[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Today is Indigenous Peoples' Day in the US (I was going to say 'formerly Columbus Day', but on the federal level---and in Pennsylvania---it's still Columbus Day;

Quote

Last year, [...] Biden declared proclamations for both Columbus Day and Indigenous People's Day. [Joe, that is---not Hunter...]

Why the second Monday in October is a source of controversy (wsls.com)

And TIL:

Quote

arguing that Native peoples who died from disease during the early colonization of the Americas was inevitable and therefore not a result of colonial violence is an old, tired narrative that more and more scholars are disproving—but it's a falsehood still replicated on numerous Wikipedia pages.

Wikipedia is not a reliable source for Indigenous history. (slate.com)

Quote

Until recently, histories of disease and Native Americans have emphasized "virgin-soil epidemics." According to this theory, [...] when Europeans arrived in the Western Hemisphere, they brought diseases (particularly measles and smallpox) that indigenous people had never experienced. [...]

New research, however, provides a much more complicated picture of disease in American Indian history. [...] virgin-soil epidemics were not as common as previously believed [...] diseases repeatedly attacked Native communities in the decades and centuries after Europeans first arrived. Post-contact diseases were crippling not so much because indigenous people lacked immunity, but because the conditions created by European and U.S. colonialism made Native communities vulnerable. [...] the new scholarship provides a far more disturbing picture. It also helps us understand the problems facing Native communities today [...]

[...] De Soto's expedition did cause disease to erupt in Native communities, but the reason was that the expedition's violent warfare led to outbreaks of pathogens such as dysentery, which was already present in the Americas. When smallpox finally hit the Southeast, it spread rapidly from Virginia to East Texas across networks created by an English trade in Native captives for enslavement in their coastal and West Indies colonies. Raiding, capturing, and transporting human bodies created pathways for the smallpox virus. To make matters worse, those bodies were already weakened by war and its companions—malnutrition, exposure, and lack of palliative care.

[...] as smallpox recurred in the 19th century, its impact correlated not with a lack of prior exposure, but with the presence of adverse social conditions. These same conditions would also make Native communities susceptible to a host of other diseases, including cholera, [...] and alcoholism. Native vulnerability had—and has—nothing to do with racial inferiority or, since those initial incidents, lack of immunity; rather, it has everything to do with concrete policies pursued by the United States government, its states, and its citizens.

Disease Has Never Been Just Disease for Native Americans - The Atlantic

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 09 October 2023 - 05:19 PM

[Gorefest]

The Dutch annual national cycling-into-headwinds championships were cancelled yesterday due to the headwinds being too strong. Do with this info as you wish.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Exploitation in Tokyo vs exploitation in Philadelphia:

Quote

[...] thought she had found the ideal partner when she matched with a man on a dating app three years ago. They were around the same age and both at university, where he was studying medicine.

The "match", though, was the beginning of a nightmare that saw the young woman rack up debts of millions of yen at host clubs – money that she is paying back by dropping out of university and working in Japan's commercial sex industry.

[...] host clubs offer women a place to drink expensive champagne and chat and flirt with young men hired for their looks and conversational ability. Sex is not on the menu, but it is not unusual for hosts and their customers to meet privately.

[...] Industry insiders say the vast majority of the 6,000 hosts working at Kabukichō's 300 clubs do not exploit their female clientele. Instead, they insist the women choose to pay large sums for high-end drinks and quality time with their favourite hosts in an environment reminiscent of a romantic manga [comic book].

'Host clubs' in Tokyo force women into sex work to pay off huge debts | Sex work | The Guardian

Quote

[...] a side-effect of this drug can be struggling to stand upright, which is why users are commonly described in the media as "zombies". People taking it can also develop severe flesh-eating wounds.

In viral videos uploaded to social channels such as TikTok, tranq users are filmed when they are in a physical state in which they are unlikely to be able to consent. In some, they are asked questions about their private life or situations in a probing way that plays on their vulnerability. The videos are filmed by content creators, some of whom just visit the area for a short while and then monetize the views.

