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there are only French sources on this so far. from google translate:

An ambush involving minors turned into an anti-Semitic attack in Colomiers, west of Toulouse, Europe 1 reveals. The incident reportedly occurred on Thursday, June 19, 2025. The 15-year-old boy was allegedly lured by a young girl via social media for a date. Upon his arrival, several individuals were waiting for him at the entrance to a cellar.

Violence and Humiliation in a Cellar

One of the attackers, armed with a knife, allegedly forced the victim to remove his T-shirt and dance. He then grabbed him by the neck, forcing him to kneel, while ordering him to "beg and pray." During this humiliating scene, the attackers called him a "dirty Jew," even though the victim was not Jewish. According to information from La Dépêche, the teenager is said to be attending the ORT high school in Colomiers, a Jewish educational institution that is "open to all students and where all faiths have coexisted in perfect harmony for years," we are told.

An attack filmed and broadcast

"He was indeed filmed and threatened, while being called a dirty Jew," confirmed a source close to the investigation. Footage of the attack was broadcast on social media. Although the young boy showed no physical injuries, the act was deeply shocking. The victim quickly filed a complaint. Less than 24 hours after the incident, one of the alleged attackers, a 14-year-old student in Colomiers, was arrested on Friday and taken into police custody.

An ongoing investigation

The investigation, still ongoing, has been entrusted to the Toulouse police. Two other minors, identified as potentially involved, are being actively sought. The offenses charged in this case are numerous: aggravated death threats based on religion, religious insults, violence with a weapon, and recording and disseminating images of violence.

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I’m seeing a lot of people claim that the remaining hostages, by virtue of being IDF members are not hostages but prisoners of war. Which, fine, you can make that argument. But if that was the case, under the Third Geneva Convention, prisoners of war have very specific rights, including not being held in close confinement, not being tortured, getting adequate food and water, being given access to medical treatment, being allowed contact with the outside world and their loved ones, and of course visitation by the International Red Cross.

Not a single one of these conditions has been met. They aren’t prisoners of war. They’re hostages. And the International Red Cross doesn’t care about Jews.

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Bitter/Sweet

A brief continuation of the scene in episode 7, in which the tooth monster takes a few more minutes to appear and Murderbot has time to play the bitter/sweet game.

“... It’s safer if they think of you as a person who is trying to help. Because that’s how I think of you,” Mensah said.

My insides melted. That’s the only way I could describe it. After a minute, when I had my expression under control, I folded my helmet back into my armor and walked over to stand with the humans. That wasn’t my first mistake of the day, but it was one of the stupider ones.

“I’ll go first,” Mensah said once we were all standing around in a circle like idiots. Then she made a weird flicking gesture in front of her face. “Sweet: Secunit, earlier today you saved Gurathin’s life - all of our lives. We owe you our gratitude for that.” She made the gesture again. “Bitter: you did it by killing Lebeebee, very suddenly and violently. I think many of us are struggling to reconcile that. We can talk about this.”

“We can talk about this,” the others agreed, creepily synchronized. Then they looked at me all expectantly, like they thought that I should somehow know what the hell they wanted.

“It’s your turn, Secunit,” Mensah remembered to clue me in after a moment. “You choose a memory of someone else in the circle, and share something sweet and something bitter about it. It’s something we do to encourage open communication and resolve conflict within the group.”

That was so fucking stupid that I couldn’t come up with anything to say for a full ten seconds. My buffer wanted me to ask them to please wait while I searched for information, but I didn’t let it, because I was kind of hoping that if I just stayed very still and quiet they would go back to thinking of me as an appliance like all the normal humans did.

“It’s not going to do it,” Pin-Lee muttered, like that meant I couldn’t hear them. “It’s obviously not going to do it, Mensah, this is a waste of time-”

“Give it a minute, babe, it’s thinking,” Arada said.

“Yeah, it’s thinking, definitely,” Ratthi said, nodding vigorously.

“You don’t know that!" Pin-Lee snapped. "You can’t know that, because it’s still not fucking saying anything, which is incredibly creepy, by the way-”

“Shh, don’t be judgmental, it doesn’t have to talk if it doesn’t-”

“Judgmental?” Pin-Lee had given up on muttering and was getting progressively louder. “It just blew a woman’s head off right in front of us and you’re worried about being judgmental?”

