#Hiroshima Division

[uenodivision]

After much consideration (and a bunch of begging and pleading from some of my acquaintances), I've decided to take the leap and create one or two new divisions. Unfortunately, I jumped the gun and came up with too many ideas. I like all of the divisions I've created and I can't possibly pick one over the other, so...

...I'm leaving that decision up to you all. I'll let you decide which divisions should be the ones I create. Simply vote for the two (and only two) that you like the most. At the end of an extended time period, I'll reveal which teams won.

However, don't count on them being released before the year is over, though. I have ideas for them all, but they'll take a while to implement.

So, without further ado, please feel free to click the link up top to the poll and choose the divisions you like the most. And if you need some info on the divisions, simply click the button below:

1nc09n170: A team of secret hackers whose lives and identities are completely shrouded in both mystery and myth. Even the most talented computer specialists, both in and outside of Chuohku, have managed to find next to nothing about these individuals. Some say that they are more than one person. Others say that they are a team, but because of their impressive technology, they are able to change and switch up their appearances with little to no effort, which makes them extremely hard to identify. The only known thing about them is that they all share one goal: to drag Japan forward into the future, whether they are ready or not...

Aoto Gang: A group of thugs based out of Okayama who rules their city and division with an iron fist in a velvet glove. They are fair and just to those who have earned their favor and pardon. But to all those who disappoint them, or have less than amicable intentions for their town, they show no mercy. Their leader is a well-known Banchō, who is well-known throughout all of Japan despite just being an ordinary hoodlum. It's for this reason that Chuohku kidnapped his younger sister, forcing him and his cohorts to enter the D.R.B., which, in hindsight, may not have been their smartest play...

Drive Team 6: This high-speed trio is known throughout all of Japan for being the forerunners in Tokyo's underground racing scene. By day, they are average Japanese citizens just trying to make a living like every other poor fool. When the sun goes down, however, they discard their personas and put on their racing gear, prepared to zoom down the dangerous highways that they call their racetrack. And now that Chuohku has offered them the chance to join the D.R.B. in order to obtain information for each member, they are determined to prove to all of the other teams out there, that the only way to live and win is to be fast!

Fūrinkazan: These young high-school athletes are known throughout the entire city of Kōfu. And when you realize that this city used to be the stronghold of the great Japanese warlord, Takeda Shingen, then their team name makes sense. No matter what sport they participate in, they all strive to be four things: wind, trees, fire, and mountains. Separately, they are already dangerous. But together, they make an unstoppable force that no one can defeat, whether it's in sports or rapping. And upon hearing that their rivals, the Aoto Gang, have joined the D.R.B., that was all the reason they needed to sign up, themselves!

Maid in Bliss: These three young women are all daughters of one of the most feared generals who ever stepped on the battlefield during WW III. And although an injury sadly put an end to his career as a soldier, that didn't stop him from passing on his gifts to his offspring. Though they may be maids out in the open who are very good at their jobs, they also have a reputation for being quite merciless and bloodthirsty, especially when it comes to those who dare insult their family. It's because of this that one must wonder whether Chuohku knew what they were doing when they decided to abduct their father in hopes that it would force the three of them to join the D.R.B. to rescue him...

[gallusrostromegalus]

You ohhhandedly mentioned tessai livong through ww2 and… wow thats true there were a lot of characters that got a first row seat to both conflicts, even if only the second was really impactful on japans history. Does urahara, yoruichi, tessai, the vizored or any of the shinigami have any specific feelings on ww2/the nuclear bombs? I know its a wild fucking question but it literally just occurred to me and i cant stop thinking about it.

Yeah WW2 is an entire 5-chapter arc in the fic because apparently Kubo is from Hiroshima, and Karakura town is based on his memories growing up there. Stuff that happens during that arc:

The Soul Society's sole warning that something catastrophic might be coming is the arrival of an irradiated and enraged Coyote spirit from the Trinidad test site. It's up to Newly-appointed captain Komamura to calm it down and explain what happened, and Mayuri is able to work out that atomic weapons are real from it's descriptions. He gives Soul Society about a month before the humans drop one on a city.

Unfortunately, he's correct.

***

Urahara and the Visoreds use the fact that they're already dead to mitigate some of the damage from the bombing by walking into the epicenter and shoving carbon rods into the most radioactive points, stemming much of the radiation damage, but there's nothing they can do for the initial wave of destruction.

It involves going through a new gigai every trip and learning what if feels like to have the flesh actually melt off your bones, but Hirako Shinji and the other Visored are no cowards, least of all about Hard and Dirty Work.

Tessai makes Ururu and Jinta out of spare parts from Urahara's Gigai experiments to house a heavily damage Kitsune and Tanuki spirit pair from a shrine that was destroyed. Ururu is the Tankuki, and the older one- Jinta seems a bit more 'organic' because Tessai learned a lot making his sister, and because as a Kitsune, he's a better actor.

***

Soul Society is in major trouble though.

with the sudden influx of souls- first from the bombing, but then from the radiation sickness and the famine that followed, the living and spirit worlds are in danger of becoming unbalanced.

It's a Major Crisis!

Fortunately for them, people with sociopathy tend to operate really well during Crises, and I realized the reason Mayuri hasn't been fired or killed by the time Ichigo shows up is that when shit hits the fan, Mayuri's lack of emotional response to the suffering of others means he can buckle down and fucking DELIVER.

Expansions to the pocket dimension that the queue of incoming souls is housed in? He didn't sleep for two weeks to get it done on time, but there was more than enough room when the bomb dropped and for the few months after as casualties continued.

Emergency rations for all these incoming factory workers that know nothing about farming? Behold, Nutritionally complete meals that you can eat right out of the box! And smaller, friendlier ones for the kiddies!

Hell, the 12th division even makes instructional propaganda videos about how safe and tasty these new foods are, featuring The Grand Clown Himself, and distribution centers featuring his likeness, so Mayuri enjoys a peculiar popularity in the Rukongai, not unlike an off-brand and sometimes educational Krusty The Clown.

Just ah. Stop asking questions about the ingredients list.

***

"I'm not fucking killing civillians." Says Kenpachi when Yamamoto begins to bring up the historical method that the Shinigami have used to balance out sudden influxes of souls from the living world.

"Oh?" Yamamoto glares at him. "You have a better idea?"

"What's them big fuckers that come outta tears sometimes? Hundred feet tall, black, bird faces?" He asks, waving as he tries to remember the names.

