бо чоловік забороняє мені працювати» — проблема з точки зору свободи. «Я не працюю, бо чоловік хоче, щоб я працювала, але я змушена» — теж проблема. А: **«Ми з чоловіком вирішили, що я не працюю. Мені це подобається, він добровільно бере на себе фінансове забезпечення сім'ї, а я добровільно обираю такий спосіб життя»** — це вже просто один із можливих способів організувати сім'ю. І лівий погляд не зобов'язаний казати тобі: «Ні, ти мусиш знайти роботу, інакше ти недостатньо емансипована». Навпаки, можна поставити питання: **якщо людина справді вільна обирати не працювати — чому ми повинні вважати її вибір менш гідним, ніж вибір працювати 40 годин на тиждень?** Саме в цьому є одна з найцікавіших частин лівої критики культу праці.

Ліва політична ідеологія загалом не вважає, що людина обов’язково повинна працювати за гроші, щоб мати цінність або право на нормальне життя. Особливо це стосується лівого фемінізму, який розрізняє оплачувану працю та неоплачувану працю з підтримки життя. Наприклад, вагітність, догляд за дитиною, домашня робота, приготування їжі, підтримка партнера, організація побуту — усе це належить до того, що називають соціальним відтворенням. Без цієї роботи суспільство й економіка просто не могли б функціонувати, хоча за неї часто не платять. Тому з лівої точки зору фраза «вона не працює» може бути досить оманливою. Людина може не мати роботи та зарплати, але при цьому виконувати важливу роботу вдома. А якщо вона вагітна, то її тіло буквально виконує величезну фізіологічну роботу, навіть якщо ринок праці цього не «бачить». Водночас ліва ідеологія не обов’язково вважає, що кожна жінка повинна працювати, щоб бути незалежною або емансипованою. Емансипація радше означає можливість вибору: працювати, будувати кар’єру, працювати неповний день, займатися дітьми чи взагалі не працювати. Важливий нюанс — економічна залежність. Ліві феміністки зазвичай не засуджують ситуацію, коли один партнер утримує сім’ю, але виступають проти того, щоб жінка була змушена залишатися з чоловіком лише тому, що без нього вона не виживе. Тому позиція «я не хочу працювати, особливо під час вагітності, і в моєму шлюбі ми можемо собі дозволити, щоб я не працювала» цілком сумісна з лівими поглядами. Особливо якщо за цим стоїть ідея, що людська цінність не повинна визначатися зарплатою та продуктивністю.

Poland is no longer the poor country you may think about. Sign up for a free 7-day account; skip the screens that offer a paid subscription and read this. It will surprise you. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/08/21/europe-future-looking-increasingly-polish/?ICID=continue_without_subscribing_reg_first

George Conway warns Trump’s 'delusions' sending GOP 'off the deep end' Conservative commenter and unabashed critic of Donald Trump and his Republican administration, George Conway, seems to be working both ends of the street. But be that as it may, he makes salient points about the cognitive health of the president and the power he holds over those seeking re-election. Trump, and only Trump, controls the purse strings and if the candidates expect financial support they had better learn tor ‘Shuck and Jive’ like Sen. Tim Scott in the senate cloakroom. In his best drooling days, Trump can barely hold on to reality but he can still hold on to a buck. His theory is, “I made the money, I’ll spend it or not spend it as my delusions demand.” There is more but the words are slurred, he keeps nodding off, and his thoughts of Natalie Harp are as greasy a brain plug as the cholesterol encasing his arteries. Nonetheless, expect to see a line of Alm-seeking Republicans outside the White House or volunteering to repair the reflecting pool with dignity firmly up their… See this – boldface mine: George Conway warns Trump’s 'delusions' sending GOP 'off the deep end' Story by Adam Lynch • 4h • 3 min read © provided by AlterNet Republicans are begging President Donald Trump to tap his roughly $400 million MAGA.in PAC money to help them struggle through bruising midterms, but Trump appears in no hurry to invest. But conservative attorney and eternal Trump critic George Conway says Trump’s mental illness, coupled with his greed, will not allow him to invest in his own people. “This is pure Donald Trump,” Conway told the MS NOW’s “The Weekend” panel Saturday morning. “… Trump is the most narcissistic human being we have ever seen in American politics. Full stop. But on the upswing, that helped him because we had a society that is itself narcissistic and was sick of hearing, ‘oh, we have to help these people,’ ‘we have to help those people,’ and ‘we have to help everyone.’ It was kind of like the Janis Joplin song, ‘lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz?’” But the problem, said Conway, is that Trump’s narcissism also works against the party of which he is supposed to be a part. “Trump does not give a (expletive) about anyone other than himself,” Conway continued. “He doesn't care about the Republican Party, certainly doesn't care about those senators on the hill over there he demolished. He doesn't care about people paying more at the gas pumps. He does not care about anybody. And the other thing is because he is the most extreme kind of narcissist that psychologists have ever found — the malignant narcissist, the sociopath and narcissist, combined — he becomes more and more delusional over time because they create their own little world.” People surround Trump, enveloping in a cozy shroud of fluffy lies, said Conway. He has “human printers” who print out things that tell him how great he is, aggravating his delusions. “Like that Mission Accomplished 2026 meme [Trump posted] the other day. Okay, he is delusional. He is actually psychotic, which is a bad thing for a guy with the second largest arsenal of nuclear weapons on the planet. He's gone off the deep end,” said Conway. “… He's the pied piper. Yes, the GOP sees the reckoning, but they're stuck.” For that reason, said Conway, Trump will happily blow the brunt of his PAC money on himself and his own personal ends. “He will spend that money on himself precisely because who is going to tell Donald Trump ‘you're very unpopular. So why don't you stay home and we spend money on something else?’ That kind of person does not last very long,” Conway said. “In fact, there was a story in I think it was Axios, where [Sen.] Ted Cruz [R-Texas) went to the president and said, ‘hey, you know, we're headed for a disaster here.’ And, and Donald Trump's response to him was literally, I'm not going to use this word: F-U.” https://mcdermottm.substack.com/publish/posts/published