“Since you brought it up, maybe you should be a little more worried about pissing off the thing that just blew a woman’s head off,” Arada said, which was a pretty good point but still didn’t feel great to hear.

“Can we stop talking about blowing people’s heads off?” Bharadwaj asked. She looked like she felt sick, but her vitals were holding steady, so she wasn’t dying and it therefore wasn’t my problem.

“Talking about it is kind of the whole point of this,” Ratthi pointed out. 

“It’s clearly not going to happen, though, because the person blowing the heads off isn’t fucking talking-”

“Sweet,” I said, and Pin-Lee shut up right in the middle of their sentence. There were a lot of things I could have said: you’ve never taken a blow torch to my hand just because you know I can’t stop you was one of them. So was: you’re the only humans who have ever talked to me like I’m a person. But what I said was: “You’re good clients because you don’t make my job harder on purpose. Bitter…” (I didn’t do the flicking gesture, because it was stupid. This whole thing was stupid. I should have just let that stupid tooth monster eat me days ago.) “You make my job harder by accident all the time.”

“And what is your job, as you see it?” That was Bharadwaj. I felt like she, at least, should have been willing to give me a break, since this was the second time I’d saved her life.

“To protect my clients from harm,” I said.

“By killing people?”

“If necessary.”

“And you believe that murdering Lebeebee was necessary.” From Bharadwai’s tone, I got the sense that she didn’t think it was necessary. That’s why I’m the one in charge of security.

“Yes,” I said. “She was a threat.”

“She was a person!” Arada said.

Well, yeah. “A person who was a threat.”

“You can’t go around just shooting people because you think they might be threats!” Pin-Lee said. “That’s the complete antithesis of the values Preservation was built on, it’s not okay and it’s not how we operate!"

“It was when you killed the hostile secunit at DeltFall,” I said.

That shut them up for all of about four seconds. “That was different,” Arada said, startled.

“How?” I asked.

“It was trying to kill us!”

“So was Lebeebee.” Seriously, had they not noticed that? Maybe they were even more helpless than I thought.

“No, no, it’s not the same,” Bharadwaj said. She sounded upset, and to be honest, I wasn’t feeling great about this either. “Lebeebee was just misguided, we could have talked to her, we could have come up with some other solution. The situation wasn’t the same!”

“Yes,” I agreed. “Lebeebee was a human, which means that she chose to do everything that she did, and I killed her for it. The secunit was a construct, which means that it never chose to do anything in its life. It followed orders that its governor module enforced with electric shocks to its neural tissue, and then you killed it for that. You’re right, that’s not the same.”

I wasn’t looking at them while I talked, because rogue secunits don’t have to make eye contact if they don’t want to, but no one said anything for such a long time that my threat assessment module started getting twitchy and I glanced down at them just to make sure they were still there.

They were. They were just standing there in our stupid circle, staring at me. Bharadwaj looked shocked. All of them did, except maybe Mensah, like I’d said something that had never occurred to them before. Maybe it hadn’t. Maybe they hadn’t thought of what they did to that secunit as “killing” at all, because you couldn’t kill a machine. You just shut it down.

“Secunit…” Mensah was the first one to remember how to talk, but I didn’t get to find out what she wanted to say.

“I hear something,” I said. It looked like I was going to get another shot at getting eaten by a giant tooth monster after all.

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Today in Murderbot, the non-Mensah expedition members keep expecting SecUnit's "true nature" to be all grr grr violence, no matter how many times it clearly shows it's actually a huge bitch (affectionate).

That said, I feel like an inch of progress was made this episode - Pin-Lee asking SecUnit if it thinks it's part of the team, the whole crew realizing that sometimes "checking the perimeter" means "getting away from the rest of you assholes," all of them but Gurathin at least being willing to "talk about it," sweet and bitter.

Gurathin at least subconsciously seems to feel there's only room for one rescue cat on the expedition - or maybe it's more a matter of self-loathing. He would never have done what Mensah did and taken in a treacherous Company spy. She's naive and her risk assessment is terrible, and she showed that by trusting Gurathin. He doesn't want her making that same mistake again.