"...Menos Grande?" asks Ukitake, who has gotten remarkably good at interpreting for the man next to him at meetings.

"Yeah!" Zaraki grins, patting his six-foot-tall colleague on the head like a small child. "You said they're like... combination creatures of a thousand souls each right?"

"Zaraki is correct." Pipes up Tousen, who is also extremely eager to not murder civilians and even more eager to absolutely fuck up the army of Menos Aizen has been gathering in Hueco Mundo. "-It wouldn't be *easy* but dispatching approximately Five hundred Menos in the next week seems much more doable and much, much more morally sound than killing five hundred thousand civillians. Sir."

Kaname can feel the curse nails on his back starting to bleed from Aizen's glare but he presses on.

"-There appears to be a significant population of them gathered on the far eastern edge of Hueco Mundo. It would probably take most of the 11th Division's forces but-"

"IKKAKU!" Zaraki is already bellowing out the door to his lieutenant. "TELL EVERYONE TO PACK AN EXTRA PAIR OF PANTIES, WE'RE GOING ON A HOLLOW HUNT!"

There is a distant but enthusiastic whoop form Ikkaku in reply.

"An excursion into Hueco Mundo is exceptionally dangerous." Unohana notes, voice placid as he returns to the table.

"-and? I don't do this job because it's safe 'n' easy." Zaraki shrugs.

Her neutral expression softens just a bit into a small, affectionate and perhaps ever-so-slightly lascivious smile. "May I suggest that a detachment of the 4th Division accompany the 11th? It won't make the work easier, but it will mitigate some of the risk."

Yamamoto groans, aware that the decision has been made for him.

"Fine." He grunts. "Take a detachment of the Ninth too, you can use that newfangled radiodar whatsit to keep me updated."

"Pardon?" Mumbles Kaname, slightly woozy from blood loss.

His circulatory situation is not helped when an illusion-blind-to-the-blood Zaraki grabs him about the middle and starts carrying him off under his arm in exactly the direction the 9th and 11th are not like a particularly bewildered purse Chihuahua.

***

Aizen... almost strays from his path.

The Hogyoku is slow and tiresome, his first plan to barrage Karakura with Menos to create the Oken is being trashed and actually being forced to work his job of Rukongai Management is- Well, it's reminding him just why he started this quest to Dethrone God.

What loving creator would make an afterlife of squalor, where the 'lucky' are cursed to outlive everyone they know and love? Not one worth worshiping, surely.

But actually being out here, setting up emergency food distribution, implementing the latest in civil engineering from the newly arrived and seeing it immediately improve the quality of life, uniting families and... actually helping people? it's making him question his path. Perhaps- Perhaps God is not some uncaring regent on a distant throne. Perhaps God is something that lives in all souls, a kindness and goodwill towards one's fellow man, and to spread the will of a loving creator, one must Act to Enact God's Will...

Gin Panics.

He has not spent the last 300-odd years dangling the Hogyoku in front of Aizen, stuffing him full of spiritual energy to feed to the machine that generates reality like he was fattening up a goose for Pate, only to have him give up his quest for divinity NOW.

He's gonna have to do something drastic.

He's gonna have to convince Aizen he was right all along, and that he needs to keep using the Hogyoku.

He's going to need to use Aizen's own Illusions against him, and convince Aizen that the souls of the citizens of the rukongai aren't worth playing a Benevolent God for. That the whole thing needs to come out and be replaced.

Sure, it's a dick move

but those are his specialty.

***

It's the night before the 11th and the two detachments are supposed to leave for Hueco Mundo, and Yamamoto's been doing some thinking.

He is also in Zaraki's quarters at midnight sharp. "Captain-General." Nods Unohana, pausing mid-activity to acknowledge him. "Bruh." Zaraki grunts to indicate they were busy. "I need to borrow Zaraki for an hour or so, and then you may continue." he says, and then steps back outside so the man can get untied and dressed.

"This better be good old man, I know you haven't been married for a few centuries but REALLY-" Zaraki grumbles, emerging and putting his sandals on. "Don’t worry, it’ll take twenty minutes tops, all you have to do is stand behind me and don’t hide your rage." Yamamoto explains. "-We'’re going to go see the central 46." Zaraki pauses mid-sandal, slowly looking up at him with an intrigued arch to his brow. "Yes, it’s forbidden." Yamamoto says, not tearing his gaze away from the moon above them. "-But I've received reports that the Central 46 has acquired blueprints of the... Device. Used in the living world earlier this month and I'm nipping this at the damn bud." Zaraki grins, and finishes putting his sandals on.

The Central 46 are alerted to the Presence of Yamamoto and Zaraki by the main gate to their district being kicked through the wall of the council chambers.

"Hello, Sages and Wise Councilors of the Soul Society!" The Old Man greets them as he steps through the hole he just made, and The Barbarian squeezing through after, sword casually over his shoulder. "Well isn't this a surprise, everyone here in a full meeting at One in the Morning on a Teusday!"

"Wh-What is the meaning of this?" one of the head councilmen sputters, mustache bristling. "Shinigami are forbidden form this place, I'll have you both execu-!"

"Shut up." Yamamoto glares, and sparks fly from the corner of his eye. The hem of his Haori is starting to smolder and singe as well as he approaches the table the councilors are crowded around the blueprints from the living world.

"Now, we are all good and honorable people here." Yamamoto says, casually waving a hand in what would normally be a placating gesture but now only made his sleeve flicker as Ryujin Jakka grew hungrier. "-But I've been around long enough to know how Power corrupts."

"And we've all been exposed to a new, horrific level of Power."

"Oh, of course, you would never! It's unthinkable to sink to such a level!"

"...but it's been a few weeks. The initial shock has faded, and you're starting to understand the full toll of the destruction." he explains, strolling up, the diamond insignia on his back spreading across his shoulders as the Haori singes. Behind him, Zaraki is following with an unpleasantly carnivorous stroll, yellow eye lazily moving from face to face, taking stock of all those present. "...and you are perhaps developing a new standard of devastation and suffering to wish upon your enemies."

There is some muttering, some protesting, and worse, some agreeing. They are silenced by a sudden electric crackle of Energy from Zaraki.

"I’m just here to tell you all-" Yamamoto continues, unperturbed. Or perhaps so perturbed he's warped all the way around to a deep, ruthless peace.

