Stanard
Great outfits! I’m curious though, does your local ren faire not require to keep your weapons “peace-tied”? I know most festival attendees aren’t looking to cut people down, but even an unsharpened blade can cause a lot of damage in a sword-fighting accident so I feel like it’s a nice policy overall.
Also, would you care to share roughly how much time and money went into these? I’ve wanted to get into the cosplay aspect of Ren-faire but it feels prohibitively expensive even buying online, and outright bank breaking buying anything at the faire itself. I haven’t been in a few years but even back then the cheapest pair of boots anywhere on-site were $600. Granted, they were very nice looking, leather, presumably hand-made, and came with a lifetime guarantee (as long as that vendor stays) but whew that’s more than I can afford.
I know a lot of that stuff will be and should be expensive just for the craftsmanship and time involved though. My buddy made his own chainmail shirt and it took him months and months of manually bending steel wire so I get how much work goes into these pieces.
Anyway, just wanted to say nice outfits and keep it going :)
I wouldn’t pretend it’s not something terrorists would do. I think what people are upset about is more like: let’s assume that there is a terrorist HQ being run in a school. Let’s also assume their are innocent people of any and all ages in that same school. Finally, let’s assume there are only two options to deal with the terrorist HQ (there could be others in reality but for this exercise there are only two options).
Option a) bomb the school, injuring and killing everyone inside. Option b) a specialized operation that will only target the terrorists but may result in casualties to your army.
People, and myself, are upset that the option being chosen seems to overwhelmingly be option a, the indiscriminate injury and death of everyone in the building whether innocent or terrorist. No judge and no jury for anyone involved, only death.
For me at least, this cartoon is not pointing out that terrorists would run an HQ in a school. It’s pointing out that currently the IDF cannot, or will not, see past the fact that this is still a picture of a school. It may contain a terrorist HQ, but it’s not a building labeled “terrorist HQ” with the sole function of being a terrorist HQ. This is a picture of a school that may also house a terrorist HQ. And that is a very very important distinction that seems to be wildly ignored.
If you criticize the few good/decent policies that are being passed/proposed, maybe. But at least from what I’ve seen, especially online, Biden and any other (D) being pushed on the people aren’t seen as some savior. In fact I would argue almost the opposite. I think many Democrats see Biden and the rest of the moderates being passed off as Democrats as simply the lesser of two evils.
Likewise, just because a candidate has an ® next to their name doesn’t automatically make them evil. Their public stance and proposed policies are what make 90+% of them evil. I couldn’t give two shits what letter appears next to Trump, Desantis, McConnell, etc. They’re not bad people because they run under the Republican party, they’re bad people because they’re very explicitly against Americans that can’t afford to pay them enough to pretend to care. Donald Trump almost ran as a Democrat years before he actually ran as a Republican and guess what? He’s the same asshole either way that never would have gotten my vote.
So yes, if you agree with white supremacist neo-Nazi policies and ideals, or disagree with policies intended to defeat white supremacist neo-Nazi ideals, I will most certainly assume that you are a white supremacist neo-Nazi. This honestly shouldn’t be that difficult to understand. And that honestly makes me think you’re simply a troll but I guess I’ll take the bait. In case it’s not perfectly obvious by now, fuck Biden. But fuck white supremacist neo-Nazis more. Like for real, it would not be difficult at all to get a fuckton of “Democrats” to vote ® if y’all could put up some half-ass decent candidates instead of the backwater scum y’all currently idolize. But instead of doing that and actually running candidates that stand by the true conservative ideology (what ever happened to sticking up for personal rights and small government?) most candidates (Democrats and Republicans alike) only stand by whatever will gain them the most.
I would even go so far to say that I would probably fall more under the old conservative ideology with some liberal tendencies, but I will NOT support anyone that wants to disenfranchise, discriminate, and take away personal liberties. I’m not LGBTQ+, I’m not trying to get an abortion, I don’t have kids to worry about schools or lunches; I’m a straight white cis male with a Christian background that would largely be personally unaffected by any of the current Republican stances, but I do have at least a tiny bit of empathy and that’s enough to see that just because someone isn’t the same as me doesn’t make them any less human than me. To suggest anything else is simply fucked up and evil. AND goes againstliterally everything in my Christian upbringing. So given the choice of supporting the modern Christo-fascist, or voting for literally anyone else provided they have some principles and empathy, I know who’s getting my support every time without a doubt.