George Conway warns Trump’s 'delusions' sending GOP 'off the deep end' Conservative commenter and unabashed critic of Donald Trump and his Republican administration, George Conway, seems to be working both ends of the street. But be that as it may, he makes salient points about the cognitive health of the president and the power he holds over those seeking re-election. Trump, and only Trump, controls the purse strings and if the candidates expect financial support they had better learn tor ‘Shuck and Jive’ like Sen. Tim Scott in the senate cloakroom. In his best drooling days, Trump can barely hold on to reality but he can still hold on to a buck. His theory is, “I made the money, I’ll spend it or not spend it as my delusions demand.” There is more but the words are slurred, he keeps nodding off, and his thoughts of Natalie Harp are as greasy a brain plug as the cholesterol encasing his arteries. Nonetheless, expect to see a line of Alm-seeking Republicans outside the White House or volunteering to repair the reflecting pool with dignity firmly up their… See this – boldface mine: George Conway warns Trump’s 'delusions' sending GOP 'off the deep end' Story by Adam Lynch • 4h • 3 min read © provided by AlterNet Republicans are begging President Donald Trump to tap his roughly $400 million MAGA.in PAC money to help them struggle through bruising midterms, but Trump appears in no hurry to invest. But conservative attorney and eternal Trump critic George Conway says Trump’s mental illness, coupled with his greed, will not allow him to invest in his own people. “This is pure Donald Trump,” Conway told the MS NOW’s “The Weekend” panel Saturday morning. “… Trump is the most narcissistic human being we have ever seen in American politics. Full stop. But on the upswing, that helped him because we had a society that is itself narcissistic and was sick of hearing, ‘oh, we have to help these people,’ ‘we have to help those people,’ and ‘we have to help everyone.’ It was kind of like the Janis Joplin song, ‘lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz?’” But the problem, said Conway, is that Trump’s narcissism also works against the party of which he is supposed to be a part. “Trump does not give a (expletive) about anyone other than himself,” Conway continued. “He doesn't care about the Republican Party, certainly doesn't care about those senators on the hill over there he demolished. He doesn't care about people paying more at the gas pumps. He does not care about anybody. And the other thing is because he is the most extreme kind of narcissist that psychologists have ever found — the malignant narcissist, the sociopath and narcissist, combined — he becomes more and more delusional over time because they create their own little world.” People surround Trump, enveloping in a cozy shroud of fluffy lies, said Conway. He has “human printers” who print out things that tell him how great he is, aggravating his delusions. “Like that Mission Accomplished 2026 meme [Trump posted] the other day. Okay, he is delusional. He is actually psychotic, which is a bad thing for a guy with the second largest arsenal of nuclear weapons on the planet. He's gone off the deep end,” said Conway. “… He's the pied piper. Yes, the GOP sees the reckoning, but they're stuck.” For that reason, said Conway, Trump will happily blow the brunt of his PAC money on himself and his own personal ends. “He will spend that money on himself precisely because who is going to tell Donald Trump ‘you're very unpopular. So why don't you stay home and we spend money on something else?’ That kind of person does not last very long,” Conway said. “In fact, there was a story in I think it was Axios, where [Sen.] Ted Cruz [R-Texas) went to the president and said, ‘hey, you know, we're headed for a disaster here.’ And, and Donald Trump's response to him was literally, I'm not going to use this word: F-U.” https://mcdermottm.substack.com/publish/posts/published

