#union's third committee

[wealmostaneckbeard]

The politics in Lancer the mech pilot TTRPG seems center left to me. A good way to explain what's going on in that game's universe is with this overly long metaphor:

Imagine an alternate history where Nixon somehow beat JFK Jr to the white house, and once in office he lets Kissinger go nuts setting fascists up on an accelerated schedule. That's what Union's Second Committee was like. Then Tricky Dick procedes to nuke Vietnam a couple times. That's the Hercynia Crisis and that FTL Piston weapon launch. JFK and company ride the shock and horror of approaching nuclear war into office on the promise of de-escalation and enforcing civil rights, and they deliver. That's the coup that formed Union's Third Committee. Kissinger, Nixon, and the entire pentagon/raytheon corp take over NASA in Cape Canaveral, Florida where they form a tolerated corporatocracy in exile. That's basically Harrison Armory on the planet Ras Shamra. Now a United liberal-leftist front of America is actively trying to tear down dictatorships around the world that Kissinger set up (he got assassinated at some point in this time line) and replace them with socialist democracies. That is Union's Justice/Human-Rights Department and a few other government branches. So far they've had some success although people are pointing out that it's a bit hypocritical that the liberators are using weapons from corporate conservative states where civil rights are discretely curtailed. That's what's driving political discourse in 5016u in Union's legislative body, the Central Committee and it's myriad political parties.

So yeah Lancer's political intergalactic landscape is a bit like modern day? Except also cthulhu is giving out reality-breaking tech to militant civil rights advocates and random civilians? That's what HORUS basically is, btw.

Now that I've written this out, it would make for a good american alt-history with mechs campaign in Lancer...

#henry kissinger #lancer rpg #alternate history #union's third committee #union's second committee #harrison armory #science fiction #table top role playing #ttrpg #mech #mecha #usa politics #usa history #richard nixon #john f kennedy #us history #us politics #horus

[fans4wga]

Some news from yesterday. A couple of key quotes from the article:

On Friday, the WGA’s negotiating committee told its members that “the AMPTP offered responses to our proposals in all work areas,” but advised members to “be skeptical of rumors from third parties, knowing that the Guild will communicate when we think there is something of significance to report.”

“Instead, on the 113th day of the strike — and while SAG-AFTRA is walking the picket lines by our side — we were met with a lecture about how good their single and only counteroffer was,” the WGA leaders wrote. “[T]his wasn’t a meeting to make a deal. This was a meeting to get us to cave, which is why, not 20 minutes after we left the meeting, the AMPTP released its summary of their proposals.”

tl;dr: The AMPTP has made some of their terms public, and they do on the surface seem like a step in the right direction, but they aren't negotiating, just pressuring the WGA to take the first deal offered.

Remember, intentional leaks (especially as they'd agreed not to tell the press anything) are a PR tactic.

WGA leadership plans to address the information that was leaked, to provide more details and context.

#wga strong #writers guild strike #wga strike #writers strike

[tailschannel]

HOLLYWOOD ACTORS AND STUDIOS ANNOUNCE TENTATIVE AGREEMENT, ENDING HISTORIC STRIKE

A tentative agreement has been officially reached between Hollywood's actors' union and studios, ending the historic labour disruption.

SAG-AFTRA's tentative deal with the AMPTP secured "above-pattern" minimum compensation increases, provisions for consent and compensation to protect members from artificial intelligence, and streaming participation bonuses.

Dear SAG-AFTRA Members: We are thrilled and proud to tell you that today your TV/Theatrical Negotiating Committee voted unanimously to approve a tentative agreement with the AMPTP. As of 12:01 a.m. PT on Nov. 9, our strike is officially suspended and all picket locations are closed. We will be in touch in the coming days with information about celebration gatherings around the country. In a contract valued at over one billion dollars, we have achieved a deal of extraordinary scope that includes "above-pattern" minimum compensation increases, unprecedented provisions for consent and compensation that will protect members from the threat of AI, and for the first time establishes a streaming participation bonus. Our Pension & Health caps have been substantially raised, which will bring much needed value to our plans. In addition, the deal includes numerous improvements for multiple categories including outsize compensation increases for background performers, and critical contract provisions protecting diverse communities. We have arrived at a contract that will enable SAG-AFTRA members from every category to build sustainable careers. Many thousands of performers now and into the future will benefit from this work. Full details of the agreement will not be provided until the tentative agreement is reviewed by the SAG-AFTRA National Board. We also thank our union siblings — the workers that power this industry — for the sacrifices they have made while supporting our strike and that of the Writers Guild of America. We stand together in solidarity and will be there for you when you need us. Thank you all for your dedication, your commitment and your solidarity throughout this strike. It is because of YOU that these improvements became possible. In solidarity and gratitude, Your TV/Theatrical Negotiating Committee.

The contract, valued at one billion USD, has yet to be ratified, but the union announced that the strike will end this Thursday, 9 November 2023 at midnight PST.

Sonic movie screenwriter Pat Casey acknowledged the announcement late Wednesday night on X, the social media website formerly known as Twitter, and said that he's "excited that everyone in this business, cast, crew, everybody, can finally get back to work doing what we do best - entertaining people!"

No word from Paramount as of yet, or the studio's upcoming production plans for the third Sonic the Hedgehog film, currently scheduled to debut in 2024.

#sonic movie 3 #sonic movie #sonic movie spoilers #sonic the hedgehog #sonic #paramount pictures #sega #shadow the hedgehog #sag aftra #unions #sonic news

[thisonelikesaliens]

Update on Thailand's marriage equality bill:

Reporting by Panu Wongcha-um; Editing by Martin Petty

BANGKOK, March 27 (Reuters) - Thailand's lower house of parliament on Wednesday passed a marriage equality bill at the final reading, in a landmark step that moves the country closer to becoming the third territory in Asia to legalise same-sex unions.