[...] "It's become very exploitative there; people from all over Europe and the US are coming into the area and putting their phones or cameras in people's faces,"

'Tranq tourism': alarm in Philadelphia as TikTokers travel to film drug users | Drugs | The Guardian

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 18 December 2023 - 03:24 PM

[worry]

I need a new bookshelf. I've been handling it a bit by e-reading mostly, but I still have a couple stacks of unread books on my coffee table, and I'm starting to store finished books in cardboard boxes. It's not quite pack rat level yet but I'd like to head that off ahead of time. Probably gotta donate some of it too, but still. How to balance affordable with durable, without having to do any carpentry.

[Tsundoku]

No real reason, thought these were cool.

https://www.geeksare...r-rogers-comic/

https://www.geeksare...bob-ross-comic/

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Quote

There are conflicting accounts of how we got the laser-eyed Biden meme. Some point to a piece of Chinese propaganda [...] a series of images show an animated Biden with pupil-less glowing yellow eyes, sitting on a throne made of rifles and reigning over a horde of the undead.

More likely, the laser-eyed Biden was spawned out of the DarkMAGA meme universe. In viral images from 2022, Donald Trump often appears with glowing blue eyes [...] meaner and more ruthless than ever, bent on exacting revenge. The same aesthetic treatment was then applied to Biden.


2024 election: I wore Joe Biden's version of a MAGA hat around town for a month. Yikes. (slate.com)

... but viral laser eyes memes predate that, and became popular in 2021 as a crypto thing:

Quote

once Bitcoin reached $50,000, they'd replace their avatars with the laser versions and begin promoting a hashtag called #LaserRayUntil100K. The concept being that they would blast lasers from their avatars' skulls, and hopefully so would others, all as a sign of enthusiasm and solidarity until a single Bitcoin was worth $100,000.

[ SOLIDARITY! yay! oh wait... ]

[...] It grained traction fast. Adoptees would come to include Elon Musk, Paris Hilton, and Sean Hannity. A Dutch Libertarian Party candidate went laser on a billboard. Ohio Congressman Warren Davidson gained laser eyes, and so did Cynthia M. Lummis, the junior Senator from Wyoming [...]

[...] "Laser eyes proclaim a technology to guarantee the human rights of life, liberty, & property. Laser eyes channel action even as they protect from dilutive distraction. Laser eyes signal intent to make #Bitcoin an instrument of economic empowerment."

[...] I actually believe that laser eyes will now be a permanent signal for Bitcoin Maximalists."

What's Up With All Those Crypto Laser-Eyes Profile Pics? A Definitive Investigation (wealthsimple.com)

lol

Quote

[In] 2010, the game Mass Effect 2 was released, in which [...] enemy units eyes [...] glow yellow when "assuming direct control" of them. [...] images of various animals and characters photoshopped with glowing eyes and variations of the caption "assuming direct control" began circulating online [...]

[... in] 2011, a page titled "Glowing Eyes" was created on TV Tropes,[1] describing the use of glowing eyes in media as a way to "show off someone's Life Energy" or indicate "someone's just triggered their Super Mode." [...] 2013, Tumblr [...] picture of a skeleton in a rocking chair with glowing eyes with the description "ah yes my throne" [...] 2014, a thread mocking a newspaper headline about American doctor Kent Brantly "growing stronger" following his contraction of the Ebola virus was submitted to 4chan. [...] suggested someone edit a photograph of Brantly "so he has glowing eyes," leading to several photoshopped pictures of the doctor [...]

As Deep Fried Memes grew in popularity, the glowing eyes effect was incorporated into the the set of distortions used for the deep fried filter. Later, the effect was used in memes such as Gordon Ramsay's Lamb Sauce

Glowing Eyes / Laser Eyes | Know Your Meme

... but doesn't it refer more directly to Superman? It's not just glowing eyes, it's laser eyes, and iirc the only widely known US pop culture reference for laser eyes is Superman (and his partial derivatives...).