"If I hear any ONE of you has taken steps to develop a weapon like this-" he points a finger at the blueprints, which singe and then burn, a low, slow flame that reduces them completely to ash.

"-I’m going to kill all of you."

"Actually," he explains, as the blueprints finish burning and the table catches as well, fire blooming and crackling, lighting him from beneath. "I’m going to kill all of you and your families. By which I mean, I’m figuring out who all your ancestors were going back Five generations, Kill them, and kill all their descendants."

The table burns, and the floor is threatening to catch, but nobody can move to ring the fire alarm or grab a bucket of water.

"-Because that’s the kind of indiscriminate destruction these things cause." he explains. "It's a damn shame to say this, but this is the first time we've been able to settle whole families in the same town- because five, six, even seven generations of families, from great-great grandmother to the newest infants were burnt together in an instant."

"So if you want to wield that kind of destruction, you best be prepared to deal with those kinds of consequences." he growls, and suddenly sweeps his hand over the fire, which snuffs out immediately.

Slowly he turns to go, and regards Zaraki behind him.

"Oh, and just in case any of you had thoughts of hastening my retirement in regards to this matter-" he speaks up, and points to Zaraki "-Near as I can tell, this asshole is immortal and indestructible, so if I happen to be dead, he'll do it for me, won't you?"

"Yes, sir." Zaraki Nods, eye fixed on the head councilor, committing his face to memory, blade and crackling eagerly.

"-and he's nowhere near as speedy and clean a killer as I am, so I suggest you don't test either of us." Yamamoto grins, and Ryujin Jakka can't help but flicker off his brow for emphasis.

"Goodnight, and go fuck yourselves." Yamamoto bows, and exits through the same hole he entered.

The walk back to the 11th is largely silent, but Yamamot can feel the pleased-yet-curious thrum of reiatsu from Zaraki.

"Question, boss-" he suddenly speaks as they approach the 11th.

"You're not supposed to question orders, Zaraki." He sighs. He'll make a proper shinigami out of him. Eventually.

"...Request for clarification, Boss-" Zaraki tries again, and Yamamoto nods. "-Why me?"

Yamamoto arches an overgrown brow at him.

"Not complainin'-" Zaraki explains, pointedly looking up at the moon and scratching his neck in deferment. "-But Byakuya's got more sway with them and Gin's definitely better at terrifying first impressions."

"Hm." Yamamoto nods. "It's in the follow-up, not the impression, you see."

"I do not." Zaraki says. For all his faults and frustrations, Zaraki sure keeps Yamamoto on his toes about not being lazy and actually explaining himself.

"-I am very serious about you killing them and their descendants if they ever think about making one of those devices." he sighs and Zaraki nods, waving a hand for him to continue. "-So I picked the Shinigami most invested in a peaceful future to make sure my orders would be carried out."

Zaraki still looks confused.

"You're my only captain with children, Zaraki." Yamamoto explains. "I know you only give half a rat's ass about the court guard, but I've seen what you'll do for Yachiru."

Zaraki nods understanding now, and a few more paces of silence pass between them.

"...Thank you, Sir." Zaraki mutters, bowing his head and using the honorific with genuine intent for the first time since Yamamoto had known him. "-For understanding."

"Thank you, Captain Zaraki." Yamamoto nodded slightly, stopping before the gate to the 11th. "-For understanding as well."

"-Now get back to Captain Unohana before she schedules some sort of blood test of a thousand needles for me!" Yamamoto grunted, prodding at Zaraki with his cane, and the man didn't need to be told twice.

[paoloxl]

9 ottobre 1963 Vajont la frana che si stacco la notte del 9 ottobre 1963 era costituita da 263 milioni di metri cubi di roccia. Una massa gigantesca che precipitò nel sottostante lago creato dalla diga in 20-25 secondi alla velocità di 70-100 chilometri all’ ora sollevando un’ ondata di 260-270 metri di altezza, valutata in 50 milioni di metri cubi. L’onda si divise in due: una parte si spazzò via Pineda, San Martino, Le Spesse, frazioni di Erto, l’altra danneggiò Casso prima di scavalcare la diga e in 4 minuti raggiungere Longarone travolgendo tutto con un’energia pari a due volte quella della bomba atomica di Hiroshima. I morti furono 1910: 1450 a Longarone, 158 a Erto e Casso, 111 a Codissago, 54 nei cantieri Sade, 137 in altri luoghi. Pochi i feriti: 95 lievi, 49 gravi, 2 gravissimi. A Fortogna verranno sepolte 1454 vittime, solo 704 delle quali identificate. Molti morti non verranno mai trovati

[usafphantom2]

Japan starts sea tests of its second modified helipter carrier for F-35B jets

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 12/28/2023 - 22:22 in Military

The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) began sea testing for its JS Kaga (DDH 184) helipter carrier after undergoing significant modifications to accommodate F-35B fighters, as announced by JMSDF on December 25.

New images shared on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), by the service's Escort Flotilla Four depict JS Kaga leaving his pier at the Japan Marine United (JMU) shipyard in the city of Kure, Hiroshima province, to undergo tests at sea.

The Escort Flotilla Four post expressed enthusiasm, stating: "Today's post is about JS Kaga during the sea tests. There is only a little time left until the special modification of JS Kaga is completed! We can't wait!"

The port of origin of JS Kaga is the JMSDF Naval Base of Kure, where the Fleet Four Escort Division is stationed. Although the official date of the sea tests was not disclosed by the JMSDF, an officer confirmed to Naval News that the initial sea tests took place on November 13.

JS Kaga left the JMU shipyard pier in Kure on April 20, marking its first departure in more than a year, after undergoing modifications that transformed its appearance into that of a light aircraft carrier. Notable changes ?? included the modification of the bow section of its cockpit from a trapezoid to a square shape, similar to those of the Wasp class and America-class amphibious assault ships of the U.S. Navy.

JMSDF plans to complete the modification of its two Izumo-class helipter carriers, JS Izumo and JS Kaga, into aircraft carriers capable of supporting the operations of Lockheed Martin F-35B fighters until fiscal year 2027.

For JS Kaga, the renovation work at JMU's Kure shipyard began in March 2022, involving initial modifications, such as cockpit reinforcement, installation of additional guidance lights, marking of yellow lines in the control cabin for F-35B launches and landings, and incorporating heat-resistant systems at points on the deck for vertical landings. Fiscal year 2023 will see the acquisition of Raytheon's Joint Precision Approach and Landing System (JPALS) and additional modifications to the satellite communication system.