The bill now requires approval from the Senate and endorsement from the king before it becomes law. It had the support of all of Thailand's major parties and was passed by 400 of the 415 lawmakers present, with 10 voting against it.

"We did this for all Thai people to reduce disparity in society and start creating equality," Danuphorn Punnakanta, chairman of the parliamentary committee on the draft bill, told lawmakers ahead of the reading.

"I want to invite you all to make history."

The passing of the bill marks a significant step towards cementing Thailand's position as one of Asia's most liberal societies on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues, with openness and free-wheeling attitudes coexisting with traditional, conservative Buddhist values.

Thailand has long been a draw for same-sex couples, with a vibrant LGBT social scene for locals and expatriates, and targeted campaigns to attract LGBT travellers.

The bill could take effect within 120 days of royal approval. Thailand would follow Taiwan and Nepal in becoming the first places in Asia to legalise same-sex unions.

The legislation has been more than a decade in the making, with delays due to political upheaval and disagreement on what approaches to take and what should be included in the bill.

The Constitutional Court had in 2020 ruled Thailand's current marriage law, which only recognises heterosexual couples, was constitutional, recommending legislation be expanded to ensure rights of other genders.

Parliament in December approved four different draft bills on same-sex marriage in the first reading and tasked a committee to consolidate those into a single draft.

(source)

#marriage equality #let's goooooooooooo #marriage equality thailand

[eretzyisrael]

by Seth Mandel

ITEM: In Oakland, California, a Jewish woman walks into her son’s seventh-grade classroom on back-to-school night to see a poster that says, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

ITEM: In New York City, on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, angry pro-Palestinian crowds surround a Jewish man and bloody his head with a chair.

ITEM: In Philadelphia, hundreds mob a Jewish-owned restaurant, chanting, “Goldie, Goldie, you can’t hide; we charge you with genocide.” The restaurant is named Goldie.

ITEM: In Berkeley, California, the only Jewish teacher at an elementary school returns to find her door covered in Post-it notes that say, “Stop bombing babies!”

ITEM: In Chicago, home to the third-largest Jewish population in America, unions organize a high- school walkout in which students call for the destruction of Israel. “I’m incredibly proud of our students for exercising their constitutional rights to be able to speak out and speak up for righteousness,” said Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.

ITEM: In Washington, D.C., attendees arriving at a concert by the American-Jewish singer Matisyahu are greeted by a pro-Hamas demonstration.

At school, at work, and at play, American Jews find themselves increasingly ostracized by their peers. On college campuses, the quiet reestablishment of unofficial quotas has, over the course of a generation or two, halved the Jewish enrollment at a selection of elite universities. These days, stories of higher education’s turn against the Jews are ubiquitous. But as the above examples demonstrate, the attempt to cast Jews and Judaism out from the public square—or make Jews extremely uncomfortable inside the public square—has spread far beyond the college quad. And the statistics unambiguously say the same.

In the American Jewish Committee’s comprehensive survey of anti-Semitism in 2023, respondents were asked: “In the past 12 months, have you avoided certain places, events, or situations out of concern for your safety or comfort as a Jew out of fear of antisemitism?” Twenty-six percent—a quarter of U.S. Jews—responded in the affirmative. That is a 10-point increase over last year. In the poll, the number of those who admitted to avoiding “wearing, carrying, or displaying things that might help people identify you as a Jew,” as well as those who said they “avoided posting content online that would identify you as a Jew or reveal your views on Jewish issues,” increased as well.

All of this reflects the modern reality across the country. FBI reports show Jews are the target of more than half of all religiously motivated crimes. According to the Anti-Defamation League, over the course of the three months after October 7, there were more than 600 reported anti-Semitic incidents against Jewish institutions. And the ADL found a nearly 50 percent increase in security costs for Jewish schools in New York, New Jersey, and Florida.

#jews #removing jews #public square #remove jews from the public squares #antisemitism

[elliegoose]

Quick portrait of my new Lancer pilot, Heiðr Ránarbur, who I'm playing in a run of Solstice Rain. (For once I'm not playing an anthro!) They're an eager idealist who is definitely not prepared for the horrors that await them. Check out their full bio under the cut.

Name: Heiðr Ránarbur Pronouns: they/them Callsign: Veleda Chassis Name: The Hanged Chorus

Birthplace: Hvalur-Skaana, Federation of Nine Councils Homeworld: Nang Kilstlas, Xhuuya System Nearest Blink Gate: Tsalxhaan Station, Rocky Mountain Line

Heiðr Ránarbur is a recent addition to the ranks of Union's Naval pilots. They hail from a Sparri immigrant community in the city of Hvalur-Skaana on Nang Kilstlas, a prosperous Core world which saw its own revolution during the Union Civil War, and which came to play a key role in the Third Committee's securing of the Rocky Mountain Line. Their foundries and printers still produce some of the finest specialized heavy machinery offered by GMS today.

A former member of the Hvalur-Skaana Chassis Manufacturing Collective, Heiðr is a fervent believer in a democratic society and the liberatory potential of Union. Their activism led them to a position as one of the collective's representatives in Hvalur-Skaana's City Assembly. However, Heiðr's belief in fighting for a better world eventually called them to turn towards the stars. They applied and were admitted to the Xhuuya Union Naval Academy's pilot training program with aspirations of joining a DoJ/HR liberator team. Having excelled during their training, they are now serving aboard the UNS-CV Rio Grande.

#elise.rtf #my art #lancer #lancer rpg #lancerrpg #solstice rain #heiðr ránarbur #heiðr tag

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

So, in Brazilian LGBT+ right news, a Chamber of Deputies committee has approved a bill that prohibits same-gender marriage.