BEGIN IT NOW Daily Astrology Sun 30th Aug After 2 days in Pisces, starting with an Eclipse, the Moon in Aries conjoins Neptune. It is time to activate the dream. If there is something new you have been thinking of doing, now is the time. The cooking has been done. "Ripeness is all." When the Moon conjoins Saturn tomorrow, you will be able to give it form. Be bold. Life is ever renewing. We are here to incarnate, to bring spirit into matter. That is a difficult but also joyful process. It is creativity. As you get older, the life in you becomes richer and more abundant, so this process needs to accelerate rather than gently decline. Neptune reminds us that life is a dream. "Our little life is rounded with a sleep." The dream-like nature becomes more apparent as we age. The world of matter, that seems so real, is a dreaming. The heart is a powerful thing. When you dream from there, it happens. Dreaming is the real cause and effect of events. It's not about the will, but about using the will in the service of what is in the heart. This is also the nature of prayer and magic. We don't really get to decide. Our inspirations are our fate, and we have the free will whether to act on them.

There are so many things about this administration that I despise, but between now and the midterms, I’m going to focus on ONE: the midterm elections. And yes, I said IF we have midterm elections. That is a BIG IF, and I don’t believe we should take our country for granted. We have an enemy within. You know it, and I know it. But if we do get that opportunity, we had better be ready. We need to TAKE BACK BOTH THE HOUSE AND THE SENATE. One is NOT enough. We need to remember what is at stake, and when the time comes, we need to SHOW UP. Because freedom isn't something we get to take for granted. It isn't guaranteed simply because it has always been there. It requires people willing to defend it. People willing to participate. People willing to stand up and say: ENOUGH. So what can you do? Get informed. Talk to your family and friends. Register people to vote. Volunteer. Support candidates who share your values. Donate if you can. If you know elderly or disabled people who need a ride to the polls, help them. And most importantly, SHOW UP AND VOTE. Don’t sit back and assume someone else will do it. The stakes are too high. One chamber is not enough. We need BOTH.

Republicans Propose Bill to Make Non-Citizen Voting Illegal. (You say it is already illegal, well now they’ll make it doubly illegal) Michael McDermott Aug 29, 2026 In a pathetic, desperate attempt to convince anyone the Trump/Republication administration hasn’t been one of abject failure, if not a dismal economic and security catastrophe, an aptly named representative (Jeff Crank) is again attempting to reimplement their failing playbook. Instead of offering legislation to reverse the inflation they have caused, or a policy to end their useless war, or make healthcare affordable again, or reduce unemployment, or ease the cost of housing, or replace the subsidies that once made Medicare affordable to senior citizens, or protect veteran’s benefits, or see to it families will once again be able to afford to put food on the table or gas in their car, or… or…, or, -- they are now offering only fear in place of policy. Remember immigrants eating your pets, schoolchildren being forced into sex change operations while in school and a dozen other stupidities? Now they have another meaningless fear from which they will protect you. That fear, Socialism, or the dreaded Communism, or Marxism (whatever that is). Not only that, but they will also now initiate a law making it illegal for immigrants to vote! Hell, while they are at it, they should also include a law making bank robbery illegal, murder illegal, armed robbery illegal, etc., etc., etc. That all of the above are already illegal doesn’t matter. In order to intimidate and motivate you to vote they need for you to be afraid not to support them. So, MAGA, Liberal, Conservative, Democrat, or Republican, if their total lack of respect for your intelligence doesn’t bother you… One other thing; Not happy with his subtle form of intimidation, this hayseed in his daddy’s suit is outright lying when he tells us the Democrats want to allow non-citizens to vote: they can’t because it’s already against the law! See this [[ Boldface mine: House to vote on resolution denouncing socialism Story by Newsmax Wires • 1h • 2 min read House Republicans plan to force a vote on a resolution condemning socialism when lawmakers return to Washington next week, putting Democrats on record as the GOP seeks to make the issue a focus of the midterm elections. Rep. Jeff Crank, R-Colo., introduced the measure Thursday to “condemn and denounce socialism in all its forms,” specifically naming the Democratic Socialists of America. “Socialism is fundamentally at odds with our values as Americans,” Crank said. “I urge swift consideration of my resolution before the full U.S. House of Representatives, which will show the American people whether their elected officials stand for freedom or for socialism.” The resolution, H.Res. 1490, also reaffirms support for “free, fair, and secure elections,” declares that American elections are for U.S. citizens and calls for passage of the SAVE America Act. According to the resolution, the House would oppose “the implementation of socialist policies in the United States,” recommit itself to upholding the Constitution and call for election safeguards aimed at preventing noncitizens from voting. The measure is scheduled for consideration by the House Rules Committee on Monday, setting up an expected floor vote after Congress reconvenes. It would need a simple majority to pass. The House passed a separate resolution condemning socialism last year, but Crank’s measure specifically singles out the DSA and links the issue to election policy and the SAVE America Act. The vote comes as Republicans seek to make socialism a midterm campaign issue amid gains by DSA-backed and other left-wing candidates in Democratic races around the country. Republicans are expected to emphasize the issue at their Sept. 9-10 midterm convention in Dallas. Crank, a first-term Republican representing Colorado’s 5th Congressional District, has pointed to the DSA’s support for expanding voting rights to noncitizens and incarcerated people as evidence that its agenda extends beyond economic policy. The resolution would give Republicans another opportunity to put Democrats on record over socialism ahead of the November elections. ttps://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/house-to-vote-on-resolution-denouncing-socialism/ar-AA2b7Ubt?