Subsequent and final modifications during the next revision of the Kaga, scheduled to begin at the end of fiscal year 2026, will include changes to the ship's interior compartments.

F-35B during testing on JS Izumo.

Meanwhile, Izumo is expected to undergo modifications to the bow section of its cockpit, transforming it from trapezoid to square during the next fiscal year of 2024, starting in April. The JMSDF allocated $287.3 million for the modifications of the bow section of Izumo in fiscal year 2024 and an additional $4.2 million for the installation of a landing navigation system, which is expected to be Raytheon's JPALS. The Izumo class ships, measuring 248 meters in length and moving 26,000 tons at full load, are the largest Japanese military ships built since World War II, with the capacity to carry up to 14 helicopters.

Tags: Military AviationJMSDF - Japan Maritime Self Defence Force/Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force - Japanese Navyaircraft carrier

Sharing

tweet

Fernando Valduga

Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, he has participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Dayton Airshow and FIDAE. He has works published in specialized aviation magazines in Brazil and abroad. He uses Canon equipment during his photographic work in the world of aviation.

Related news

MILITARY

New jet coach for the Russian Air Force

28/12/2023 - 17:00

MILITARY

Elt Group and Leonardo collaborate in the update of the C-27J Spartan electronic warfare set

28/12/2023 - 16:00

HELICOPTERS

Korea Aerospace Industries guarantees contract for second batch of LAH helicopters

28/12/2023 - 14:00

MILITARY

Turkey's ANKA-3 combat drone performs inaugural flight

28/12/2023 - 13:00

INCIDENTS

Indian MiG-29K hunting tire bursts while taxiing

28/12/2023 - 09:00

MILITARY

South Korea signs contract to purchase 20 additional F-35A fighters

28/12/2023 - 08:27

[battleangel]

Humanity Is Stupid & Contagious

I wish humanity could just admit that we dont work as a species on this planet.

We dont work as a species period.

We dont.

As a species, we are social creatures.

Therefore, as macro as it gets, we are engineered in the Upside Down (our current "reality" aka "life") to social climb, to be competitive, to be political, to try to get ahead, to use force might and violence to win, to want to accumulate wealth social capital land resources assets, to want to be the best, to acquire power.

I want to be the only 7 star general other than Lord Washington.

I want to be Trump, The Art of the Deal.

I want to be Napoleon, Bezos, Cook & Elon.

I want to be Ford.

I want to be Bill Gates.

I want to be President.

I want to be Commander In Chief.

Everything bigger faster stronger.

The smartest.

VP.

CEO.

Clout privilege wealth social capital.

Starfucker.

Sucking dick for clout.

This is all embedded in the very fabric of the Upside Down but in the dreamscape we are naturally one and harmonious.

Everything is flipped upside down here in the Upside Down.

Our differences in the dreamscape -- and the dreamscape is made up of untold trillions of separate dreamscapes that make up a kaleidoscopic explosion of thoughts dream imagination love knowledge philosophy esotericism energy meditation -- are what created and creates unfolding ever evolving ever mutating (the real X-Men) DNA hybrid dualism but down here in the Upside Down, the differences are used to falsely create division, tear us apart, make us afraid, make us prejudge, make us hate, make us ostracize, haze, bully, assault, kill, rape, murder, beat, torture, ethnically cleanse, arrest, jail, mass graves, death camps, death squads, rape rooms, mass incarcerations, hangings, lynchings, beheadings, burnings at the stake, capital punishments, executions, make an example of, mass hysteria, scapegoats, fall guys, columbine shooters, false gods, false heros, false kings, false crowns, false idols, world religions aka cults, brainwashing, conditioning centers, reprogramming, human experimentation, cloning, DNA splicing, genetic mutations, lab experimentations, synthetic chemicals and toxins, lethal injections, the electric chair, drawn and quartered, dragged by horses, decapitations, slavery.

Its like, it just doesnt work.

Human nature is rewarded in the Upside Down for being cheap, dirty, low, cutting corners, being the fastest, quickest, least expensive, best technology, most scientifically advanced, most destructive weapons, most deadly chemical warfare, more black label projects, more government secrets, more undercover agents, more guns, Gatling, AK-47, multiple rounds, multiple clips, multiple magazines, rat a tat tat, more badges, more stripes, more chevrons, more ranks, more insignias, more titles, more letters before and after your name on LinkedIn, more zeros in your bank account, more friends on Facebook, more followers on Instagram, more views on TikTok, more retweets on Twitter, more subs on Youtube & Twitch.

More Napoleon Bonapartes, more let them eat cake, more off with their heads, more they dont want to work, more welfare queens, more get a job, more Funquishas and Watermelondras.

More campaigns, more slogans, more supermans.

We never learn from our collective atrocities.

Why would any time ever be different much less the next time?

What war did WWI stop?

WWII?

Korean War?

Vietnam War?

US Mexico War?

Hundred Years War?

Cold War?

Gulf War?

Operation Iraqi Freedom?

Holocaust?

Cultural Revolution?

Khmer Rouge?

Stalin?

Lenin?

Franco?

Mussollini?

Mao?

Hitler?

Hirohito?

Rape of Nanking?

Trail of Tears?

Idi Amin?

Rwanda?

Serbia?

Congo?

Sudan?

Tigray?

Palestine?

Gaza Strip?

Slavery?

18k killed in Chile in 1 day?

9/11 inside job?

Napalm?

Nerve gas

Phosphorous?

Hiroshima & Nagasaki?

Atomic bomb?

D-Day?

10k dead Americans in Normandy?

666k dead in Civil War?

Weve never collectively as a species learned from any past war, atrocity, crime against humanity, war crime, genocide or ethnic cleansing.

Its been hundreds of thousands of years.

Why would anything ever change if it hasnt already?

The track record is abysmal and speaks for itself.

Why, as a species, do we blindly and ignorantly choose to continue to procreate, replicate and propagate our human race when the end result has always been untold human suffering?

There is no amount of joy that can cancel out the amount of suffering that has been needlessly caused and experienced in the Upside Down.

Its time to end the human experiment and we have not had a good run.

Millions upon millions killed, raped, starved, gassed, beaten, tortured, hazed, humiliated, mocked, imprisoned, jailed, assaulted, exterminated, exploited, traumatized, gaslit, intimidated, ethnically cleansed, used.