The bill, which was approved by 12 votes to 5 by the Social Security, Social Assistance, Childhood, Adolescence, and Family Committee of the Chamber of Deputies, includes same-sex people in the list of people who cannot marry. This list includes parents, children and siblings. The text will now go to the Human Rights Commission.

“It is not a relationship of selfishness between two, but of altruism in view of the perpetuation of the species. Hence the exclusive need, through marriage between a man and a woman”, argued the project rapporteur, deputy Pastor Eurico (Union party). He also defines same-gender marriage as a “purely ideological and unnatural objective”.

The project was originally presented in 2007 by former deputy Clodovil Hernandes, who died in 2009, and intended to change the Civil Code to recognize same-sex marriage. At the time, there was no guarantee that recognized union between LGBT+ people.

The proposal was then distorted and underwent changes by the rapporteur. The new report, the third, was presented on the same day as the vote, this Tuesday, the 10th. The movement generated a protest from left-wing parliamentarians, opposed to the project, who allege a breach of agreement.

“The agreement was to create a working group to talk to the rapporteur about his opinion. This group was not created. There is no time to discuss or amend the project”, said deputy Pastor Henrique Vieira (Socialism And Liberty Party). “It is fair if a (religious) celebrant decides what he wants or does not want to celebrate. We would accept it fine”, complained Laura Carneiro (Social Democracy Party). “We were hoping that what was previously agreed would be fulfilled. But we came out in the vote, we put it in obstruction”, added Daiana Santos (Communist Party of Brazil).

In 2011, the Federal Supreme Court (STF) unanimously recognized the LGBT+ union. Thus, although marriage between LGBT+ people is not guaranteed by law, the Supreme Court's decision guarantees that same-gender couples have the same rights and duties that Brazilian legislation already establishes for duaric couples.

Parties from the base of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's government helped conservatives to approve the project opposing same-gender marriage. The Brazilian Democratic Movement, Brazilian Socialist Party, and Brazil Union gave seats to conservative parliamentarians to form a majority in the collegiate. The government had advised against it. Had they indicated progressive names, the 12x5 score in favor of the project could be reversed, as the left-wing parliamentarians wanted.

(x)

Requested by an anon.

#brazil #brazilian politics #politics #LGBT rights #translations and summaries #anonymous #brought by followers #mod nise da silveira #image description in alt

[madamspeaker]

If you were going to draw up a list of the people most responsible for the latest indictment of Donald Trump, the former president himself would be at the top, followed by the prosecutors who have brought the case. Republicans in Congress perversely deserve a great deal of credit, too, since they could have exiled Trump from political life and perhaps spared him more intense legal scrutiny if they had voted to convict him in the impeachment trial over his role in the siege of the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Ultimately, however, you cannot tell the story of Trump’s historic indictment without Nancy Pelosi. It was the then-Speaker of the House who insisted that there be a congressional inquiry following January 6. And it was the work of the select committee she fashioned that finally appears to have spurred a reluctant Justice Department to action, setting in motion a more intense phase of criminal scrutiny focused on Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election.The resulting indictment closely tracks the select committee’s work and findings, presenting a factual narrative that traces — almost identically — the evidence presented by the committee of a sophisticated, multipronged effort by Trump to remain in power that culminated in the mayhem at the U.S. Capitol.

“I knew on January 6 that he had committed a crime,” Pelosi told me late Friday afternoon, squeezing me in for a roughly 30-minute interview at the tail end of a remarkable week in Washington.

I wondered what was going through her head as someone who had played an essential role in bringing about the most important criminal prosecution in the history of our country, and I was curious, in particular, when it had occurred to her that Trump’s conduct following the 2020 election had not merely been politically destructive or outrageous but may have crossed the line into actual criminality.

During the Trump administration, Pelosi emerged as one of Trump’s most persistent and effective political antagonists, and the personal rancor between the two was often on public display. She went toe to toe with him in the Oval Office. She authorized the third-ever impeachment of an American president after Trump’s effort to shake down Ukraine’s president to get dirt on Joe Biden. She famously tore up Trump’s 2020 State of the Union speech while standing behind him. As Trump’s supporters began to approach the Capitol on January 6, Pelosi said that if Trump joined them, “I’m going to punch him out. I’ve been waiting for this. For trespassing on the Capitol grounds, I’m going to punch him out. And I’m going to go to jail, and I’m going to be happy.”

The rioters proceeded to ransack her office, and instead of punching Trump, who was prevented from going to the Capitol by the Secret Service, Pelosi impeached him again. To this day, Pelosi seems to get under Trump’s skin like no one else. Early Sunday morning, Trump called her “a sick & demented psycho who will someday live in HELL!”

Long before January 6 itself, Pelosi had been preparing for Trump to try to disrupt the transfer of power. “During the election, I thought, ‘He’s going to try to pull a stunt and we have to try to have as many states in the Democratic column as possible,’” she told me, contemplating the possibility that Biden’s victory might not be certified and that the House would have to move to an obscure procedure in which each state’s congressional delegation would cast a single vote to determine the next president.

Trump promptly proceeded to validate that concern, undertaking an extraordinary effort to remain in power after Election Day by falsely claiming that he had won and by trying to work various levers of official power to stay in office. “As we got closer to January 6, I knew he was cooking up all these things, but what was he going to do about it?” Pelosi recalled. “It was clear that he knew he did not win the election,” she explained. “It was clear, and he had to disrupt” the joint session of Congress to certify the election. As the indictment alleges, Trump did this not only by pressuring Vice-President Mike Pence to illegally cast aside Biden’s electoral votes but also by watching with apparent pleasure as a mob tore through the Capitol and by exploiting the violence fed by his lies.