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 02 January 2024 - 01:47 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Was dismayed when I read about someone being pushed in front of a subway train near me. However, after watching the video, it looks like a gigantic white guy was harassing a Black man half his size, putting his hand on his chest and repeatedly pulling his hand back as if to hit him. Then the Black guy throws two punches (one of which lands), the white giant backpedals and topples over the tracks, and a train runs him over.

Depending on witness testimony, if I were on the jury, I'd probably consider it justified self-defense.

Full video:

(2) PhillyCrimeUpdate on X: "**VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED*** **Video may be disturbing ** Philadelphia Video surfaces of a fight on SEPTA's subway platform at 34th and Market A man is thrown onto the tracks in front of a moving train. The train could not be stopped in time and officials say the man… https://t.co/pgROCDRYvX" / X (twitter.com)

Sounds like the white guy says, 'THEN FUCKING FIGHT ME BRO' right before the Black guy finally punches him.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 05 January 2024 - 05:28 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Predictably, cops have charged the Black guy with defending himself while Black.

Wouldn't be particularly shocked if that gigantic white guy turned out to be an off-duty Philadelphia cop---he was certainly acting like one. But that probably would have come out by now, even if the police department didn't want it to.

Racists on eX-Twitter have been spreading the apparently false rumor that the Black guy had stolen the white giant's lighter, claiming they can hear the white guy say, 'give me back my lighter', and that it should be considered murder in commission of a crime. But on the video the only one of those words that I can hear is 'give'; the rest is garbled. An anonymous commenter on TMZ's website claimed the white guy had been doing drugs on the platform and the Black guy took his lighter away, which could be the initial source of the rumor. But according to the transit agency,

Quote

what started the altercation remains unclear.
"What our police are looking at is if it started somewhere else," he said. "As far as we know, it wasn't a visible fight that was going on for a long period of time."

Philadelphia subway death leads to charges after man hit by train (inquirer.com)

So the rumors about the lighter seem to be bullshit.

I used to use that station every day so it's especially disturbing to watch someone get killed there. Every time I take a train I'm mindful of the possibility someone might randomly push me to my death. Though I'd suppose sitting on a bench would make that a lot harder for them, particularly if I'm holding on to the bench just in case they try to grab me and fling me onto the tracks.

Of course there are no guard rails, even though a South Korean company offered to install glass platform screens for free and automate the subway back in 2014... which SEPTA considered and refused (possibly because they were too busy being corrupt... for example see (from 2021) U.S. Attorney charges 9 in SEPTA corruption investigation - WHYY ).

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 06 January 2024 - 06:05 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

I was mistaken about what's being said on the video from the subway platform---with the bass removed, you actually can clearly hear the giant white guy saying, 'Give me back my lighter' repeatedly. Odd that Septa's statement did not mention that as a motive. Still no official mention of any witnesses seeing the Black guy take the giant's lighter on the platform, only that anonymous internet comment on TMZ's website.

Quote

[...] Apple's pulsatingly clever first ad for the Vision Pro harks backward[...]

[...] many movies and cartoons we've loved over the years[...] like Back To The Future, Up, Ant-Man and Iron Man[...] Star Wars [...]

[...] all adorned with some sort of glasses/goggles/weird techy things over their faces.

[...] because you never really had any problem with people wearing glasses/goggles/weird techy things above their noses -- or even over their whole faces -- did you?

These characters were heroes of your childhood[...]

Their facial adornments were essential ingredients of their fascinating, endearing selves. It was all so blissfully normal, in its way.

So why even consider being freaked out about it now?

[...] cardinal lesson of tech marketing: First, make people feel good.

Then wait and see how long it takes their heroic selves to get hold of $3,499.