Trumps lies, Republican lies, and the state of the union. The problem with making promises is people come to rely on the outcome you guaranteed. Outcomes like having none of our children die in a useless, unwinnable war with a third-rate nation who makes us look like fools on a daily basis, unaffordable healthcare for our families, unaffordable housing, unaffordable gas, electricity, and gas, rampant inflation, and the end of subsidies that keep Medicare affordable for our seniors. When you combine this with the hatred the rest of the world has developed for America – hatred, where once our greatest allies appreciated and respected for what we did for the world – but now only have contempt because they know they can never again trust us again because at any moment another tyrant might rise who uses the resources of the supposedly most powerful nation in the world, not for peace or goodness, but rather to enrich himself, his family, and members of the Republican congress. Why we believed him in the first place is a bitter mystery. He had a well-earned reputation for being a cheat, a con man, and most of all, a complete failure in business. He bankrupted casinos, for god’s sake! The only thing keeping him afloat was his under the table association with a host of shady organizations with even shadier ties to Putin’s Russian government. These are the people who are asking for your vote in November. Will they suddenly reverse the economic turmoil they released, or will it be more of the same? For more free posts about Trump and the tyranny of the Republican party: https://mcdermottm.substack.com/publish/posts/detail/213137416?referrer=%2Fpublish%2Fhome%3Futm_source%3Dmenu

The Wolf that chews rocks - Russell Jones @russincheshire.bsky.social A book for dog lovers and the dog-curious This book combines a chronicle of the realities of living with a hyperactive dog, and a good dose of the science behind the way dogs act. Dog owners will immediately recognise at least some of the behaviours in their own animals, and you will appreciate the path that lead to that behaviour. I laughed many times - sometimes remembering my own dog, and other times because the text is just so funny. Russell has a delightful way with words and paints wonderful pictures with them. He also draws the beguiling illustrations in the book: you can see the emotions and thought processes in every dog's face!

We’ve done some meetups here and there in the past, they spontaneously happened, but now we’re ramping it up with our Tally Meetup Framework. Here's how our marketing team of 2 runs them: 1. Ask who wants to organize something. We posted in our community Slack and in our newsletter and made a list per city. 2. Pick a co-host per city. We don't have an ambassador program. We just reach out to long-time Tally power users we've been in contact with, ideally Tally friends with their own community or space. Our informal bar: they build real things with Tally, they talk about it online, and they can bring people in. 3. Chat on Slack. We communicate via our community Slack and always have a quick call first to see if there's a match on both sides, before locking anything in. 4. Set a date and keep the program simple. The host shares how they use Tally, and I join (in person or remotely) for a founder AMA about the story behind Tally. ~45 minutes of program, max. The real value is people talking to each other. 5. Create a Luma page with the host as co-host. We announce ~4–6 weeks out, share it on our socials and in our newsletter, and let Luma send their built-in reminders. 6. Overbook on purpose. We aim for 30–40 people in the room, so we allow up to 100 registrations to cover no-shows. 7. Make the space feel like Tally. We pick venues that feel like home, nothing too corporate. We made fun merch and decoration to send along (currently figuring out how to get boxes to the other side of the world in an efficient way). 8. Cover the costs. We pay for the location, drinks, and a photographer (good photos make the recap and give the host something to share too). 9. Close the loop. We always ask for feedback afterwards. We share the photos, and we spotlight the host and their work. Hosting should be a win for them, not a favor to us. 10. Turn it into a checklist. Everything above lives in a Notion task template, so each new city is a copy-paste, not a restart. We learn from every meetup and adjust as we go. As always: quality > quantity. We’re keeping this intentionally small as we’re just getting started.