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I have watched the Episode 7 three times, and naturally I have some thoughts:

- Okay, Gurathin officially has the coolest backstory I can imagine for his character. Being a former corporate spy has so many implications for who he is and what he's capable of. It explains why he's been suspicious this whole time (apparently from the moment they acquired a SecUnit) that Murderbot could be working with the Company to hurt the Preservation team. It also explains why he was suspicious of LeeBeeBee from the beginning and saw through all her attempts to get him and the others to reveal information.

- Interestingly, the rest of PresAux knows this about him, but Murderbot doesn't, which would seem to fit with the books, as I'm fairly certain Murderbot would've mentioned it somewhere if it knew Gurathin was a former corporate spy. (We could also discuss in-world reasons why Murderbot might not mention it, but I'll leave that for fanfic writers to explore.)

- Gurathin's relationship to Mensah also makes a lot more sense from his backstory. He was desperate, broken, and essentially enslaved, with no one to turn to, and she forgave him and helped him get asylum in Preservation Alliance, which had to be an involved and risky process. She was his only friend for a while, and knowing Mensah, she would've stuck with him and done whatever she could to support him through all the ups and downs (including withdrawal from his corporation's proprietary drugs).

It makes sense that Gurathin would see Mensah as a rare stabilizing force in his life. She's someone he's terrified of losing, to the point that he'd go on a survey with her in the Corporation Rim rather than let her out of sight into the dangers he narrowly escaped. Even if it means putting himself in a situation likely to trigger reminders of his past trauma and addiction and tempt him to relapse. He's fallen in love with Mensah, but his feelings are largely because of who she was to him at the lowest point in his life, and because he's become emotionally dependent on her during his addiction and trauma recovery and his integration into a foreign culture in adulthood. His going into Mensah's room to cry over her pillow, an action Murderbot misinterpreted and classified as creepy and depressing, seems to indicate rather that Gurathin doesn't think he can continue to function if he loses her.

- Okay, now that we've discussed the big reveal, I want to note that this episode made me fall even more in love with all of PreservationAux and Murderbot. After several episodes of the team being separated into groups, we get to see them all working together during an emergency. And PresAux works together really well as a team—as long as they're not being shot at by hostile SecUnits. PresAux and Murderbot... still not quite working as a team yet, but they're making an attempt.

Adding a readmore because this is quickly becoming a long post:

- I love how Bharadwaj and Gurathin basically hang out together and take care of each other for most of the episode. In past episodes, they've both seemed unwilling to admit to the rest of the team that they're struggling and need support. But with Gurathin being shot in the leg and Bharadwaj shaken by the betrayal and violent death of someone she'd cared about, I think they've both lost some of their ability to pretend they're fine. They also seem to find comfort and usefulness in looking out for each other, and possibly a distraction from their own problems that's helping them cope. Either way, the casual physical closeness is very sweet, and shows at least one way Gurathin has become more integrated with Preservation culture.

- Before I forget, I went back and replayed several times that moment in the habitat where PresAux steps back from Murderbot, and I noted two things: (1) Mensah only barely steps back, and she looks slightly cautious and evaluative rather than afraid while doing so, and (2) Gurathin, who is sitting on a box, does not step back, but just moves sideways into a more upright position no longer resting his weight on his arm, and could possibly be trying to get in front of Bharadwaj?

- In the crisis situation of this episode, Mensah really embodies her role as team leader, acting as a source of calm and decisiveness when her team needs her to be. I felt like she showed a new level of steady confidence, and I think it's partly because she's rising to the occasion for her team as a good leader does, but also because she now understands the kind of ally they have in Murderbot. Murderbot is an ally who would literally cut out pieces of its body to get them out of danger. She also gets to share the burden of command with a consultant who understands combat and the dangers facing them better than any of the team, and who has saved them several times so far. Her understanding of Murderbot as a person gives her new confidence in communicating with it and new insight in how to persuade it to work with the team, even if the insight isn't perfect.

- Let me just say, the scene with Murderbot being grown over with branches was haunting. It's true to the things Murderbot fantasizes about doing in the books, and it's also a great example of what depression can look like. There was discussion on Discord about how this is essentially suicidal ideation but Murderbot is unlikely to recognize that. It's also reflective of an aspect of depression that doesn't always get attention: the feeling of wanting to just never have to move again.