Abused, overworked, harrassed, trafficked, groomed, conditioned, brainwashed, broken, violated, fetishized, objectified, commodified, consumed, dehumanized, retconned, manipulated, overmedicalized, pathologized, drugged, indoctrinated, molested, institutionalized.

There is no amount of good, joy, happiness or anything else that can even come close to equaling out these endless and ongoing atrocities, forget cancelling them out.

Humanity is a virus that has been allowed to endlessly replicate itself and it has to stop.

We are causing catastrophic human suffering to our own species because we wont stop reproducing ourselves for no fucking reason at all.

Once you add in the ecocide, ecological and environmental destruction, hundreds of thousands of animal species that have been made extinct, climate change, climate crisis, climate emergency, deforestation, the destruction of rainforests, landfills, nuclear waste, oceanic pollution, overfishing, factory farming, industrial waste, toxins, pollutants, synthetic and lab made chemicals, GMOs, pesticides, overextraction of earths resources, raping & pillaging mother earth, sewage, food waste, fast fashion, big box retail, air pollution, air toxicity, non biodegradable waste taking tens of thousands of years to break down in landfills, oil spills, drilling for oil, coal, endless construction, endless Amazon warehouses, endless delivery drones, methane emissions from factory farming, greenhouse gas emissions, millions of cars clogging the highways...

The answer is we need to subtract the human race from the equation.

If all 7.8 billion of us currently alive on the planet made the conscious decision not to procreate, we could end all this suffering in this generation.

Weigh the reasons to procreate: continue bloodline and current family lineage, have a little mini-me, fullfill narcisstic fantasies of having a living breathing extension of your own ego, looking for something to give you your identity and a reason to live, looking for purpose, the social rewards that come with being a parent, the social pressures to procreate, making your mom & dad happy, keeping up with your friends that are popping out babies, an unexamined need and desire to fit in, unquestioningly accepting society's pronatalist stance and adopting it as your own without examining it, desire to create heirs, egotistical fantasy of living forever and trying to accomplish this by having children, wanting miniaturized versions of yourself who will endlessly kiss your ass stroke your ego and hero worship you, to build your own myth aura and mystique, narcisstic desire to be a matriarch/patriarch, societal insistence that feminity equates to motherhood, believing the lie that motherhood is a womans highest calling, believing the lie that not having children is selfish, succumbing without thinking to the non-stop societal programming, conditioning and brainwashing to procreate and create bodies for the capitalist machine, spouse is pressuring or demanding or coercing you to have kids, wanting to play dress up with your doll aka daughter, wanting to be an adult and parenthood is tied with adulthood in our society, unexamined fear of old age and dying alone and becoming old sick and infirm without children, believing the lie that you are incomplete and somehow defective as a woman until you shit a fetus out of your cervix, wanting to prove your worth and adopting parenthood as part of an ultracompetitive persona that can do and be and crush everything crossfit marathons pilates keto school grades corporate promotions salaries the house the car the spouse and now kids further bolsters your superman/superwoman persona, falling for the societally peddled lie that holidays are incomplete without little kids running around, incorrectly and inadequately trying to address childhood and generational trauma experienced in family while growing up by having your own kids vs doing the necessary self reflection, introspection, shadow & somatic work, reiki & therapy, wanting a daughter who is your BFF, wanting a child for nothing but fantasy & wish fulfillment, obsessive martydom complex leads to desire to martyr oneself by sublimating your identity, body, sexuality, career, income, social life and freedom for the all-consuming and obliterative identity of motherhood, desire for people to take you seriously, to compete with or keep up with siblings or best friends who already have kids, believing the carefully crafted and packaged lies that overly romanticize parenthood and wanting the Hallmark fantasy, slavishly following cultish and pathetic religious dictates and never questioning the religious indoctrination and brainwashing of your youth which commanded you to be fruitful and multiply, a desire to be respected through becoming a parent, a fear of appearing like an outsider if you are in a long term relationship or marriage for decades and never have kids, an irrational fear of missing out where you believe the propaganda that nothing is worse than reaching old age realizing you actually wanted kids and not being able to have them when in reality absolutely nothing is worse than having kids realizing you absolutely despise being a parent, regretting having them, being stuck with them for 18+ years and never being able to publicly voice your opinions although while quite commonplace are societally taboo especially from mothers who must always be docile, happy, pleasant, energetic, cheerful, full of vigor and most importantly never tired or complaining at all times.

Okay. Now, go reread this post and look at all the reasons not to procreate.

Like, its not close.

Humanity is stupid and contagious but you dont have to be.

End the endless cycle of human suffering.

Choose to not procreate.

[rockislandadultreads]

Trending Now: Oppenheimer

Robert Oppenheimer by Ray Monk

Robert Oppenheimer was among the most brilliant and divisive of men. As head of the Los Alamos Laboratory, he oversaw the successful effort to beat the Nazis in the race to develop the first atomic bomb—a breakthrough that was to have eternal ramifications for mankind and that made Oppenheimer the “Father of the Atomic Bomb.” But with his actions leading up to that great achievement, he also set himself on a dangerous collision course with Senator Joseph McCarthy and his witch-hunters.

In this volume, Ray Monk goes deeper than any previous biographer in the quest to solve the enigma of Oppenheimer’s motivations and his complex personality. Through compassionate investigation and with towering scholarship, Monk tells an unforgettable story of discovery, secrecy, impossible choices, and unimaginable destruction.

American Prometheus by Kai Bird

American Prometheus is the first full-scale biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, "father of the atomic bomb," the brilliant, charismatic physicist who led the effort to capture the awesome fire of the sun for his country in time of war. Immediately after Hiroshima, he became the most famous scientist of his generation-one of the iconic figures of the twentieth century, the embodiment of modern man confronting the consequences of scientific progress.

He was the author of a radical proposal to place international controls over atomic materials - an idea that is still relevant today. He opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb and criticized the Air Force's plans to fight an infinitely dangerous nuclear war. In the now almost-forgotten hysteria of the early 1950s, his ideas were anathema to powerful advocates of a massive nuclear buildup, and, in response, Atomic Energy Commission chairman Lewis Strauss, Superbomb advocate Edward Teller and FBI director J. Edgar Hoover worked behind the scenes to have a hearing board find that Oppenheimer could not be trusted with America's nuclear secrets.