The article doesn’t explicitly call it out, but the judge and the principle share a last name? The judge granted a much more lenient ruling than the prosecutor wanted though so I’m not assuming they’re (closely) related, but I would think a thorough journalist would at least mention trying to find a link in the family tree.
I’m confused what this is trying to say. You tried defending genocide? Because that’s messed up.
If you’re claiming that a left-wing forum was defending genocide I’m gonna have to doubt that unless provided proof. From what I’ve seen genocide seems to be an ideal exclusive to the right-wing authoritarian crowd.
The only way to kill an entire population of peoples is to not allow for people to disagree with you, because people will disagree with you if you’re trying to kill an entire population of peoples.
I’m not sure what you’re arguing. That someone invented the iPhone and it went on to be a very successful product for a multi-trillion dollar company? The iPod was out for years before then. Before that there were portable CD players, before that were portable cassette players, and before that portable radios. Long before any of that people would set wood on fire and sing while playing instruments they carved from other wood.
Corporations do get things wrong plenty often. Successful corporations will not invest more than they can afford to on anything, and won’t mass produce a product that their user-surveys and number crunchers say won’t make them money. Sometimes those surveys and numbers are wrong, but a corporation doesn’t build a worth of trillions of dollars by making stuff and putting it all directly in the dump.
I agree with you almost entirely. There are definitely deceptive advertising practices all over by every industry. And subliminal messaging is in use everywhere. Both are getting worse all the time as people trade privacy for convenience, myself included. A quick search will reveal many results of people talking about how they’ve talked about something for the first time that they have no interest in and being shown ads for it later. Advertising has reached the point where companies can tell when a woman is pregnant before she does and start advertising accordingly.
I also agree that for most of this, consumers are the virtually powerless underdogs. The only way to truly stop it, if there even is a way to stop something like subliminal advertising, is legislation.
All that said, I do think that consumers can do more than we are. In the current world it seems like waiting for politicians that are bought and paid for by these companies to pass legislation that these companies don’t want is the wrong course of action if the goal is to decrease consumption. Nations want you to consume because that makes the economy look better.
However, educating ourselves, and more importantly each other, on these deceptive advertising practices, and taking an active stance to consciously combat said practices can make an immediate impact while we wait/hope for meaningful legislation. If we’re watching a movie or TV show with friends and see some subtle product placement, call it out. When we’re at the store take a moment to consciously think about whether we need some product, and what the consequences of buying said product are. How much energy is used, what kind of waste does it make both during production and after consumption. If it’s recyclable, how? And how much energy is used in doing so? We should all demand to know what our local recycling policies are. Not just what they accept as “recyclable” but whether they actually recycle or just send it to a dump anyway. And wherever possible opt for options that are better for our world and better yet, going without when possible. I see a lot of “keeping up with the Joneses” in the modern world, and so much waste that seems reasonable avoidable.
I think I got a bit sidetracked. I definitely don’t think we as consumers can do everything, and I think pretty much the full responsibility should fall on corporations and those in power, but currently that’s largely not the case. And I don’t think we have time to wait for that to change.
Ultimately I definitely think we largely agree; maybe slight differences in the how, but the end goal seems the same. As far as I can tell we are allies. We can and should help each other and others to advocate for personal changes and policy/legislative changes to combat the rampant over-consumption and over-production in the world today. I don’t have children but I still want a livable Earth for future generations so so much.
You’re making several assumptions that I don’t think I’ve said or even alluded to. I don’t think I’ve mentioned religion or motivation at all. All I’ve been trying to say is I disagree with the death of innocent people. I’ve agreed with you 100% that I do not have a good grasp of the situation and frankly I don’t think you or most people do have a full grasp of the situation. You probably know more than me, good job. I still disagree with any person, country, military, religion, etc. taking the lives of innocent people. I recognize that sometimes it can mean fewer deaths in the long run, but seeing as I don’t have absolute knowledge of the situation it’s not my call to make. I’m not arguing whether one side is doing more harm than the other. I’m not arguing whether one side is more evil, or what their reason for killing is. I’m arguing that innocent people dying sucks. This will be my last reply to you/this thread because I don’t have anything else to say. Killing innocent people should be avoided wherever possible because innocent people dying sucks. I’m not sure how that’s such a hard concept to grasp or why anyone would argue that killing innocent people is good but evil does exist in this world and it sucks.
Have a wonderful day and may you achieve any and all of your non-evil dreams.
True, although to be fair the first iPhone wasn’t released until late 2007. Timeline of Apple releases