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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
To go tangental, yesterday I had a customer come in with a MAGA hat and a Guy Fawks mask. There has to be some sort of irony in there.
"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."Except Catholics were regularly murdered under Protestant England and actually subject to religious discrimination.
I remember doing some research and asking, "Wait, Elizabeth murdered more Catholics than Bloody Mary did Protestants. Why does the latter have a worse reputation?"
"Because the Protestants won."
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Sep 11th 2020 at 4:33:16 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.Of course. Doesn't change the fact that Fawkes was also a religious terrorist.
Just about every major player involved in the wars of the Reformation was pretty damn rotten.
Damn. Vibes to everyone affected.
Edited by Ramidel on Sep 11th 2020 at 3:39:49 AM
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Genuinely concerned for them and the state right now. (and thinking of all the poor animals that got caught up in the raging flames... unable to get away in time.)
How on earth is one supposed to even put out a fire of that size?
At this point, it appears that only an "act of God" would be able to do the trick...
Ooh, just saw something interesting in the Maine Senate race - Lisa Savage, the Green/Independent candidate is encouraging people to put Sara Gideon as their second choice and herself as the first (Maine has RCV), saying that it's important to get rid of Susan Collins
Everyone knows it's time to retire Susan Collins. Not everyone knows that Mainers passed #RankedChoiceVoting so we can vote to replace Collins with a progressive independent & still rank a safe choice #2.
Detroit Free Press:
Essential workers to get free community college under new Gov. Whitmer plan
About 625,000 essential workers in Michigan who put in time during the height of the COVID-19 lockdown and don't have a degree are eligible for free college under a plan detailed Thursday by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
Futures for Frontliners, inspired by the G.I. Bill that provided college education to those serving their country in WWII, was initially announced by Whitmer in April. The governor provided more detail Thursday. The free college is currently limited to community colleges.
The plan isn't limited to those in medical fields. It also covers people who worked in places such as manufacturing, nursing homes, grocery stores, sanitation, delivery, retail and more.
"This initiative is Michigan's way of expressing gratitude to essential workers for protecting public health and keeping our state running," Whitmer said in a statement prior to a news conference. "Whether it was stocking shelves, delivering supplies, picking up trash, manufacturing PPE or providing medical care, you were there for us. Now this is your chance to pursue the degree or training you've been dreaming about to help you and your own family succeed."
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That's terrible - hoping everyone has evacuated to safety.
Edited by nova92 on Sep 11th 2020 at 4:48:44 AM
So I'm going to be an edgelord and say I flat out loathe 9/11. Especially this year of all years.
Like I don't know how anyone not question the sincerity of the "Never Forget" people while they ignore that 200,000 Americans died due to a virus that the country did not prepare for. And there were some days where the death toll was 3,000.
Oh and you know... doing jackshit about white terrorism.
Biden campaign to suspend TV ads on 9/11 anniversary
What they're saying: "On September 11th, Vice President Biden will commemorate the anniversary of the attack on our country and will honor the incredible bravery, tragedy, and loss we experienced on that day," Michael Gwin, deputy rapid response director for Biden for President, said per The Hill.
President Trump's campaign has not responded to a similar request for comment.
Why it matters: The Biden campaign's decision follows the tradition of presidential candidates suspending ads and refraining from attending political events on the anniversary of the attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 Americans on U.S. soil.
The leaders of 9/11 Day, a nonprofit, and other organizations sent a letter to Biden and Trump in late August asking the campaigns to “suspend political advertising, as well as campaign- or partisan-related appearances and social and traditional media activities on September 11, 2020, in favor of nonpartisan expressions of service, remembrance, unity and prayer," Politico reported
.
What to watch: Both Biden and Trump are expected to attended a ceremony at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Pennsylvania, per the AP
.
Edited by sgamer82 on Sep 11th 2020 at 6:50:24 AM
Because if it doesn't happen in America, it's not worth spending a single thought on.
Someone did tell me life was going to be this way.Four days now. The clock is ticking. Probably no deal by then.
Also note that no one else in the free world seems to be banning Tik Tok. Apparently those "security risks" are not all that pressing.
Hope shines brightest in the darkest timesAt the very least, I wouldn't blame New Yorkers for making a big deal out of it. Especially if they lost friends or family on that day.
My aunt's not a New Yorker anymore and moved to California long before 9-11 happened, but she still had friends there. One of her old friends actually did die that day.