American Prometheus sets forth Oppenheimer's life and times in revealing and unprecedented detail. Exhaustively researched, it is based on thousands of records and letters gathered from archives in America and abroad, on massive FBI files and on close to a hundred interviews with Oppenheimer's friends, relatives and colleagues.

J. Robert Oppenheimer by Abraham Pais

Award-winning biographer Abraham Pais introduces us to a precocious youth who sped through Harvard in three years, made signal contributions to quantum mechanics while in his twenties, and was instrumental in the growth of American physics in the decade before the Second World War, almost single-handedly bringing it to a state of prominence. He paints a revealing portrait of Oppenheimer's life in Los Alamos, where in twenty remarkable, feverish months, and under his inspired guidance, the first atomic bomb was designed and built, a success that made Oppenheimer America's most famous scientist. Pais describes Oppenheimer's long tenure as Director of the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton, where the two men worked together closely. He shows not only Oppenheimer's brilliance and leadership, but also how his displays of intensity and arrogance won him powerful enemies, ones who would ultimately make him one of the principal victims of the Red Scare of the 1950s.

J. Robert Oppenheimer is Abraham Pais's final work, completed after his death by Robert P. Crease, an acclaimed historian of science in his own right. Told with compassion and deep insight, it is the most comprehensive biography of the great physicist available. Anyone seeking an insider's portrait of this enigmatic man will find it indispensable.

The Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Priscilla J. McMillan

On April 12, 1954, the nation was astonished to learn that scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer faced charges of violating national security. Why had the charismatic leader of the Manhattan Project— the man who led the team that developed the atomic bomb that ended World War II—been cast into overnight disgrace? In this riveting narrative, bestselling author Priscilla J. McMillan draws on newly declassified U.S. government documents and materials from Russia, as well as in-depth interviews, to present the truth about the downfall of America’s most famous scientist.

[sasoryda]

Dear Barbie

I was really looking forward to the Japan release, so I'm deeply shocked. It feels like Japan has been excluded from the feminist solidarity. I saw comments calling the protest 'victim play.'

It's true that Japan has a history as a perpetrator during wars, and that remains. However, it's also a fact that there were 1.3 million victims. They literally melted away due to the scorching radiation, with their body fluids evaporating and their skin cracking like shredded clothes, fluttering in the hot wind. The bomb's light was so intense that it burned the shadows of the people who were standing on the stone pavement. Those shadowed individuals' bodies melted and disappeared, including their bones and teeth.

The bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not just 'big and dangerous bombs.' People melted and vanished in the heat, and afterward, contaminated black rain fell, exposing people to radiation and giving rise to new discrimination. (For years, people who were born and raised in Hiroshima and Nagasaki have faced discrimination as survivors and have been stigmatized in marriages and interactions with people from other prefectures.)

I wish there was more respect and compassion shown towards these victims. Both the United States and Japan have lost innocent lives unjustly in wars, and that's the same for both countries.

Is it considered right-wing to desire compassion, solidarity, and respect for the victims of the mistakes humans made in wars? Unfortunately, the movie 'Oppenheimer' won't be released in Japan.

Through this incident, I became convinced that Japan's perception of events like Pearl Harbor differs from that of the United States. This serves as a lesson for us as well. I realized that it's something common to all countries. How we view war from different perspectives can alter the emotions and perceptions that arise as byproducts of facts.

That's why I believe we must avoid creating conflicts. The only ones who benefit from confrontation and division are those few who decide on war and never go to the battlefield.

I want to share the danger of turning war into a mockery and internet memes.

I may not directly know the horror of the atomic bomb, and I would like to see and learn about the history of the atomic bomb from the American perspective, so it's very disappointing not to have it released.

I’d like to know how the PR teams of Barbie and Oppenheimer plan to address this meme going forward. It will help me decide whether to watch the movie ‘Barbie’ or not.”

[standwithpalestine123]

STAND WITH PALESTINE

From my perspective as an immigrant living in Paris, I come from a diverse background, with half of my ancestry being Jewish and the other half Irish. In the United States, my home country, there is a national holiday that celebrates the fight for political autonomy, even though there were casualties on both sides. Meanwhile, my Jewish family commemorates the flight of the Jews from slavery in Egypt through an annual feast. As for my Irish heritage, I was taught to revere the Easter Rising, which was the Irish people's uprising against British occupiers, despite the fact that they ultimately suffered greater casualties and were not successful in their endeavor. Here in my adopted home, there is also a national holiday that marks the people's rising against their hereditary masters, the nobility. It is important to acknowledge that none of these struggles were easy, and they all came at a price in blood, often from both sides involved.

To gain a clearer understanding of the history of Israel as a nation, we must revisit its establishment in 1948 by the five-nation U.N. Security Council, who were the dominant powers of that time. In 1922, Jews accounted for approximately 12% of the population in the Palestine Mandate, an area under British control. However, Western powers began encouraging Jewish immigration to Palestine, resulting in Jews comprising 32% of the population by 1947. A year later, after the influx of Jewish refugees from the death camps of Nazi Germany, they became the majority by hundreds of thousands. The U.N. Security Council, for various reasons (none of which were particularly favorable to Jews), declared the division of Palestine into two nations: a Jewish Israel and an Arab Palestine. Unfortunately, this division did not work as intended, as Israel was home to a significant number of Palestinians who became second-class citizens due to the terms of the division. This led to war, with Israel emerging as the victor. Since then, Palestinians have been living in a semi-stateless condition, and Israelis have been able to commit acts of violence against them with impunity, whether it be individual acts or mass atrocities.

In summary, the history of this conflict is stained with bloodshed on all sides, but it is the Palestinians who have consistently borne the brunt of the suffering. Despite this, in the aftermath of the recent events involving Hamas, even the mainstream media and those who typically sympathize with the Palestinian cause are deploring the bloodshed caused by the Israeli forces.

It is essential to note that none of this is to justify the indiscriminate killing of unarmed civilians, which is an abhorrent act with no moral justification. In fact, such acts are considered war crimes according to international law. However, when examining history and the concept of national karma, numbers and context matter. It is crucial to consider who started the conflict and what provoked it. Throughout history, war crime codes have never been applied to the winners of wars. For instance, no tribunal has ever tried the United States for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki or the firebombing of Dresden. As a recent former U.S. President once observed, the winners often evade accountability for war crimes while the losers face prosecution. However, history and karma are aware that for the past 75 years, Israel has been attempting to forcibly remove or exterminate the Palestinians, who are a captive people. The latter constitutes the crime of genocide, and the number of victims of this ongoing crime committed by Israel far surpasses the number of victims on the Palestinian side.