The Weak Link in Team Handoffs Isn't the Brief — It's the Silence After It The Handoff Gap Nobody Documents Most creative work doesn't fail at the brief stage. It fails in the gap between the brief and the first draft — the stretch where one person's mental image of "upbeat but not corporate" has to survive translation into someone else's hands. Audio is especially bad at this. A marketer can describe a mood in a sentence. A video editor waiting on a track can't act on a sentence. They need something to react to, and until they get it, the project sits. This shows up constantly on small teams: a podcast host wants a new intro theme, a product team needs a demo soundtrack that won't distract from a voiceover, a campaign needs three variations of the same jingle for different regions. The brief gets written once. Then it gets re-explained on a call, re-explained again in Slack when the first draft misses the mark, and by the third round nobody remembers what "not corporate" meant in the original note. Turning a Brief Into Something Playable The fix isn't a better brief template — it's shortening the distance between writing the brief and hearing something. When the person who understands the intent can generate a rough version themselves, before it ever reaches a specialist or contractor, the handoff changes shape. Instead of passing along words, they pass along a draft plus notes on what to adjust. This is the kind of gap tools like MiniMax Music 3.0 are built to sit in. According to the product page, it takes prompts and lyrics and produces complete songs or instrumentals with vocals and arrangement, rather than requiring a finished creative brief translated by a third party. That doesn't remove the need for a producer or editor later — it means the first draft exists earlier, closer to the person who actually knows what "not corporate" is supposed to sound like. A Podcast Intro That Almost Missed a Deadline Consider a two-person podcast team: one person hosts and writes, the other edits and publishes. The host wants a new 15-second intro tied to a rebrand, with a lyric line referencing the show's name. In the old flow, the host writes a description, sends it to a freelance composer, waits two days for a draft, then spends another day explaining why the tempo feels off. The deadline is the launch date of the rebrand, and the timeline barely survives one round of revisions, let alone two. In a revised flow, the host drafts the lyric line themselves and generates a rough instrumental-plus-vocal version as a reference — not a final asset, but something concrete. That draft goes to the editor with a note: "tempo and lyric hook are close, vocal tone should be warmer." The editor now has something to compare against instead of a paragraph to interpret. If the team still wants a composer for the final polished version, that composer receives a working reference instead of a blank brief, which cuts the first round of back-and-forth almost entirely. What to Verify Before You Pass It Forward A draft is only useful in a handoff if the receiving person can trust what they're looking at. Before sending a generated draft along, it's worth checking a few things rather than assuming it's ready: - Does the lyric timing actually match where it needs to land in the video or episode, or does it need to be trimmed? - Does the vocal tone match the brand or host's voice, or does it read as generic? - Is the arrangement dense enough to sit under narration, or does it compete with dialogue? - Is it clearly labeled as a draft or reference, not something that could accidentally ship as final? - Are there any usage or rights questions that need to be resolved before the track moves past internal review? Skipping this step is where teams lose the benefit of a faster first draft — the draft gets treated as finished because it exists, and the review step that used to happen naturally (because a human composer delivered it slowly) disappears along with the delay. Closing the Loop The real value in a faster draft isn't speed for its own sake. It's that the person with the original intent gets to correct misunderstandings before anyone else spends time on them. A written brief hides ambiguity; a rough draft exposes it immediately, which is exactly what a good handoff needs. For teams evaluating whether an AI-assisted first draft belongs in their audio workflow, MiniMax Music 3.0 — https://minimaxmusic3.net/ is worth trying on a low-stakes piece first — an internal demo track or a placeholder intro — before deciding where it fits between the brief and the final produced version.

This is a message for the 108 million people who didn’t vote in the 2026 Presidential election. I understand the feeling of what does it matter? I believe you can see by now that it did. Look at all of the chaos that has been going on since the dicktater took office. ICE patrolling our neighborhoods, murdering citizens without redress, a pseudo-war with Iran, killing fishermen in Venezuela, a Congress and Supreme Court as lackeys of the “President”, talk show hosts as cabinet members, gasoline and food prices out of control, millions of data stolen by DOGE, the Epstein Files cover-up, inflation out of control. I could go on and on, but you know these things to be true. As Americans, we cannot let this go on. We need you to stand with the country this November and help put an end to it all. It’s not just our country that needs you to vote them all out of office; it affects the whole world. After decades of having allies when we needed them, now we have none, unless you count Russia and North Korea as allies. Ukraine is a shining example of how hard they are willing to fight to keep their freedom. Can we not do the same this November? Do you really think your vote is useless? It isn’t. I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican. It’s, unfortunately, the only choice we might have. I don’t believe in polls, very little in social media posts, and I know that most politicians lie. However. I believe if you don’t vote this November to help gain the House and the Senate, America, as I knew it, is finished. If you happen to be a Maga reading this, hope you will think about it also.