“When we saw what he did on January 6, I knew that was a crime,” Pelosi added. She acknowledged that it is not possible to predict “what can be proven” successfully in court, “but I know he committed a crime that day.”

After Biden’s inauguration, Pelosi set about to organize a bipartisan 9/11 Commission–type investigation into the events that led up to January 6, but she was repeatedly stymied by congressional Republicans. “We yielded on every point,” Pelosi recalled of the negotiations with her Republican counterparts at the time. “We gave them an equal number of commission members, which we always would have done — equal member staff, equal member funding for everything — and equal subpoena power, which the majority never gives away, but nonetheless, we did it because this was so awful for our country, so necessary to have this.”

In what turned out to have been a historic miscalculation, Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell blocked the initiative in the Senate. “He went around to members and said, ‘Do me a personal favor and do not vote for this,’” Pelosi told me. “Even though he knew that night — and said — that the Republican president was responsible, they didn’t even want to have an investigation.”

Pelosi has earned a reputation as one of the most tactically savvy leaders in the history of the Congress, and she chuckled as she recalled McConnell’s maneuvering. “People said to Mitch, ‘You think Nancy is going to let this go?’ What could he have been thinking?”

Pelosi then shifted gears to negotiating over a select committee in the House with Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, who took the project about as seriously as McConnell had by proposing to name, among other people, bomb-thrower Jim Jordan to the panel. Pelosi quickly decided the negotiations were not going anywhere, explaining that McCarthy wanted to appoint members who would “totally undermine” the committee. “Okay,” she recalled thinking. “That’s really nice. So you get consultation as to who will serve [on the committee], and I have consulted with you, and I’ve said ‘no’ to who you want. That’s the power of the Speaker.”

Pelosi then assembled a group led by Democratic chair Bennie Thompson and Republican vice-chair Liz Cheney, along with six other Democrats and Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger. It did not take long for observers to conclude that McCarthy may have monumentally misplayed his hand, particularly after the committee produced a riveting series of hearings last summer that were mercifully free of the clownish and disruptive antics of the House GOP’s right flank.

In the course of our discussion, Pelosi was reluctant to take any sort of credit for the committee’s work or Trump’s indictment with the exception of taking “credit for the appointees” on the committee, whom she described as providing a “beautiful balance” in their approaches and a crucial “seriousness of purpose.”

Pelosi said she knew from the beginning that, in order for the committee to succeed, it could not operate in the way of typical committee hearings, and she worked to ensure that the members shared that perspective. “When people were accepting the offer to be on the committee, they knew that it wasn’t going to be every five minutes that they’d be speaking,” she said. “It would be part of the plan [to present] a narrative for the public to understand.”

In the end, Pelosi told me, “the quality of the membership, the effectiveness of the staff, and the excellence of the presentation made it one of the best presentations in the history of our country.”

Meanwhile, there were questions about what the Justice Department was doing to address the potential criminal culpability of Trump and those in his orbit. The committee’s members and staff were uncovering — and presenting to the public — damaging evidence that they had obtained from Trump administration officials, but the DOJ was not pursuing those same threads — despite public frustration among some observers — seemingly content with focusing on the people who had stormed the Capitol or who played a role in organizing the violence that day.

I asked Pelosi whether during this period she had ever tried to speak with Attorney General Merrick Garland, President Biden, or anyone in the White House about making sure the Justice Department was properly investigating Trump’s conduct. “No,” she quickly responded, telling me that she did not think it was appropriate for her to try to influence the department’s work behind closed doors.

“I did want them to pay attention, and I hope that we got their attention,” Pelosi told me. “That’s why the presentation — the narrative — had to be the way it was,” she explained, so that the public record could be as clear and credible as possible. “We couldn’t have people, like the Republicans wanted to put on, who would be disruptive, disruptive, disruptive. Too much was at stake.”

Still, there was palpable anxiety among House Democrats about the Justice Department’s progress — or lack thereof — investigating Trump directly. That anxiety may have reached a high point this June, when the Washington Post published a remarkable 8,000-word story providing the most comprehensive account to date of the department’s investigation into Trump’s conduct.

According to the Post, it took “more than a year” after January 6 “before prosecutors and FBI agents jointly embarked on a formal probe of actions directed from the White House to try to steal the election,” and “even then, the FBI stopped short of identifying the former president as a focus of that investigation.” One source told the paper that “it felt as though the department was reacting to the House committee’s work as well as heightened media coverage and commentary” as the department’s investigation finally gathered steam last year.

“When the Washington Post article came out,” Pelosi told me, “not that it was a complete shock or surprise to our members, but they were very concerned about it.”

Now that Trump has been indicted over his effort to steal the election, we are in the midst of a singular moment in American history — one that will have dramatic long-term implications for our country and one that will likely be covered in history books for generations to come. The difference, of course, is that as we live through this period, we have no idea how it will end — with Trump in prison or with Trump in the White House again.

I asked Pelosi how she thought this would all end, and she struck a tentative but cautiously optimistic tone. “As we always say, it all depends on what happens at the end of the day, but you have to determine what the end of the day is. Yesterday was the end of a day. The former president of the United States was arraigned, and that was a triumph for the truth.”

“The indictments against the president are exquisite,” Pelosi added, referring to both the latest set of charges and the earlier federal indictment over Trump’s hoarding of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and his subsequent efforts to obstruct investigators. “They’re beautiful and intricate, and they probably have a better chance of conviction than anything that I would come up with.”

As for the prospect of a second Trump term, Pelosi immediately recoiled when I brought it up. “Don’t even think of that,” she told me. “Don’t think of the world being on fire. It cannot happen, or we will not be the United States of America.”