Therefore, dear friends, while the Hamas assault can be characterized as a violent and brutal act, which is criminal under international law, it should not be labeled as an invasion. It is and continues to be a violent and brutal uprising against a murderous occupying force. I urge you to reflect upon where your sympathies usually lie, where they lie today, and to consider the reasons behind this shift in perspective.

[nightmare-grass]

Just saw Oppenheimer today and it made me think, “why were those scientists experimenting with splitting the atom in 1942, right in the midst of World War II? Why even tempt fate like that in such divisive times?” I know now thru research that they were testing if they could split atoms to create a new sort of energy they could harness, but found it to be impractical since you’d need a ton more energy to initiate the reaction than you’d get when the atoms split. That’s why physicists like Oppenheimer immediately realized the only practical application of atomic fission would be a bomb. But I can’t find any source that explains why they’d be doing atomic fission experiments during the 1940s, because if you introduce that kind of technology during a time of conflict on a global scale, it almost seems inevitable that someone would build the Atom Bomb and someone would use it. It makes me think, is there a world in which atomic fission was discovered during a time of peace? Is there a world where Nagasaki and Hiroshima would never have been nuked? In the infinite multiverse, is there a world that only knows the effects of nuclear warheads as theoretical instead of historical?

[denimbex1986]

'I think Oppenheimer is the biggest film I’ve ever made,” Christopher Nolan says without a hint of irony. It’s a striking claim from someone who has directed some of the most gargantuan blockbusters of the past 15 years – but it’s not inaccurate. At the heart of the biographical drama, which stars Cillian Murphy as the man who masterminded the birth of the atomic bomb, lies a truth of planetary scale. When the weapon was first tested – an event now known by its codename, Trinity – there was a chance that it might wipe out all of human existence. A prospect such as that would probably deter most people from proceeding, but not Oppenheimer; he pushed the button anyway.

“The film I wanted to make couldn’t have been done smaller,” Nolan says of the $100m (£77.7m) film one day after its world premiere in Paris. “It’s not about money, it’s not about budget – the magnitude of the story is what attracted me to it. The fact that Oppenheimer and his fellow scientists couldn’t completely eliminate the possibility that they might set fire to the atmosphere and destroy the entire world, but still triggered the test – the idea of someone taking that risk on behalf of all of us and all our descendants. There’s nothing bigger than that.”

The film hinged, though, on finding the right individual to bring Oppenheimer to life. Murphy, 47, had worked with the filmmaker five times before – on the Dark Knight trilogy (2005-12), Inception (2010), and Dunkirk (2017) – but in supporting roles; always Nolan’s bridesmaid, never the bride. This time round, he was wanted for the top job and, one chilly day in October 2021, the Irish actor received a call from Nolan informing him so. It was an instant yes.

“In typical Chris fashion, he didn’t tell me he was writing a script,” a visibly tired Murphy tells me on the final day of the film’s press tour; in just 24 hours, he will leave the UK premiere alongside his co-stars in solidarity with the actors’ strike in Hollywood. “There was no build-up or warning; he just called me out of the blue and said, ‘Would you like to play him?’ I’d be lying if I said I didn’t desperately want to play a lead for him. I think any actor in the world would want to work with Chris, whatever size the part. It was a dream.”

Nolan has long been one of the world’s premier directors. After breaking onto the indie film scene with Following (1998) and Memento (2000), the London-born Nolan delivered the one-two punch of Batman Begins (2005) and The Prestige (2006), showing that he could steer projects of any size to both critical and commercial success. By the time The Dark Knight became the highest-grossing film of 2008, he had been handed the keys to Hollywood.

Oppenheimer is Nolan’s 12th release – and it could be his least commercial one yet: a chewy, three-hour-long pressure-cooker of a film that’s partly shot in black and white, and told in, you guessed it, non-linear form. It’s well known that the writer-director opts to shun CGI in favour of practical effects: he had a rotating corridor created for mind-bending thriller Inception, brought in real battleships while filming the intense Second World War drama Dunkirk, and crashed a real 747 plane in the complex, divisive Tenet (2020). For Oppenheimer, he went one further – he recreated an atomic blast.

It was just one of the challenges Nolan set himself, to be able to create the film in the way he desired. That vision doesn’t depict the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs that caused such suffering and destruction – an estimated 129,000 to 226,000 people were killed by the two detonations, which left a lasting trauma that still affects Japan (and, one could say, the entire world). To this day, Western filmmakers have only partially engaged with the true horrors of the atomic bombings. This is Nolan’s interpretation of Oppenheimer’s story.

For Murphy, it’s a big moment in his movie career. Earlier this month, he listened on as his Oppenheimer co-star Robert Downey Jr told him that his life would change now that he had been cast as the lead in “this huge film”. The suggestion, though, that this is Murphy’s breakout role was confusing to some. After all, the actor burst onto the scene more than two decades ago with his appearance in Danny Boyle’s post-apocalyptic horror 28 Days Later (2002). Since then, he’s gained worldwide recognition as the face of Steven Knight’s period gangster show Peaky Blinders, released on the BBC in the UK and on Netflix practically everywhere else. What did Murphy make of Downey Jr’s suggestion?

“Honestly, and I know every actor says this ad nauseam, but I don’t think about it,” he explains. “Peaky Blinders is a phenomenon – it’s all over the world and people adore it – but you can never think about that ancillary aspect of the work, because then you wouldn’t do it properly.”

Nolan’s “encyclopaedic” knowledge of Oppenheimer protected Murphy from becoming too aware of any pressures his director was facing. Instead, he searched for a way to “connect with and find the truth” of Oppenheimer “in every moment” of the film. In preparation, the actor watched David Lean’s 1962 epic (and noted Nolan favourite) Lawrence of Arabia “in terms of the scale and the life-story aspect”. Also on the homework list was Miloš Forman’s Amadeus (1984), “because of Salieri and Mozart, that kind of competitive relationship”, which was echoed in Oppenheimer’s dealings with the slippery philanthropist Lewis Strauss (Downey Jr), an increasingly obstructive figure in Oppenheimer’s life in the years following his creation of the bomb.