Today in history: 82 years ago today, Paris was liberated from the Nazi occupation. Such a simple sentence, and yet such a complexity of events leading up to it. On August 15, the Free Forces of the Interior (FFI), the largest of the Resistance groups in occupied France (and largely led by Communists, a fact that is not irrelevant) declared an uprising against the Germans. Up went the barricades (a Paris tradition), out came the weapons (Frederic Joliot-Curie, a Resistance member, used his chemistry knowledge to create self-igniting Molotov cocktails that didn’t require a wick), and the fight began, while Resistance radio operators sent pleas to the Allies for reinforcements. Eisenhower and his staff had no plans involving Paris - they had Patton’s Third Army rolling for the Rhine and that was the plan. And such was Ike’s response to Charles de Gaulle when told of the Paris uprising. De Gaulle didn’t like that much. 1) the Allies were talking about Paris as though it was Just Another City. 2) He knew (as most of the Allies did) that Hitler had given orders for the destruction of Paris in the event it looked like the Allies were taking it back. 3) He didn’t want the Commies in the FFI to get the credit for liberating Paris. 4) Nor did he want the Americans or British to get said credit. So De Gaulle went and had a chat with Philippe de Clerc, the commander of the 2nd French Armored Division attached to the American Army. De Clerc had a word with his subordinates, and they spent the next three days scrounging all the ammunition and gasoline they could get their hands on - and the morning of August 20, they detached themselves from the American army and headed for Paris. After some pungent language at SHAEF headquarters (and more pungent language at Third Army headquarters - Patton was *not* happy at this diversion of his supplies), Eisenhower ordered the US 9th Infantry Division to follow the 2nd French Armored and give them support. So, the Resistance is engaged in street fighting inside Paris. Two divisions of Allied troops are approaching Paris. Hitler gives the order for the destruction of Paris... and the commander of the German forces in Paris, General der Infanterie Dietrich von Choltitz, ignores that order. The 2nd French Armored Division reached the outskirts of Paris on the morning of August 24th and basically, without any real plan, headed straight for the Hôtel de Ville (City Hall). While taking massive casualties (they lost 36 tanks in the assault on Paris, the largest number lost by any single division in any battle), by nightfall they had captured the Hôtel de Ville. As the 9th Infantry Division filtered into the city, von Choltitz declared a cease-fire, and on the morning of the 25th, he surrendered the city to the French. (And then followed one of the more shameful episodes of the war, in my opinion. A victory parade was held down the Champs-Elysee, with the troops being showered with flowers by the grateful citizens of Paris. Except most of the troops in the parade were Americans and Brits wearing French uniforms. Why? Because with France being occupied, the Free French Army was mostly composed of troops from the French colonies in Africa. Which meant they were black. And since the US Army was still segregated, with African-Americans relegated to support roles and not allowed in combat, Eisenhower basically went to de Gaulle and said “you owe me” for diverting troops to the liberation of Paris, and convinced him that showing black soldiers involved in the liberation of Paris might cause resentment in the American ranks, not to mention wouldn’t play well in the newsreels back in the USA. So the bulk of the Free French Army got cheated out of their parade, and Allied troops who hadn’t even been involved got a parade, all so the parade would be lily-white for the benefit of the cameras. 😡)

a few days after the change the problem of hunger keeps getting more prominent. he quickly realized after the first day that a lot of regular food has become unpalatable to him- the more delicate digestive system of an obligate carnivore makes processing tougher vegetables more stomach-upsetting and there's only so many hot dogs in a day he can stand to eat. beyond that even if things taste the same as they did before it kind of feels like there's something missing, like when a dish is in need of a spice but you can't place which would complete it. so he's maybe not eating as much as he should, especially after the energy-intensive activity that is "your entire body morphing into a big bug's over the course of a minute or two" still going to work, obvs, and it's frustrating re-learning to type by inefficiently pecking at individual keys with his delicate little bug hands at the far ends of his forelimbs. but he's still, slowly, taking care of his usual batch of paperwork and emails in his office. and he keeps getting distracted. firstly by hunger- and the bizarre sensation of it being felt in his abdomen vice his torso- and secondly by his new sensory systems making the scuttler infestation in the plant about 1000% more annoying. his antennae keep twitching and he can sense all their little legs skittering around between the walls and outside his office and it's SO DISTRACTING and he's just getting more and more frustrated at being unable to focus on his work until finally one of the big stupid bugs crawls out from the wall across the floor of the office behind him and without thinking he swivels around, snatches it, and crushes it between the sharp spines on his forelimbs. and he stands there for a few moments realizing what happened before pointedly dumping the thing in the trash and avoiding the urge to clean the bug's body fluids off of his forelimbs with his mouth, and washes off in the bathroom. killing the thing did make him feel just a bit better, though, and after another few hours of getting nothing done he decides, fine, fuck it, he might as well try to deal with the scuttler problem while he has a good solution for it, try and put a positive spin on the situation since getting actual exterminators for the place has been fruitless. so he starts hunting the things down. they're not hard to catch, having become accustomed to avoiding far less effective human attacks vice a predator purpose-built for hunting down bugs. he's pointedly ignoring the overwhelming twinge in his gut when he crushes the wriggling bugs between his arms and focusing on the slight satisfaction of following at least some of his new instincts instead. isopods have this neat cute way of raising their young where they carry around the developing eggs and newly-hatched young like a marsupial, in a pouch on the underbelly. and peter becomes INTIMATELY aware of this fact when he grabs a scuttler by the flooded old break room and a slew of underdeveloped baby scuttlers fall out of it onto the floor. he reacts like one usually would, with revulsion at all the little skittering things spreading out and trying to get away, but the persistent hunger and the predator instincts in his brain at seeing fleeing, soft, bite-size, prey with their chitin yet to harden and it's not like there's anyone around to see and it finally gets the better of him and he skewers one on the pointed edge of his "hand"/tibia and lifts it. and new mobile palp-like parts around his eating slot that he hadn't even realized had developed bring it into his mouth and he lets himself finally eat enough of the things to actually feel full for the first time in days and absolutely no one else can find out about this, except for caroline who has a BIG laugh at him about it that evening. and perhaps finally there starts to be a sizeable dent in the plant's pest population

