This is a win for brain worms in every still body of water in the US.

1. Parasite finds host, alters host behaviour

2. Host seeks positions of power and influence urging other potential hosts to embrace risky behaviours to the benefit of brain worms

3. Host successfully gains power <-You are here

4. Host mandates stale pond water for all citizens

Flawless brain worm victory.

Of course he likes newly invented words, the guy is into lolicon. The younger the better for paedofascist powerhouse, V*ushV.

See, poor student drowning in debt? These people are having a mediocre vacation! Don’t look up how much money the publishing companies make btw

Images of a modest middle class vacation

FBI: this should make you feel bad, that modest middle class vacation is at the cost of the publishing company CEO’s second yacht being smaller than he promised his children. It doesn’t even have a helipad!

I think comparing Chinese EVs to shitware like Temu is wrong and potentially harmful.

The PRC can pump out EVs more efficiently in the same way TSMC can pump out chips efficiently. Yes there are government subsidies, but that’s not the main reason why they’re so cheap

China has lithium: China has lithium within its borders, and has the 3rd largest reserves in the world. Unlike Tesla or European manufacturers which needs to import lithium, China can source it locally, drastically reducing the cost. In recent years, due to demand, technology involving the mining of lithium has increased significantly, further increasing output (and lowering price). Unlike Chile and Australia (other lithium rich countries), China has the capacity to mine it domestically at scale, making it extremely cheap.

China has domestic battery production: CATL is actually a world leading battery manufacturer and innovator. CATL, Samsung, LG, Panasonic and BYD account for 75% of all battery production on the planet. Even if a Chinese manufacturer is buying batteries from South Korea or Japan, the shipping costs is vastly reduced compared to shipping to Europe or the Americas.

China has pre-existing industry and economy of scale: I’m sure you may have noticed, but China has laid more railways than the rest of the world combined in the last decade and a half. Building trains, planes, space stations and cities requires steel, factories that pump out steel are located in China. You’re not starting from scratch, there are many, many, many factories that pump out quality steel for extremely low prices because the demand has been there for decades.

China has cheap labour: I’m not sure I have to explain this one

China has a domestic market: There are 1.4 billion people in China, even if 10% want to buy a car, that market is larger than entire nations.

China makes the machines that build the cars: A BMW or Volkswagen factory will have robotics that assemble the arms. Those robots are either made in China fully or partially. That exact same machine, therefore, would be cheaper to acquire within China, and would be cheaper and quicker to repair if it breaks down because the factory that makes the machines is also in China. And as demand grows, guess what? The machines that make the machines that build the cares are also in China. The machine that builds robot arms that attach car doors to the frame is already in China.

Each of these factors (and I’m sure more that I’ve forgotten) has a ripple effect is the main reason why Chinese EVs are so cheap, government subsidies are only partial.

An over correction. Previously, the two parties would decide on a candidate behind closed doors then start campaigning in August.

Then, some good faith people and some corporations stood up and was like “Hey, that means we have no say in who the party selects to be the nominee” so they have their whole primary system to allow for corporations and weirdos who vote in the primary to participate in “democracy”

But then in those days, people had to go around in hot air balloons made out of racism and asbestos as their main mode of transport, so each state’s primaries are spaced out because candidates had to take forever to go from state to state (except some that happen on the same day).

And because running a candidate is expensive, each of the potential candidates have to allow time to get corporate donors (or rarely, grassroots support)

So the process went from 6-8 weeks to several months.

And then the capitalists saw the revenue generated from simply covering the primary races. Those ad spots from the campaigning candidates themselves aside, they could run ads next to reports or footage of the debates.

And then they thought “wow, wouldn’t it be better if we started covering the race even earlier in the year??”

And now the circus is in town for basically a whole year every 4 years, meaning libs and chuds spend 25% of their time on earth pretending they live in a democracy when even outside of this absurd system, they have gerrymandering, an electoral college and your vote generally only mattering in a swing state. The other 75% of the time is for treats, which is increasingly consumed out of spite for the voters of the other party.

This type of “”“political engagement”“” is not only accepted, it’s promoted by the system because other types of engagement such as direct action actually get things done and the system likes the status quo.

It’s a few different things combined:

• Competent host: Sean Evans seems like a perfectly normal guy with above average charisma that isn’t as manufactured as Fake Laugh Fallon or Waitstaff Abuser Cordon. The team also seems to do their research in terms of guests and tend to ask questions they didn’t already just answer in another interview

• Novel premise: Instead of the host asking raunchy or off cuff questions, the host asks mundane albeit obscure questions regarding the celebrity in question loses composure due to increasing spice. A part of the spectacle is seeing someone famous lose composure in a way that isn’t in a public mental breakdown or substance induced rampage.