“If he were to be president,” she continued, “it would be a criminal enterprise in the White House.”

There was a time in American life, not that long ago, when that would have been clear hyperbole. These are categorically different times.

#nancy pelosi #madam speaker #interview

[znarikia]

There's something delightfully hauntological in Lancer about Union naming their capital ships after labor heroes, writers, and theorists as well as significant events in labor history from Earth's past instead of anyone from the revolution that instituted the Third Committee. I know it's done to render ThirdComm's ostensibly leftist nature legible to the audience that would have no idea who those people are, but I have the feeling that it was also done unconscious of the dialogue within leftist milieus about hauntology. And I think it's done unconsciously because it's funny and that's not the vibe the game's going for.

It just feels so funny to see UNS-BB Friedrich Engels. Several thousand years and an apocalypse into the future and we've got anti-capital torpedoes on the battleship Freddy Engels. It's supported by UNS-CV Tompkins Square. They're screened by UNS-LS Joe Hill and UNS-LS Nestor Makhno.

There's probably debates in the naval department on which millennia-dead people count as being significant enough or pro-labor enough to get shit named after them.

#lancer rpg #lancer ttrpg

[todaysdocument]

Letter from Eugenia Y. Genovar Regarding Comic Book Censorship

Record Group 46: Records of the U.S. Senate Series: Committee Papers of the Committee on the Judiciary

[stamped] NOV 27 1953 [handwritten in red ink] Carl 1-6-5X [handwritten] ID 2-2 [crossed out in red ink, illegible] 271 St. George Street St. Augustine, Florida November 24, 1953 My Dear Senator Hendrickson, I see in today's Florida Times-Union that you have been appointed to head a committee for the investigation of juvenile delinquency. This is indeed a very fine idea for really a mother today lives in constant fear because of the awful increase in crime among the young, and especially the dreadful increase of sex crimes and depravity. My dear Senator Hendrickson as an American mother I offer you these suggestions. First, please read the article in the November issue of Ladies Home Journal on "What Parents Don't Know About Comic Books" by Dr. Frederick Wertham. I am positive that he has the right idea! If the mothers of our beloved country would unite to have these pernicious comic books banned I am sure it would be a great step forward in the control of the young, especially the young boys. Second, all the awful crime stories and murder mysteries sent out to pollute the air and corrupt the minds of our younger generation. I do not want to bore you with onerous detail but I have found that even though a mother is alert and does not allow her children to waste their money or time on these cheap and filthy comics, one's children can read them at the book stands or read them when they visit their friends. Third, reading all these lurid, highly colored comics ruins a child's appetite for good books as the better literature sounds too tame after this other highly seasoned diet. I believe that the P.T.A's all over the country could unite to have these comics banned, many cities have done this and as Dr. says, we have laws that prohibit selling poison, why can't we prohibit these people from selling poison to our children's minds? I do not think that it is necessary or just to conduct an investigation that will cause the long suffering, over taxed American citizen a great deal of money when the evidence is right in front of our eyes and the way to stop it is so very simple. Of course you will have educators (?) and others who will rise up and say these comics do not harm the minds of the readers but I think the proof that they do is right in front of us, in increased juvenile delinquency for as you know, we do spend a great deal of money on our schools, our recreation programs, ect, and the great majority of the parents are trying to bring their children up right, yet, in spite of all this we are appalled at what we read in the papers every day and hear from our neighbors, friends, nurses and doctors. I will not take up any more of your time. With heartfelt best wishes, I am, Sincerely yours, Eugenia Y. Genovar

#archivesgov #November 24 #1953 #1950s #comics #comic books #censorship #book bans

[wealmostaneckbeard]

Brian David Gilbert gets into the Lancer table top role playing game. Makes funny protest songs against Harrison Armory's expansionist policies. Examines the different branches of Union's Third Committee and rates each one on how your anthrochauvinist parents would react to you starting work there. Explains the differences between a club for NHP hobbyists (good) versus a Horus cult (bad), ends by revealing that there is no difference and there is nothing sinister about Horus so quit being so judgemental.

#brian david gilbert #bdg #lancer rpg #union's third committee #harrison armory #H0RUS #horus #nhp

[nerdygaymormon]

Congratulations to Nepal!

Here's a brief history leading up to today.

Nepal has tried to stamp out social discrimination ever since a decade-long Maoist rebellion ended in 2006 and the 239-year-old Hindu monarchy was dismantled in 2008.

In 2007, Nepal repealed laws against gay sex and introduced several laws which protected "gender and sexual minorities". The Supreme Court ruled later that year for the government to create laws to protect LGBTI rights, and for the government to form a committee to look into legalizing same-sex marriage. Successive governments failed to change the law on same-sex marriage. 

A lesbian couple held a traditional Hindu marriage ceremony in 2011, but the marriage has no legal status in Nepal. More and more public parades and unofficial weddings started being held in Nepal.

A new constitution was adopted in 2015 which recognized LGBT rights as fundamental rights, and while it didn't specifically list same-sex marriage, it did list several other rights, such as being able to acquire a citizenship certificate according to one's gender identity.

In July 2017, Monica Shahi and Ramesh Nath, successfully registered their marriage. Shahi is a third gender person, with their sex recorded as "other" on their official identity documents. The Nepal Home Ministry said the marriage could be invalid.

In October 2017, the Supreme Court ruled that the government was wrong to deny a Visa to the American wife of a Nepalese citizen. The government argued it rejected the application since Nepal doesn't recognize same-sex marriages. The Supreme Court ruled that the law is as long as they have a valid marriage license, a foreigner who is married to a Nepali citizen is eligible for the Visa, the rules do not specify that the foreign national must be either same or opposite gender. Furthermore, it pointed to the Nepal constitution that an LGBT citizen is entitled to live life with dignity without discrimination.