Apple wants you to think wearing goggles is wonderful and I'm marveling | ZDNET

lol

Quote

“We’ve socially engineered ourselves the way we geoengineered the planet,” [...] new paper which proposes that climate breakdown is a symptom of ecological overshoot, which in turn is caused by the deliberate exploitation of human behaviour.

[...“]We need to become mindful of the way we’re being manipulated,” [...]

[...“] The things that humans can attach status to are so fluid, we could be replacing all of it with things that essentially have no material footprint [...]”

[...] “behavioural influencers” such as screenwriters, web developers and algorithm engineers, all of whom are promoting certain social norms and could be working to rewire society relatively quickly and harmlessly by promoting a new set of behaviours.

The paper discusses the enormous success of the work of [...] an initiative that creates mainstream entertainment to drive behaviour change on population growth and even gender violence. Fertility rates have declined in the countries in which the centre’s telenovelas and radionovelas have aired.

Human ‘behavioural crisis’ at root of climate breakdown, say scientists | Climate crisis | The Guardian

Radionovelas to the rescue of the planet... or maybe the next Game of Thrones? 'Game of who can do the most to help save the planet... and thereby become the Go*-emperor of it!'

If VR/AR becomes ubiquitous, virtual goods could partly replace material goods and physical trips as status markers. (Of course one major issue is that this requires producing a large number of VR headsets, and powering them, and producing new content for them... but it should eventually be cheaper than transporting physical luxury goods.)

VR also shows immense promise for brainwashing people (washing out the garbage fires that have been fed into and formed our brains---from our evolutionary history through to deleterious modern ideologies), especially children. Perhaps AR will have similar effects (and help bring it out into the world?...). I imagine the Chinese government may (yet again) be a leader in exploring this technological frontier---one that may yet help save this planet.

[Tsundoku]

Succinct and from the heart. Legend.

New Zealand Mayor’s brutal email to conspiracy theorist
A local mayor has seen a surge of support after a savage response to a persistent conspiracy theorist who had been directing threats towards council staff for years.

https://www.news.com...37587804a9710c8

"In an email exchange last year, Mayor of the Thames-Coromandel District on New Zealand’s North Island, Len Salt, concluded his message with a candid suggestion to the individual: “Go f*** yourself.”"

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 18 January 2024 - 07:46 AM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Quote

Irish potatoes, a Philly delicacy, often befuddle people from Ireland

[...] who moved to Pennsylvania from Donegal, Ireland [...] thought her friend was pulling some kind of prank

Spoiler

when she announced she'd bought Irish potatoes.

[spoiler] [...] The cinnamon-dusted coconut cream treats have no origins in Ireland, despite their name, nor do they contain even a trace of potato. [...] One common story[...] is that a Philadelphia confectioner had a surplus of coconut cream Easter eggs and, either intentionally or accidentally, rolled them in cinnamon to resemble potatoes.

[...] But [coconut] does figure into [Ireland]'s holidays, just not the one you'd expect.

"It was always a memory of Halloween for me, [...] then our family always just bought a coconut and opened up the coconut."

Irish potatoes, a Philadelphia delicacy, often confuse immigrants and visitors from Ireland | PhillyVoice

Don't think I ever liked coconut in candy, though my mother (from rural Pennsylvania) loves it, and I like fresh or frozen coconut meat, water, and milk. I do love cinnamon though---my daily breakfast is dried edamame in hot water and olive oil with about a tablespoon of cinnamon on top. Cinnamon and other non-sweet spices more than make up for having completely eliminated added sugar and sweeteners from my diet many years ago.

Of course I think that candy should be banned. The ensuing gang wars will give humanity something to do while AI makes the world run (faster and faster, until it goes beyond this world---and this solar system...).

[Tiste Simeon]

I was confused by English muffins when I went to the US cos we don't have them here!