- I love that Pin-Lee got lots of time this episode to voice their opinions and suggest courses of action for the team. In my opinion, most of the characters felt like they had come closer to their book portrayal in this episode, and this was especially true of Pin-Lee. Their strategic thinking and assertiveness was evident throughout the episode. I also internally cheered when they said they wanted to sue the shit out of the whole Corporation Rim—that's our lawyer Pin-Lee!

- Arada nerding out over the worms was so funny and endearing, and definitely reminded me of other people I've known who are very passionate about their field of expertise. And it seems very in character for Arada to think LeeBeeBee was bluffing about killing them all.

- Ratthi was hilarious this episode, and came across as someone who tries to use charisma to charm his way through new or uncomfortable situations, in order to hide the fact that he doesn't know what he's doing and is making it up as he goes. It's worked enough times that it's become his main coping strategy, even when it's not a very effective one.

- Poor Bharadwaj was really not having a good time this episode. She's clearly still having a hard time with what happened to LeeBeeBee, and still angry with Murderbot for it. And then the worms show up! Her extremely repulsed facial expressions made it pretty clear she'd rather be anywhere but near those things.

- Something interesting I noticed this episode was the way Gurathin sometimes blinks while his eyes roll back in his head. I'd noticed it at least once before, in that scene where Murderbot doesn't strangle him (which I watched on loop a few times thanks to gifs by some lovely people), but I'd thought it was just a fear response or something. In this episode, though, especially a couple times during the flashback scene, Gurathin's eyes definitely did the same thing. So now I'm thinking it might have something to do with his augments. There was also discussion on Discord of whether the reason Gurathin's condition seemed to deteriorate quickly had anything to do with his augments. I have no idea, but it occurred to me to wonder if immunosuppression is necessary for augmentation (like it is sometimes currently for organ transplants), and if that would interfere with his body's ability to heal or fight infection.

Okay, I think I've covered all the things I wanted to cover that other people haven't already covered. This episode was chock full of good character moments, y'all!

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really really enjoying gurathin’s arc, because yes he has reasonable fears about secunits but they’re overlying a much deeper, more personal pain caused by seeing murderbot take his place as mensah’s little “i can fix them” project. he wants to be special to her, maybe because he’s in love with her, maybe because it’s the only way he can convince himself he’s deserving of her kindness and empathy, probably a bit of both. but either way seeing someone else get the rehab treatment from her is bringing all those feelings to a head, making him feel insecure about both himself and his relationship with mensah. and it’s all written in a way that’s very sympathetic to gurathin’s feelings while also showing them as a flaw he’s going to have to overcome. it’s good stuff!

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PresAux: Don't you ever want to talk about your emotions, SecUnit?

Murderbot: no

Ratthi: I do!

PresAux: We know, Ratthi

Ratthi: I am a maelstrom of emotions

PresAux: We know, Ratthi

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The thing that really got me in episode 7 of murderbot is that the hostile unit used it's buffer/canned lines when it attacked. I think this hints that these secunits that are attacking them are people who are trapped in service to the corporations rim just like murderbot was. Which, yeah, obvious to us. But to presaux, who say all the right things but still have deep rooted biases against secunits (example: cheering when they killed hostile secunit at deltfall but moralizing and shying away from murderbot for killing leebeebee). It shows how even well-intentioned people can still be prejudiced, especially when they have never been around someone who challenges those preconceptions. I think Mensah and murderbot's relationship is a good example of how it isn't murderbot's responsibility to teach presaux to be better. It is their responsibility to do the work of dismantling their prejudice. Mensah is doing the work. She is a good leader. I adore her. The line about having to reckon with attacking that unit at deltfall was so fucking good. It really shows that Mensah truly sees murderbot and other units as people, or is at least beginning to internalize that they are. I love this show.

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Snufkin doing whatever the fuck he does during the winter

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Third part could be Jason Dent

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I just dove a shipwreck and ten gajillion sharks were there 🥰

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Komodo Dragon

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One thing that always bothered me as a kid, and still bothers me, is it honestly makes so little sense Steph didn't rank super high on the scale of Martial Artists after receiving the Robin training, if it's so amazing. Considering what she could do while untrained, the experience she had, it's baffling that no one ever considered her a prodigy, or that she wasn't at least notably more skilled than say, Tim was, when she started out as Robin.