March 2023, the Supreme Court ordered the government to recognize the marriage of a Nepali citizen and his German husband and to issue a spousal visa. It also directed the government to draft legislation for full marriage equality in Nepal

In June of 2023, the Supreme Court ordered the government to make necessary arrangements to temporarily create a separate register for marriages of "sexual minorities and non-traditional couples" until lawmakers come up with a new legal framework to uphold such unions permanently.

Nov 29, 2023, a same-sex couple officially registered their marriage

#nepal #same sex marriage

[mariacallous]

Most presidential election years advance as follows. There are lots of primaries, someone in each party wins the most and takes center stage at a big raucous convention, they run in the general election, someone wins 270 votes in the Electoral College and becomes president.

But 2024 is no normal presidential election year. The two leading candidates for the major party nominations are the oldest pairing of candidates in American history — one is 81, the other is 77. Age appears to be a major factor in the fortunes of the incumbent president even though he has the kind of record that would re-elect most presidents. The other candidate is under indictment and could be convicted of a crime and head to jail in the election year. The two major parties are so closely divided that third party candidates could swing the Electoral College votes of a state — resulting in the third election in the 21st century where the national vote winner does not win the Electoral College vote and thus the presidency.

It is no wonder that lots of Americans are asking, “What happens if the candidate is incapacitated, drops out, goes to jail, or if no one reaches 270 in the Electoral College vote count?” The answer is that the election could be decided by approximately 10,000 people who no one has ever heard of.

So, here’s who they are.

First, we need to understand the importance of political parties. For example, a great deal of attention has been paid to the fact that officials in Colorado and Maine have recently decided that Trump is ineligible to appear on the Republican primary ballot in their state because of his role in the January 6 insurrection. If these decisions stand (a big if) it could have huge consequences in November but no consequences at all for the nomination race. That’s because political parties control the nomination process. They are covered by the First Amendment’s freedom of association and short of processes that violate other civil rights (all-white primaries, for instance) the state political parties can select delegates to their conventions pretty much any way they want to. The Republican parties of Colorado and Maine can elect delegates at their state convention or by their state committee and send them to Milwaukee to vote for Trump at the Republican convention.

For instance, in the event of the death or incapacitation of a candidate, each state party will continue to elect delegates to their conventions in a series of congressional district caucuses, state conventions, and state committee meetings that will occur most often in April, May. and June. Delegates elected in the name of someone who is no longer a candidate will become uncommitted. Candidates who step into the breach hoping to take the place of the fallen candidate will find out who these delegates are and woo them in as many ways as they can. The outcome will be a convention where the result may not be known ahead of time. In other words, it will be the kind of no-holds-barred event that nominating conventions held between 1831 and 1968.

All this is to say that the first 8,567 people you’ve never heard of are the people who will be delegates to the national conventions. These people can be teachers or labor union members or evangelical Christians or right to life activists. What they all have in common is some degree of activism on behalf of their political party, even if they generally are unknown to the public.

The dominant role of the political parties extends until after the convention as well. If something happens to the party’s nominee and that person can’t run in the general election, the 168 members of the Republican National Committee and 426 members of the Democratic National Committee will meet in special session to choose a replacement nominee. (No, the nomination does not automatically extend to the vice-presidential candidate on the ballot.) The procedures for this are written in the rules of the Republican Party and in the Charter of the Democratic Party. Most of these 594 people are elected in their states and include all the state party chairmen and vice chairmen as well as people who are prominent in their state and party.

Each party has a system of selecting its national committee members and its national convention delegates and methods for implementing the selection process. This is a large and complex undertaking, which is why it requires established political parties and millions of dollars to carry out. If one understands the centrality of the institutional party to the nomination process, one can also see why a group like No Labels is having such trouble figuring out how to nominate a candidate that (supposedly) the public wants and who is neither Trump nor Biden. Over many decades, the two political parties have established a system that has a kind of legitimacy to it. A group that decided to put forth a candidate without calling itself a political party and without building a grass roots of elected leaders will have a very hard time arguing that its nominee is legitimate.

And finally, what happens if, for some reason, the winner can’t take office after Election Day and before the final count in the Senate? The next critical group that no one knows consists of the 535 members of the Electoral College. Most people are familiar with the Electoral College and on election night we all watch as states announce who won and who lost their electors. But most people don’t realize that electors are actual real live people who travel to their state capitals on the first Tuesday after the second Wednesday in December. They have a real meeting where they sign a “certificate of ascertainment” and a “certificate of votes” which are sent to Washington, D.C. to be read and counted by the president of the Senate (the sitting vice president of the United States.) Some states (29) have statutes requiring the electors to vote for the winner of the election in that state. But others (21) do not.

Electors don’t often cast their votes differently from the election results. But in the case where the nominee is no longer alive, incapacitated, or on their way to jail, some of those electors may think differently and may try to vote for someone new. Electors are generally chosen by the state party for loyalty to the party. In many instances, it is an honor — a sort of gold watch — given for long-term service to the party. They are not expected to think for themselves or to negotiate, which is not to say that they wouldn’t under extraordinary circumstances.

And, of course, it is always possible that no candidates win 270 votes in the Electoral College. If that happens the election goes to 435 people in the House of Representatives. Some people know who their representative is but very few know who the other 434 representatives are. Once in the House — states have one vote each — determined by majority vote of their delegation — a crazy system in this day and age especially when the big states are so much more populous than the small states.

Once the Electoral College meets and makes its decision, if the winner can’t take office, the 20th Amendment to the Constitution states: “If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President elected shall have died, the Vice President elect shall become President.”