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

For these protests at universities... what is the point of the tents? It's not like they're trying to occupy so much space that people can't get through. Or (I think) to make it more difficult to force them to disperse without seeming brutal and destructive. Is it to show their commitment to protesting all day? The tents aren't transparent after all, so it's not like people can see them protesting inside the tents (though in theory they could set up a bunch of tents, put loudspeakers inside, and pretend to be protesting all day... and night... hey why don't they send drones out to protest everywhere? pester university administrators wherever they go, like endless albatrosses of drones---like harpies...).

[Lady Bliss]

Tiste Simeon, on 17 March 2024 - 05:31 PM, said:

I was confused by English muffins when I went to the US cos we don't have them here!

They make really good cheap pizzas. Crumpets are better though.

[Tsundoku]

Thinking about Morgoth and Apt ...

https://www.youtube....rts/SAvdH5rYPE8

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Quote

Poem of the week: Rocket in the Room

what the rocket has in common
with the room full of children
is its current location

Spoiler

somebody thought the rocket
belonged to the room with children
and now it's here

in time
someone else will come
and collect the pieces

of the rocket and of the children
weeping and shouting insults
at the sky

[see link for the rest ... By] Oksana Maksymchuk [...] a bi-lingual poet and translator, working in her native Ukrainian and English. Rocket in the Room is from her first collection to appear in the UK, Still City: Diary of an Invasion.

In Advice to a Young Poem, Maksymchuk warns,

"Stay little, poem / fine and sharp like a charm // mysterious / a maker of no sense". The "no sense" of destruction is always present in Still City, with minimally punctuated syntax reiterating the lack of safe boundaries between violent death and daily life. The portrayal of friendships, feasts, pets and other homely pleasures may be interrupted not only by violence but with shocked admission by the speaker of incredulity, guilt, self-questioning or denial. Both "the pity of war" (in Wilfred Owen's phrase) and the psychology of war are substantially present.

Rocket in the Room approaches the concussion of realities [...]

Poem of the week: Rocket in the Room by Oksana Maksymchuk | Poetry | The Guardian

The horror of the shock of the real. In that regard, it reminds me of this:

Quote

Putin killed two deer in front of a skittish [then-Prime Minister of Italy] Berlusconi before drawing a knife, carving up one [...] and removing its heart. [...] Putin then presented the heart to Berlusconi [...] causing [him] to hide behind a tree to vomit. "Vladimir showed me a violent nature that I didn't imagine in such a kind and rational man," [...] Berlusconi [allegedly said]

Vladimir Putin Cut Out a Deer's Heart and Gave It to Silvio Berlusconi (thedailybeast.com)

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 13 May 2024 - 05:18 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Contemporary theater in the US vs the EU (vs the UK):

Quote

A Wild, Thrilling Play Changed Theater Forever. That Isn't Entirely a Good Thing.

[...] increasingly, "immersive" has become a catchall branding term, bearing the same relationship to genuine experience as content does to art. At worst, the popularity of productions that bill themselves as "immersive" play to the audience's potential narcissism: our collective desire, affirmed by a culture driven by social media, to be the main character—not only of our own lives, but also of someone else's show. In this context, immersive theater can be less an escape from smartphone culture so much as its natural extension: another place for us to narrate, whether through social media or simply our own consciousness, the story of our own lives—less a place to lose ourselves than to reify our selfhood. By becoming part of the show, often in highly aestheticized ways, we pass up the opportunity to experience the sheer otherness of theater: encounters with characters whose stories, for a few hours, become far more important than our own. Contrary to what so many of us once found in Sleep No More, many of today's shows that bill themselves as "immersive" merely foster the idea that the audience is the star—or, as Atkinson puts it, "gotta get those selfies … to put out there."