Like, Steph was in the field and knocking out grown men twice her size with zero training. It was not even mentioned that she took martial arts classes or anything to explain how she can do this, just gymnastics and softball. And both were high school gymnastics, high school softball, not fancy expensive classes??? Even Babs, in Batgirl Y1 had the advantage of having taken martial arts classes and presumably a lot more since her goal was to be in the FBI.

Meanwhile Steph like. She's jumping off rooftops and surfing trains and taking down bad guys with nothing. Tim's gone through extensive Batman training and trained with Lady Shiva and all this stuff, and obviously she's not as good as him and needs him to watch her back at times, but she can keep up with him, and even saves him or get the jump on him quite a few times, and that's incredible when you think about it. Tim gave her gadgets and instructions in the field, but it's never shown that he taught her any moves.

There's even a panel where Batman notes Stephanie almost snuck up on him and "not many people can do that" when again, no training, no martial arts classes, this is way before he agreed to give her any help at all-- and then for some reason, after noting this girl with no training is more talented than most people he knows, just keeps telling her she's not good enough and should go home.

That's a ridiculous level of raw talent, and it's honestly so bizarre nobody in the Batfamily ever noted that and kept telling her to go home. When she does get training, it's very sporadic, it is not clear how much Batman or Black Canary trained her the first time, he disappeared on her and then fired her as soon as he came back, and we never saw her get trained on screen by Dinah (the only person who ever acknowledged she had talent). She sparred with Cass, but Cass never taught her anything. Despite all this, she was noticeably getting way better during the era.

But when she received the six month Robin training that's supposed to make them so strong or whatever...how did that not result in her being a prodigy? She's the only Robin who was an experienced superhero before she took on the mantle?

Bruce literally tells her "Tim did this better" when he was training her about something, which makes no sense considering she came into being Robin with way more skills and experience and martial arts prowess??? When she was surviving on her own and fighting villains before that? When she could nearly sneak up on Bruce even before that?

You could claim she's a "bad student" or whatever, but she was a clearly very good at taking her gymnastic coach's instructions, enough to become a genius at it, so that doesn't really hold water.

The only explanation that would make any sense would be that Bruce taught her badly on purpose. which. unfortunately wouldn't be too far out of character from how he treated her in that era. (And that she apparently improved a lot under Babs tutelage as Batgirl but not his. So.)

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I don’t know how you can pretend to be a student of revolution without acknowledging that there is no scenario for the sudden collapse of the United States without mass ethnic violence

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There are currently no nations or nationalities which I believe should be destroyed.

There are, however, governments and political systems which I believe should be reformed.

Wanting to destroy things, especially wanting to destroy people, reveals a fundamental sickness in how one views the world. How can we make the world a more peaceful place? How can we make that happen without destroying lives?

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I guess it has to be said every time because people are addicted to outrage but saying “Kamala would have been better than this” =/= saying Kamala would be perfect. “Biden had better policies” =/= “Biden’s policies were perfect” “Trump is demonstrably a detriment to our country” =/= “everything was fine before he came along” “Trump is escalating police brutality and ICE raids” =/= “there were no unfair immigration policies before Trump”

Pointing out that things have gotten worse specifically because Trump was elected is not rose colored glasses about the Biden Administration. It’s hard fact. The only reason to deny that is if (1) you support Trump or (2) you deal in unrealistic absolutes that were pushed on you by people that specifically want you to not vote so people like Trump win.

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To be clear: this is a project that the diocese and county have budgeted thousands of dollars for. We have to get new flooring, new doors, cabinets, AED equipment, lockers, and a bunch of other stuff. We’re getting bids for all of that and both the diocese and the county are handling that part of the budget.

This money would be for ongoing small goods purchases that are not included in the construction budget. Stuff that houseless guests will need outside of “here is a warm space in a building.”

Hey everybody, my church is building a winter warming shelter. We need funds for small items like blankets, phone chargers, and air purifiers to be available for our houseless guests. If you’ve got any extra cash and want to help the homeless, toss some money our way.