Dolores [love/loves]

depleted uranium is a radioactive carcinogen, and linked to substantial increases in birth defects and cancer in Iraq

more concerned about DU slicing through the dna of ukrainian children for years after the war like in Iraq

Putin wanted to join without waiting in queue with “insignificant countries”

this is the dumbest excuse ever trotted out in explanation for why Russia wasn’t allowed to join. because the largest military and nuclear arsenal in europe should for some reason wait in a “line” in joining an allegedly defensive alliance, when they’d be the greatest possible contribution to common defense? why on earth would there be a “line” to enter an alliance in the first place? surely they had more than a single clerk doing nations’ paperwork to join?

wdym my lackey i snatched off the street a month ago & paid a US mercenary 40k to train hasn’t been transformed into the Ubermench by the magic powers of NATO doctrine???

ewwwwwww cars

its only a 3% increase over last year and also increases the share of it being electric. its better than it could be i suppose

im just wondering what the fuck Texas, a state, is doing with its personnel regulating an international border. US states have no rights to regulate borders with other US states, much less the international one

unironically the dust bowl was the result of the genocide of native peoples & homesteading policies, not natural processes.

but these were over the duration of several decades, not a single presidential administration.

europeans insisting they’re independent countries but they need Uncle Sam’s permission to send their own military hardware anywhere 🤔

obviously with the support and assent of the US, but it is a funny counterfactual if the US posturing had actually been to politically pressure the end of Nordstream & it actually fucked up the plan when rogue ukrainians blew it up

even under capitalism, this is ridiculous. it’s not perishable, keep it around for a price resurgence, use old stock to fill out shelves while drawing down production.

lets not forget that that the Sino-Soviet split did benefit the PRC vis-a-vis the USSR. imperialist pressure against the USSR never decreased, but the pressure against China decreased (till recently), and could arguably be replaced with ‘support’ from the west at certain times. a state that is not under siege is simply more functional and more adaptable than one suspecting sabotage from every corner.

what are these kyrgyz up to???

you could also say the folding of the ukrainian foreign legion into the territorial defense forces formally makes them not mercenaries with an equal legal footing. either we stringently follow the geneva conventions and there are no mercenaries on either side, or we call a spade a spade

the guy who killed him is also a mercenary. and poles live in ukraine, there are lawful combatants from the polish citizens of ukraine.

e: the article says “volunteer” but that still seems like something that would need a trial to determine whether they lacked protections before a summary execution. that should apply to any participants from neighboring countries’ ethnicities

years ago on an obscure history forum, on page 69 of furious debate about women warriors in the past, this one dude shared a personal anecdote about living in China as a foreigner and how much literally stronger he thought they were compared to westerners, how they had more independence and dignity and it corresponded to actual physical strength. i think about that a lot, and i think it also should be said about Soviet women (remember the cold-war stereotype of husky muscular soviet women?)

writing absolutely encourages past ideas, when people have access to those old ideas written down, or advocate them through writing.

and is the transformation of this ritual not a sign of encouraging ideas of the present? a female mayor, the ceasing of the heating of the coins, the lack of noble participation, couldn’t i argue that this festival has been ‘reclaimed’ and embraces democratic values now?

the idea of the nobles

it clearly isn’t, the elected mayor and citizens are distributing the coins

The idea of money

no-one’s eliminated that one yet, you’ll need to be a bit more patient on expecting people to not put cultural purchase on the medium for modern life, even in AES

We shouldn’t do things that started as a nobel activity

turn over your keyboard comrade. writing was invented for the noble class’ record-keeping and taxes. <—specious but i want to illustrate why we need to exercise restraint on stuff like this, especially before it gets to points like ‘urbanism and intellectualism are bourgeois’

what materially does hot pennies reinforce? are the people throwing pennies nobles? are the people catching them doing so to avoid starvation? what is being normalized that is so offensive to our sensibilities here?

i don’t think it’d take very long at all for us to single out something you like & engage in with problematic origins. everyone’s all for complete cultural revolution until someone correctly associates something useful, harmless, or personally fond of with the bourgeois/feudal culture.

a lot can and should be critically examined, reinterpreted, and rejected, but this is a democratic process. the greatest argument for hot pennies is the voluntary perpetuation and participation in the event.

I also was very clear that I don’t believe in criminalizing the people on-camera in porn so I’m not sure why you’re saying the things you are

you just believe in continuing criminalization of any way for that performance to make them money? that’s why people do it, when only the johns are ‘illegal’ sexwork still has to be clandestine and outside public scrutiny & protections

I would suspect they want less oversight of human trafficking

what oversight do they have now and how is it improved by dragging people to court for visiting pornhub? seriously we’re talking about the trafficking capital of the world (maybe in competition with libya) and you’re worried that being less litigious toward the most widely accepted & least dangerous form of sexwork is going to hamstring the very effective ukrainian police’s efforts against trafficking, if such a thing even exists at all