Spoiler

It would be possible to read Sleep No More's popularity, and its wider legacy of immersive content, as a harbinger of a wider cultural shift: one in which we have begun to expect artistic experiences to revolve around us—or indeed, to think of encountering art as a specific kind of personal experience. The more we become accustomed to living our lives as a source of content, the more we want our relationship to artistic production to be one that centers our own subjectivity. More and more of us hunger for experiences where we are not asked to pay attention to others, but where others—performers included—interact with, and pay attention, to us. The idea that we should be part of the show, once a transgressive invitation to challenge the boundaries of us and them, has now become an all-too-common excuse for treating theatrical outings as a backdrop boost to our ego.

Sleep No More closing: How Punchdrunk’s show changed theater in New York, for better and for worse. (slate.com)

vs the EU (Viennese Actionism evolving?...) (and the EU vs the UK):

Quote

Audiences now know what to expect from the [...] sold-out shows. The dancers will always be female, almost completely unclothed (to blind spectators to their state of undress because "nakedness is extremely boring") and the stage will be slippery with bodily fluids by the end of the performance. Her ambition[...] is not just to choreograph her dancers' bodies, "but the insides of their bodies too". She explains: "Good technique in dance to me is not just someone who can do a perfect tendu, but also someone who can urinate on cue."

In Tanz, the show with which she burst on to the scene

Spoiler

in 2019, a performer was hoisted into the air on meat hooks pushed into her skin. In 2021's A Divine Comedy, [...] one performer masturbated herself to an explosive orgasm while others made a live-action painting with blood and fresh excrement.

[...] "Directors don't get this kind of funding in the UK," [...] "And if they did, they would not have the freedom to fail. To get weird and interesting on such an epic scale is an absolute treat."

POSSIBLY NSFW---GUARDIAN ARTICLE DISPLAYS BARE FEMALE NIPPLES
Bring on the naked rollerskating nuns! The wild visions of Florentina Holzinger | Stage | The Guardian

2021---so close to the height of the pandemic.

Interesting that she's from Vienna---definitely seems reminiscent of Viennese Actionism.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 10 June 2024 - 01:06 PM

[Tsundoku]

So it's pr0n. Got it.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Tsundoku, on 10 June 2024 - 08:50 PM, said:

So it's pr0n. Got it.

Yes, the selfie epidemic is basically masturbatory pr0n---people trying to show off their abstract (capitalist, since capital is an abstraction of value) penis size by masturbating in "exotic" locations that they're drilling for "value".

As for the Austrian (clearly some decadent corrupted form of Australian)... I'd assume right-wingers have critcized her for restricting her cast to women and claimed she's just a lesbian with issues who has fetishes for pain, bondage, piss play and poop play (I forget the standard technical terms for the last two...). And the intellectual elites who frequent her shows do too. (Of course I don't agree with those critiques.)

OTOH if urinating is part of the dance, it does seem like people with penises would open up lots of different trajectories for choreography. (To a lesser extent the same is true for masturbation. Though many people with vaginas can squirt of course. And shoot small objects out of their vaginas (ping-pong balls being the classic choice...). Wonder if she ever casts women with penises. (IDK if trans men with surgically constructed penises are able to piss as far or with as much control as cis men. Or whether testosterone helps people piss farther (got to go beyond the old boundaries, after all...).)

In Germany at least I wouldn't assume nakedness is... pr0nographic at all---from what I've read public nudity is relatively commonplace. IDK about Austria though, as they apparently tend to be more conservative than Germany---but then Vienna may be an exception.

In the United States if people did this (outside the context of internet pr0n) in live theater shows supported by government subsidies... there'd probably be protests. I imagine some people might even actually be reluctant to take selfies next to someone pissing balletically and acrobatically while painting with their own fresh shit (in an Immersive Event Experience, of course... get right up in their shit).