Odds are that 2024 will proceed as expected. Trump and Biden will win the most primaries and be their party’s nominee. And one of them will go on to win the votes in the Electoral College and take control in January 2025. But it is important to understand that there are no guarantees 2024 will proceed along the usual course. There could be surprises along the way that will shock people and destabilize the system. The 8,567 convention delegates, the 594 members of the parties’ national committees, the 535 members of the Electoral College, and the 435 members of the House of Representatives add up to slightly more than 10,000 people. We are in uncharted waters on several fronts, and we should expect strange developments along the way. Ten thousand people who we don’t know could play a critical role in deciding how to deal with those surprises and determine the occupant of the most important office of the United States.

[thats-very-like-a-whale]

I’ve seen the word “Zionism” thrown around lot in the past few days, with very very few people actually understanding what it means. I've seen it used as a synonym for “Jews” by neo-Nazis, as a synonym for “support of Israel” by people who are anti-Israel, and as a synonym for “support of the occupation” by people who have no idea what they're talking about. So here's a bit about the history of Zionism so none of you have an excuse to use it as a fucking buzzword to mean whatever you want.

Zionism is an ideology that originated in the 19th century that aspired to build a national homeland for the Jewish people in Eretz Yisrael, which was historically the home of the Jewish people, dating back to at least the 11th century B.C.E. during the late 19th and the early 20th centuries, there were several waves of Aliyah to Ottoman- and then British-occupied Eretz Yisrael, otherwise known as Palestine. These Aliyot were comprised of Zionist Jews from Eastern Europe, the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, Yemen and other Arab nations, escaping persecution, pogroms and rising antisemitism.

In 1917, the British government issued the Balfour Declaration, affirming that the Jewish people have the right to return to Palestine and build a Jewish homeland. The new Jewish Olim (immigrants who have made Aliyah), labeled “HaYishuv HaChadash” (“The New Yishuv”) joined HaYishuv HaYashan (“The Old Yishuv”), the Jewish communities who were already living in Palestine, to form the Yishuv - the collective name for the Jewish community living in Palestine before the formation of Israel. They built kibbutzim and developed agriculture, forming the basis of what would become the State of Israel.

During WWI - parallel to the Balfour Declaration - the British made another, contradictory, promise to recognize the foundation of an independent Arab state in the area of the Levant. Both promises were not motivated by any goodwill on the side of the British, as they hardly intended to fulfill either promise, but by the benefit that the Arab and Jewish communities could provide the British during the war.

The British Empire conquered Palestine from the Ottoman Empire in WWI, and, under the League of Nations, controlled the region for nearly thirty years under the British Mandate. Despite their commitment under the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine to control the territory until its inhabitants are able to govern themselves, the British were far more committed on their own colonialist interests and aspirations in the area than they were to finding a solution to the growing Jewish-Arab crisis that resulted in several waves of violence against the Yishuv, during which hundreds of Jews were killed.

In the years 1933 until 1945, during the Holocaust, the Nazis committed the largest genocide in human history, murdering six million European Jews - two-thirds of the European Jewish population, one-third of the worldwide Jewish population.

During WWII, approximately 1.5 million Jews drafted and served in the Allied armies against the Nazis. The British Army even formed the Jewish Brigade in 1944 - a brigade built of Yishuv Jews from Mandatory Palestine.

The Holocaust of the Jewish people brought renewed interest and support to the Zionist movement aspiring to build a homeland for the Jewish people. In 1947, the United Nations formed UNSCOP (the United Nations Special Committee On Palestine), to find a long-term solution for the crisis in Palestine. UNSCOP recommended a two-state solution through the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, a partition plan that laid out the borders of two future nations - a Jewish state, and a Palestinian state. The Yishuv leadership accepted this partition plan, while the Palestinian leadership rejected it.

On November 29th, 1947 - a date known in Israel as Kaf-Tet BeNovember - the UN General Assembly voted in favor of UNSCOP’s partition plan, with the British Mandate set to be terminated in mid-May of 1948. The next day, on November 30th, various Palestinian militant groups and terror organizations began a war against the Yishuv. The Yishuv leadership responded to the wave of terror with restraint, only using military force to defend villages and yishuvim being attacked without using active offensive military action, until March 1948, labeled Black March in Israel. In early April 1948, the Yishuv launched a counteroffensive, which continued until the declaration of independence.

Israel declared its independence on May 14th, 1948, according to UN Resolution 181. Immediately with its founding, it faced a five-front invasion by Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, a war for its every existence. Israel won the war in 1949, ending with borders slightly larger than the UNSCOP Partition Plan, but having lost 6,000 lives - almost 1% of its population. Egypt remained occupying the Gaza Strip, and Jordan annexed the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Since then - when the Jewish people, against all odds, founded a Jewish nation in Palestine and won an existential war against five fully-fledged armies - the meaning of the word “Zionism” moved on from meaning “the aspiration to found a Jewish homeland in Eretz Yisrael” to “believing in Israel’s right to exist”. Since its foundation in 1948, Israel has faced existential threats many times over. It is by no means perfect - and has, in fact, committed many atrocities and crimes against humanity since its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, which I will hopefully write a full post about in a few days - but the meaning of Zionism is simple. You don't have to support Israel, but it has the fundamental right to exist.

So being critical of Israel and being against its government does not make you an anti-Zionist, nor does it make you an antisemite. But being against the existence of Israel and fundamentally believing it has no right to exist is anti-Zionism, and it does make you antisemitic. Because it means you believe in forcing the Jewish people to assimilate outside of Israel, or in forcing them back to countries from where they fled persecution to face pogroms and antisemitic violence in silence.

So consider your terminology before you use it, and please, please, please do research before you spread misinformation about the war in Israel now.