• Generally wholesome: Or at the very least not mean spirited. Despite some dramatic sound effects added after the fact, the show is actually extremely benign and doesn’t antagonize anyone. Fairly accommodating, if the interviewee is vegan they’ll have vegan wings, if they don’t eat processed food they get like fried cauliflower.

I get the appeal and have seen like 4 or 5 episodes.

The “Who’s your favorite kid?” “I’m gonna have to say Bart” line got a quick exhale out of me.

Talking to John Brown:

Please ignore the fact that I was too hasty making this post I initially forgot to include the photo

There’s no rules in the Chapo.chat user agreement that says Owls can’t play basketball

How else do you keep track of kills to call in a killstreak? Hezbollah should be able to call in a tactical nuke at 25

Y’all be good

We have no information leading to the arrest of Hillary Clinton

See, I grew up amongst normal atheists. I spent half my time with retired revolutionaries in a communist retirement community in Wuhan, China. The last of the elves to see the Light of the Two Trees of Valinor. So a lot more Maoist than the general Chinese population. Some comrades who were stationed in Shaanxi throughout the war(s), even some who participated in the long march.

After all, as l’internationale goes, 从来就没有什么救世主，也不靠神仙皇帝/Il n’est pas de sauveurs suprêmes Ni Dieu, ni César, ni tribun.

Some still held cultural beliefs that could be seen as a religious practice but it was not to serve any religion. Some who had seen the worst of the second war were more adamant that there are no powers above. I suppose if you witnessed Nanking during/immediately after WWII, you’d be angry at the gods for standing by and doing nothing. How good can the gods be if they stood by and watched when even the literal Nazi John Rabe had enough humanity to try and stop the slaughter? But understanding that the people have their beliefs was also a part of it. The most toxic and harmful parts were purged in the Cultural Revolution, who’s to stop someone from joining the monks or having a statue of 观音 and lighting incense? The very people we fight for, the people who sheltered us during the Long March, the people who took up arms with us in the name of liberation. If the anti science, anti feminist and counter revolutionary aspects were purged, what harm is there in people observing holidays, praying and restricting their diets? To fast during Ramadan, to walk the path of the Buddha, to honour ones ancestors, to light fireworks to scare off the Nian, etc. Those things don’t have to be toxic.

But upon moving to the west, atheism became Atheism, it was an identity. It was commodified and used to sell laptop stickers and books. It was a brand. To be Atheist is to debate Christians and buy Richard Dawkins books and share Hitchens’ quotes and feel holier than thou. “In this moment, I am euphoric” sort of thing. To be Atheist is to be insufferable. Worse, they seem to just abandon the Christian part of Christian Chauvinism and just become Chauvinists. In some aspects, it’s not only feeling smugly superior to the brown people believing in primitive gods or the “Moslems”, it’s to also feel smugly superior to Evangelicals, too. It’s the next evolution of being a chauvinist. Critical support for their opposition of Young Earth Creationists and anti abortion dickheads, yes, but you cannot excuse their support for Western imperialism, literal and cultural, in the global south.

I guess in the end, atheism is a land of contrasts.

Seriously, it’s plain as day with a material analysis. The material conditions for the working class aren’t improving either way, but the party with red hats have a (wrong) solution, to blame immigrants and the gays. People falling for fascist rhetoric are miseducated (yay American education system), disillusioned and desperate. A competent and well meaning political party could turn that anguish and contempt for the status quo into results, but Dems are neither of those things. In the end, they also serve capital.

To meaningfully reform healthcare is to make workers less desperate, it will allow disgruntled and abused workers to leave their workplace and therefore dilute the power of the employers and to take away from the pharmaceutical companies. To meaningfully push through higher wages is to take away from capitalists at large. To meaningfully reform housing is to take away from landlords. To meaningfully reform prisons is to take away from the private prison industry. To meaningfully stop the genocide in Gaza is to take away from the Military Industrial Complex. They’ll promise and pay lip service to those things but will never meaningfully change them.

They are not well meaning. One of the few aspects in which they are better is abortion and they fumbled that so hard, because they’re also incompetent.

But no, to the diehard libs, it’s because half the country are mentally ill. That’s the only explanation.

This is the immediate aftermath of the sun finally setting on the British empire. Co-incidence?

Conker refers to the seed of a British chestnut, and is also the name of a game where you carefully drill a hole through the seed, feed a string through it, tie it so it becomes a tiny, organic wrecking ball. Your goal is to swing your conker at another child’s conker until one of them breaks.

It’s one of those old timey children’s games like chasing a hoop with a stick or playing marbles or smoking cigarettes at the age of 9.

It’s 5 golf clubs, 10 retirement homes and a gas station mall with a Congressional district

Downfall (2004) predicted this

ZA/UM

ZA/UM (Marxist)

ZA/UM (Marxist Leninist)

ZA/UM (Maoist Third Worldist)