“ The Trump EPA has proposed a new rule that would kill the requirement for datacenters to publicly disclose the air pollution they release, letting emission permits get issued behind closed doors instead. Datacenters are often sources of nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide and heavy metals, and while the Clean Air Act currently requires “minor” polluters to disclose expected pollution levels to the public through state agencies, the new rule would make that disclosure voluntary and left to state and local officials’ discretion. Former EPA air office official Joe Goffman said the move guts what he called an “ironclad promise” of public transparency, warning most states, many of which actively court datacenter investment, are unlikely to require disclosure voluntarily, leaving communities in the dark about what they’re breathing and weaker in court or public fights. Big tech companies already split datacenter permit requests into individual pieces per generator or turbine specifically to stay under the less scrutinized “minor” review process rather than face costlier federal review, and advocates say this rule would strip away the last real transparency in that already legally shaky practice. The EPA says the change is meant to cut red tape and speed up permitting to support “American economic development and energy dominance,” but critics including a former deputy director of the EPA’s air quality office call it part of a broader pattern of the administration abandoning transparency as a core EPA principle.”. Via Aaron Parnas, this AM

“ Newly leaked details show Trump ignored direct warnings before launching the Iran war. In a February Oval Office meeting, Tulsi Gabbard warned that striking Iran risked closing the Strait of Hormuz, triggering energy chaos, and installing an even more hardline successor to Khamenei, while military leaders separately warned about heavy casualties and depleted munitions stockpiles. Trump launched the attack alongside Israel on February 28 anyway, and Mar-a-Lago reportedly erupted in celebration when Khamenei’s killing was confirmed. Since then, Gulf nations and even some Republicans have pushed Trump to end the war, and sources say he’s privately furious, asking allies “why isn’t Iran folding” and at one point suggesting they should “bomb the s--t out of Iran” before a friend talked him down. White House spokesperson Olivia Wales is still defending the war as a success despite the fallout now playing out in real time.” Via Aaron Parnas, today

“ Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s string of firings and feuds has left the Army without a chief of staff since he dismissed Gen. Randy George without explanation in April, and there is no sign a replacement is imminent; officials say Hegseth has also forced out at least three other senior officers viewed as potential successors. As recently as January 2025, the Army had 10 four star generals on active duty; it now has just five, the fewest in decades, with key posts like the Transformation and Training Command sitting empty for months after Hegseth fired Gen. David M. Hodne without explanation. Army Secretary Daniel P. Driscoll, once seen as a possible Hegseth successor, is also expected to leave in the coming months and is reportedly barely on speaking terms with Hegseth, even as the peace effort he was leading on Ukraine has stalled. Critics, including Rep. Pat Ryan, a Democrat and former Army intelligence officer, warn that purging battle tested leaders makes troops less safe and erodes the military’s apolitical character, while the Army’s official statement insists its leaders remain focused on readiness and modernization.” via Aaron Parnas today