#israel #zionism #jumblr #palestine #war #1948 palestine war #israel palestine conflict #ישראלבלר #ישרבלר #ישראבלר #cw terrorism #cw war

[toaster-boi]

heyg tell about Lancer pls

👉👈

ok so basically it takes place 15,000 years in the future, and about 5,000 years before it takes place an entity called Union was formed as basically a pan-human government. Union's history is basically split between three Committees: First, Second and Third, shortened to FirstComm, SecComm, and ThirdComm.

FirstComm was basically hyper-vigilant institutionalized PTSD as humanity had nearly fought itself to extinction. SecComm was imperialistically expansionist and best described as Anthro-Chauvinist, and as a result they committed xenocide against the one sapient species humanity has encountered yet in the setting. this incident, known as the Hercynian Crisis, happened in ~4500u, or 4500 years after the formation of Union.

this resulted in 1.) the invention of mechs, 2.) the ThirdComm Revolution, which ousted SecComm from government and Union's navy, and 3.) the formation of Harrison Armory, an interplanetary imperial corpo-state run by a SecComm arms dealer, who was so horrified that people would protest the use of mechs to render a planet uninhabitable that he bought the production rights immediately.

in the game's present, 5016u, ThirdComm does their best to use soft power and diplomacy to enforce the Third Committee's Utopian Pillars (right to movement, right to have physical needs met, right to not be held in bondage), but that isn't always enough. this is where Lancers come in.

a Lancer, generally, is a mech pilot with access to a large-scale 3D printer capable of rebuilding a mech from scratch within a day. additionally, they have to be trained at a minimum to operate Union's standard mech, the General Massive Systems (GMS) Standard Pattern 1 "Everest."

this mech is basically the galactic standard; the benchmark for whether a unit is good or bad at something is whether an Everest can be built do the job better. it deliberately lacks any kind of official artwork or physical description, specifically so that players can make it look however they want. plus its frame-specific traits straight up improve your action economy, giving it what is debatably the best core power in the game.

progression is through License Levels, usually shortened to LLs. they give you more points to invest into pilot talents, and one point per level to invest in a mech license. each mech (other than the Everest and the other GMS mechs) has three levels in its license, each giving you pieces of equipment, while the frame itself unlocks at two levels invested in the license. as such, the entire progression system is effectively stacking more and more multiclasses on top of one another.

if you wanna know more, lemme know, i could go on and on about this game

#toaster thoughts #asks #lancer rpg

[scotianostra]

Eunice Guthrie Murray was born on 21st January 1878 in Cardross.

Eunice Murray was the daughter of a well-known Glasgow lawyer, Dr David Murray and Frances Porter Murray, Murray was one of the founders of the Glasgow Ladies Higher Education Society in 1876, both her parents were both supporters of the women's movement, her mother, Frances was born in New York, and raised in Scotland, was a suffragette. Frances’s parents both of whom were active abolitionists, emigrated to Glasgow in 1844.

Murray attended the progressive St Leonard School in St Andrews, where she became involved in philanthropic activities. She was active in the local branch of the League of Pity, volunteered regularly at a local settlement, and was an advocate for temperance. On 9th November 1896 she recorded reading about the formation of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, commenting

‘I should like to join such a society for the question of the emancipation of my sex is a stirring one and leads to vital matters’.

Given her background it is hardly surprising that along with her mother and her sister, Sylvia Murray, she joined the Women’s Freedom League. The WFL had a strong presence in Scotland, and from 1909 onwards Murray was the secretary for ‘scattered members’—all those who did not live in Edinburgh, Glasgow, or Dundee. Eunice was one of the three Scottish members on the WFL’s national executive committee and in 1913 was described as president for Scotland of the WFL.

The Women’s Freedom League was a non-violent militant group most famous for first chaining themselves to railings and leading the 1911 Census boycott. Inspired after attended the International Women’s Suffrage Alliance in Budapest in 1913, Eunice Murray was arrested for obstruction when she tried to address a meeting near 10 Downing Street on women’s suffrage.

Unlike the Pankhursts’ Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) and the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), the WFL continued to campaign for the women’s suffrage throughout the First World War. Murray was an active feminist who had published numerous leaflets on women and their position in society such as The Illogical Woman. Like many feminists, Murray argued for the vote based on the unique roles of men and women. She observed, ‘We have always held, and hold now, that it is because men and women are so different, and not because they are so alike, that we require the vote.

In 1918, women in Britain finally won their right to vote and stand in general elections, if they were over 30 and met minimum property qualifications, and Eunice was quick to take advantage of this major breakthrough and stood as a candidate in Glasgow, Bridgeton in the 1918 election, the only Scottish woman in the first election open to women in 1918, she was unsuccessful, coming third. The results being Coalition Liberal Alexander MacCallum Scott 10,887, Labour James Maxton 7,860 and Independent Eunice Murray 991.

The election was held in the midst of the Spanish Flu epidemic with 327 deaths in the Glasgow that week, compared to 386 the previous week. Schools and docks were closed when half a million Glaswegians took to the polls, of which just over one-third were newly enfranchised women. In response to a claim that all women candidates were pacifists she wrote to the Spectator on 23rd November 1918, ‘I believe that the war we have just fought and won was a righteous one, and that it was the duty of newly enfranchised women to support the country’.

The election saw the defeat of the Asquith Liberals and the landslide of the Coalition Liberals. Murray was not deterred by her defeat and went to on to have an active political life. Elected as councillor in 1923 to Dunbartonshire Council, Murray was also the founder and President of the Scottish Women’s Rural Institute in the area.

Eunice Murray died on 26th March 1960 having led an active and inspirational life and today we remember her as the first women to break the barrier in Scotland to stand as an MP.

#scotland #scottish #history #women's rights #strong woman do bong soon #women's suffrage