Edited by M84 on Sep 11th 2020 at 10:44:35 PM
Disgusted, but not surprisedForeign Policy: Biden Has a Serious Credibility Problem in Asia
- To a degree that will surprise many in Washington, the United States' friends in the region are quietly anxious about a Biden victory, and that counts even more for vital partners such as Japan and India. In the United States, Trump's critics on both the left and right find him offensive and despair of his politics - and assume that any right-minded foreigner would, too. That may be the case in much of Europe, but not so in much of Asia: Officials in Tokyo, Taipei, New Delhi, Singapore, and other capitals have grown relatively comfortable with Trump and his tough approach on China. The prospect of a Biden presidency, by contrast, brings back uncomfortable memories of an Obama era that many Asian movers and shakers recall as unfocused and soft toward Beijing. Whether or not that memory is correct is beside the point. Biden has an Asian credibility problem-and one that may prove tricky to solve.
- In his speech at the Democratic convention, Biden described four priorities for his administration, including tackling COVID-19 and promoting racial justice. Managing China, a vital concern among Asian foreign policy elites, did not make the list. This kind of omission gets noticed in Tokyo, for instance, where Japan's views on Trump were nicely encapsulated in an April article in the American Interest. The essay, "The Virtues of a Confrontational China Strategy", was written by an anonymous Japanese foreign ministry official and was scathing about an Obama-era China policy, whose "priority mission was always to engage China," not compete with it. Trump's policies were imperfect, the author argued, but his more robust approach to Beijing was welcome. "Do we want, if possible, to go back to the world before Trump?" the Japanese official asked. "For many decision-makers in Tokyo, the answer is probably no, because having a poorly implemented but fundamentally correct strategy [under Trump] is better than having a well-implemented but ambiguous strategy [under Obama]."
- A similar line of thinking lurks beneath the surface in New Delhi. Speaking last year, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, India's cerebral External Affairs Minister, pushed back against those who thought Trump had damaged ties with India. "What I have seen with Trump in the last two or three years was not at all the traditional American system," he said. "You actually got big bold decisive steps in a range of areas." As it grapples with rapidly deteriorating Sino-Indian ties, New Delhi is increasingly likely to value Trump's chaotic but forceful anti-Chinese policies. At the very least, Biden's arrival could complicate India's strategic position, as foreign affairs commentator Raja Mohan argued recently when he predicted that Biden would be less confrontational with China while ending Trump's lenient approach to Russia. "New strains in the US-Russia relations and a Sino-US rapprochement under Biden will certainly complicate India's great power relations," he wrote.
- Similar worries are found in Taiwan, where foreign affairs officials are understandably sensitive to changes in U.S. China policy, and where the recent visit of U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar underlined deepening ties with Washington. "Taiwan has benefited during Trump's first term," said Chieh-Ting Yeh, vice chairman of the Global Taiwan Institute, a Washington-based policy group. Speaking for many in Taiwan, he backed "the current course over untested campaign promises."
- On the other hand, Biden has by now articulated a far tougher China policy than Obama ever did. He called Chinese President Xi Jinping a "thug" in one Democratic presidential debate earlier this year. In another, he painted China as "an authoritarian dictatorship." Like most U.S. political leaders, he has long given up on the idea that China can be reformed, arguing instead that the United States must out-compete its Asian rival. His campaign has sent more subtle signals to Asian audiences too, not least by reaching out to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and hinting that Biden would make a point of attending regional meetings that Trump so often skipped. "ASEAN is essential to tackling major challenges like climate change and global health," Anthony Blinken, one of Biden's senior advisors, recently wrote on Twitter. "President Biden will show up and engage ASEAN on critical issues."
- Then there is a problem of conflicting priorities, most obviously over climate change. "The United States does need to get tough with China," Biden wrote recently. "The most effective way to meet that challenge is to build a united front of U.S. allies and partners to confront China's abusive behaviors and human rights violations, even as we seek to cooperate with Beijing on issues where our interests converge, such as climate change." Given his alarming lack of interest in climate issues, this tension never troubled Trump. Biden cannot wish it away, and is under immense pressure to make progress from within his own party. Any hope of doing so, however, requires engagement with China as the world's largest carbon emitter. For critics like Kausikan, it is precisely this rebalancing of issues that suggests Biden could return to what they view as Obama's mushy mix of priorities.

Reagan, maybe?