Of course it's also interesting in the context of the rise of right-wing populism in opposition to control by EU elites. Especially given that quote about how government funding makes this type of expensive theatrical experimentation feasible, which is supposedly why it's not happening in the UK (even though her shows are apparently perpetually sold-out...). That line about how her "ambition[...] is not just to choreograph her dancers' bodies, 'but the insides of their bodies too'" could easily be maliciously interpreted as a metaphor for how unelected EU elites want to control the masses. And waste money on absurd decadent sacrilege. Literally playing with human feces, treating pissing contests as dance, art as literal masturbation. Of course IMO all these are good things, especially in the more conservative, tradition-bound parts of Europe. They need to change, or climate change will make them go extinct. Unfortunately this is probably going to have to be a top-down process---either by unelected officials, or by the environmental catastrophes they're too willfully ignorant to realize that they're voting for.

[Tsundoku]

Because what we need right now is parody to remind us all to laugh or else we'll cry.

https://theshovel.co...an-on-rooftops/

NRA Condemns Trump Rooftop Shooting, Calls for Immediate Ban on Rooftops

America’s peak gun lobby says this weekend’s shooting, which saw a man fire at Donald Trump with an AR-15 from a nearby rooftop, is further evidence of the need for an urgent nation-wide ban on building coverings.

In a press conference following the incident, NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre said the time for complacency was over. “America has more rooftops than any other nation in the developed world. We have an obsession with rooftops and without them, today’s events would never have happened,” he said.

He called on the Government to immediately ban all rooftops, with a grace period for rooftop owners to hand in their rooftops without penalty.

“I want my children to grow up in an America that’s free of roof coverings. Sure, it’d be harder to keep the house dry in winter. But that’s a small price to pay for safety,’ he said.

Not all Republicans agree with the NRA’s plan for an outright ban however, with some calling for a different approach. “I actually think we need more rooftops,” one Republican voter said. “If every member of the crowd at the Trump rally had their own rooftop, we could have avoided this. Because let’s be clear – the only thing stopping a bad rooftop is a good rooftop”.

-----------------------------------------

https://theshovel.co...ump-supporters/

“Biden Is Senile, Incompetent Geriatric and Also Orchestrated Sophisticated Assassination Attempt”, Trump Supporters Say

Shutterstock/Consolidated News Photos
Joe Biden is suffering from late-stage dementia, is unfit for any job of any kind and also devised and implemented a complex assassination attempt involving dozens of compromised Secret Service officers, local police, and a 20 year-old Antifa shooter posing as a Republican, Trump supporters say.

“Biden is so confused and disorientated he can hardly string a sentence together,” said one Trump supporter, who also believes Biden carefully masterminded the assassination attempt to make it look like it was carried out by a twenty-year-old nursing home worker, meticulously covering all traces of his involvement.

Another Trump voter said it was obvious that Biden – who he described as totally incompetent and thoroughly senile – was behind the shooting. “He can hardly walk. I think it’s pretty clear he was the one who climbed on the roof and pulled the trigger himself”.

-----------------------------------------------------------

https://theshovel.co...e-america-guns/

“If Political Violence Can Happen in America, It Can Happen in Any Country Where 400m Firearms Result in 50,000 Deaths Annually”

OPINION “As we come to terms with the assassination attempt of Donald Trump this week, we need to remind ourselves that this type of political violence could be replicated in any country that has a per-capita gun ratio of 120 firearms per 100 people.

Yes, it was the US this time around. And the last time around. And the time before that. And, sure, probably the time before that too. But we need to be alert to the fact that this sort of politically-charged shooting could happen literally anywhere that has a pathological obsession with guns to the point where school shootings pass almost without notice, and massacres lead to calls for even more guns.

Don’t think that just because fifteen US Presidents and Presidential candidates have faced assassination attempts in America that this is some sort of American phenomenon. Any country that fetishes gun-rights, celebrates open carry laws and idolises members of Government who wear AR-15 pins to work could be subject to this type of thing.

We like to think that a 20-year-old kid climbing onto a roof with a rifle to shoot at a Presidential candidate is some sort of uniquely American thing. But let’s be clear – this could happen in any country that calls for its teachers to be armed, lets its citizens own guns before they can drink, and has a per-capita gun ownership rate eight times that of Australia or twenty-five times that of England”.