Trump allows Iranian hackers to attack our infrastructure at will. Republican blundering putting the entire country in peril and the simply don’t know what to do about. The blithering fools in the Trump administration never once considered what every other government on earth knew; if you messed with Iran they, with little or no effort, would shut down the Strait of Hormuz and disrupt the entire supply of oil worldwide. Typical bullies, because they thought they had military strength, thought they could dictate to third-world countries but soon found their sorry asses getting kicked to the sandy beaches in the Gulf. Bumbling and stumbling like drunks on New Years Eve they lie, and lie, and lie, saying they are winning the war while our economy falters and citizens have difficulty simply putting food on the table. Your government -- the Republicans and Trump -- are doing more harm to our country than North Korea, China, and Russia, combined. And this is only the beginning of Iran’s complete control over America. They don’t need airplanes, warships, missiles and bombs to display their complete superiority over us; a handful of hackers in a desert shack is all they need to dominate us. They have shown the ease with which they can shut down some of our water systems just last week. This week they did the same with some of England’s electrical supply. And here comes the saddest part of all this gross incompetence. We once had a small army of experts who monitored our computer systems – protected them from harm, and Trump fired them – all 1000 so he could use their salaries to replace the money lost on tax breaks for his friends and family. Such is the state of our country today, practically groveling before our enemies. The Republicans are again lying through their teeth again, trying to convince you to give them another chance with your vote. Will you wait to decide, risking Iran and her proxies will next shut down our entire defense network in the interim? See this – boldface mine: Iran-linked hackers suspected in UK power-plant shutdown after alleged Minnesota water attack Story by Morgan Phillips • 4h • 3 min read Iran-linked hackers are suspected of forcing a small British power generator offline for four days last month, the latest sign that Tehran-linked cyber activity may be moving from probing vulnerable systems to causing disruptions U.S. officials have long warned about. Iran-linked hackers were behind the outage, according to British security officials who spoke with multiple news outlets. "To be clear: there was no threat to the wider grid and nobody lost power. We have one of the most resilient energy systems in the world," UK Energy Minister Michael Shanks said in a statement. He described the generator as "tiny" but said his department had briefed CEOs following the intrusion on "steps they should take to stay secure." The British shutdown came weeks after hackers struck more than 30 community water systems in Minnesota, accessing technology used to remotely monitor and control pumps and other equipment. Minnesota officials have not publicly attributed the attacks. Several news outlets, citing U.S. officials and a leaked industry threat-sharing memo, reported that Iran was the likely culprit. President Donald Trump has publicly rejected that assessment, saying he did not believe Iran was to blame. Together, the incidents are putting civilian infrastructure at the center of another front in the conflict between the U.S. and Iran. As the military confrontation stretches into its sixth month, relatively small and often lightly defended water and energy facilities offer hackers a way to cause physical disruption without penetrating a major power grid or striking a military target. Those facilities can be especially vulnerable because many rely on internet-connected industrial control systems that allow operators to monitor and manage physical equipment remotely. Once inside, hackers can interrupt operations, lock out operators or manipulate controls for pumps and other machinery. In a July alert, the FBI and Environmental Protection Agency said malicious actors had targeted water and wastewater utilities in at least seven states by accessing exposed programmable logic controllers and changing their internet addresses and passwords. Some incidents disrupted water operations, causing reported pressure loss and flooding. Federal agencies have also warned that Iranian-affiliated actors have targeted similar industrial devices across water, energy and government sectors, seeking access to the software used to control them. That activity has already caused operational disruptions and financial losses. Iranian hackers have pursued U.S. infrastructure before. The threat extends beyond industrial systems. On Aug. 18, the Justice Department charged 17 members of an Iran-based company with carrying out a sweeping cyber theft campaign targeting hundreds of universities, private companies and government agencies. Prosecutors said many of the intrusions were conducted on behalf of the IRGC and other Iranian entities and resulted in the theft of more than 31 terabytes of academic data and intellectual property. In 2016, the Justice Department charged an Iranian hacker with gaining access to the control system for a dam in Rye, New York. The dam’s sluice gate had been disconnected for maintenance at the time, preventing him from manipulating water levels and flow rates. More recently, U.S. agencies linked an IRGC-affiliated campaign known as CyberAv3ngers to compromises of Israeli-made industrial controllers at dozens of U.S. facilities in late 2023 and early 2024, including water and wastewater systems, energy companies, food manufacturers and health care organizations. The campaign exploited devices exposed to the public internet that were still using default passwords. The more recent attacks underscore how little access may be required to produce a physical effect. In Minnesota, compromised controllers affected systems used to track water levels, pressure, pump operations and equipment alarms; in some communities, equipment was temporarily taken offline while operators restored systems. Whether Tehran intends a wider campaign against Western infrastructure remains unclear. But the four-day shutdown in Britain illustrates what hackers can do once they gain access to a small industrial system: disrupt physical operations without breaching a major grid operator or triggering a blackout large enough to invite an immediate military response. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/iran-linked-hackers-suspected-in-uk-power-plant-shutdown-after-alleged-minnesota-water-attack/ar-AA2aPIv1? For more free articles about the Tyranny of the Trump/republican administration: https://mcdermottm.substack.com/publish/posts