The remainder of Murphy’s supporting cast, a who’s who of Hollywood, all deliver. There’s Matt Damon on surly form as Manhattan Project director Leslie Groves, Emily Blunt as Oppenheimer’s admirably patient wife Kitty, and Florence Pugh as Jean Tatlock, the psychiatrist who had an extramarital affair with Oppenheimer. The multitude of physicist roles (there are a lot) are played by actors including Josh Hartnett, Benny Safdie, David Krumholtz and Kenneth Branagh – and for good measure, there’s even Tom Conti as Albert Einstein, and Gary Oldman playing yet another world leader after his portrayal of Churchill in Darkest Hour: the American president Harry S Truman.

It was the assembling of this huge ensemble around Murphy that helped to convey the grandiosity Nolan was after. “Scale in cinema is a peculiar thing,” he says. “Does it come from actions and effects? Or does it come from the most exciting actors of the day coming together to tell a story that’s about the moment the world changes for ever?”

Indeed, for such an expensive film, Oppenheimer is surprisingly dialogue-heavy. Reviews have compared the scenes that focus on the hearings exploring Oppenheimer’s involvement in the Manhattan Project with similar ones in Oliver Stone’s JFK (1991) and Nixon (1995) – and there’s more than a little Alan J Pakula and Sidney Lumet in the film’s political intrigue. It’s also filled to the brim with unsettling close-ups; in some scenes, it feels as if you’d be able to touch Murphy’s chiselled cheekbones should you reach out and try.

However, he bristles at the reminder that his face will be blasted on cinema screens around the world – in Imax, no less – all summer long. “I love watching Christopher Nolan’s films when I’m not in them,” he says. “You don’t have to freak out about the size of your ears or whatever. I don’t make films so I can look at myself. I really don’t. Having said that, I did want to watch this movie with an audience, as that’s how it’s designed.”

It’s how every Nolan film is designed. But with great power comes greater need for box office success. This could be seen as a corollary of making such large films, and I ask Nolan if he feels that this becomes reductive when it comes to measuring the true success of a release. “I don’t have an honest answer to that question,” he says, before tackling it rather honestly.

“It’s a combination of factors. My impulse is to tell a story, but I’m not a filmmaker who works in a vacuum. I’m not a filmmaker who purely makes a film for themselves. I make a film that I want to experience with an audience, and I make them at budget levels where you really have to try and find the widest crowd. I enjoy that form of communication. I think the Hollywood blockbuster, at its best, can reach people in a way that few other forms, including other forms of movies, really can, all around the world. Beyond that, box office numbers tend to be a little bit of an abstraction.”

The project marked a significant departure for the writer-director: it’s his first film centred on a real-life figure. Despite having American Prometheus as a resource, he found that he still had to grapple with the extent of Oppenheimer’s brainpower. This is why the middle section of the film – focused on the construction of a top-secret lab in the New Mexico desert where Oppenheimer and his team could design, and test, the bomb – came as a relief to Nolan.

“Oppenheimer had a whole other level of intellect than anyone we know, but it was useful to see him named as the director, literally, of the Los Alamos lab, and realise that what he had to do, in those three years, was bring together this disparate group of talents. He wasn’t the smartest person there, but he was the guy bringing everyone together to get the most out of their talents. That’s absolutely what I have to do as a director.”

Despite making blockbusters that require him to spin hundreds of plates for an extended amount of time, Nolan is showing no signs of burnout. He is a director who consistently releases new films every three years, often commencing work on the next one months after completing the last. Will this regularity continue going forward? It seems a break is not on the horizon just yet. “I find it hard to imagine not wanting to make films,” he says, a childlike enthusiasm momentarily cutting through the seriousness. “I will do this for as long as somebody would support me in doing it.”

Whenever that project comes to fruition, you can bet Murphy will “always say yes” should Nolan give him the call – even if it means having to endure seeing his face projected on giant screens. “No project is risk-free, but if you’re working with one of the greatest living filmmakers, I think you’ve got a good shot at knowing it’s going to be good.”

But the wait might be a little longer once Oppenheimer is released. Nolan acknowledges that following a project of this scale will take some doing. “It gets a bit more challenging to find subject matters that are different enough and also build on what you’ve learnt as a filmmaker, so you slow down to a degree. But I love filmmaking, and in terms of budget, I would do it at whatever level I was able to. It’s something I’ll always do.”'

[lithiumcreepblog]

Got bored and made a playlist for further devastation after the Oppenheimer movie. A lot of these are from my personal music taste, so I’m sure there are more fitting songs I’m missing that I don’t know about.

Track list:

Two Suns in the Sunset- Pink Floyd

Hallelujah- Jeff Buckley

Hurt- Johnny Cash

Children of the Grave- Black Sabbath

Manhattan Project- Rush

Time- Pink Floyd

Atomic Garden- Bad Religion

Thank God for the Bomb- Ozzy Osbourne

Blow The House Down- Siouxsie and the Banshees

4 Minute Warning- Radiohead

Idioteque- Radiohead

Breathing- Kate Bush

Downer- Nirvana

Diamond Dogs- David Bowie

London Calling- The Clash

Orange Coloured Sky- Nat King Cole

Disorder- Joy Division

Hiroshima- Wishful Thinking

The World At Large- Modest Mouse

Waiting for the Great Leap Forward- Billy Bragg

Wooden Ships- Crosby, Stills & Nash

My Violent Heart- Nine Inch Nails

Zombie- The Cranberries

Once in a Lifetime- Talking Heads

The End- The Doors

[averbaldumpingground]

It wasn't very often that he would let himself think it, but sometimes, Jack really hated Dawn Clearly.

"So, do you have any siblings?"

The expectant way that his date cocked her head told him everything that he needed to know about the rest of the evening: the feigned interest in his job as a data security consultant, the all too eager suggestion that maybe they should head back to his place, her number blowing up his phone when he demurred, having learned that lesson a little too well the last time that he'd made the mistake of taking a woman home on the first date.

There wasn't any point to the pretending.

"You know, I really don't think this is working."

"Excuse me?"

"If you want her autograph, just buy it off Ebay like everyone else, and leave me out of it."

He signaled at the waitress for the check. Maybe he could get a to-go box for his tacos. They'd be soggy, but at least he could eat them in the privacy of his apartment without having to worry about everything he said ending up on the front page of People.

Jesus Fucking Christ, it wasn't even like he was the famous one here.

But he was used to it. Mostly.

Donna had made it big back when he was a senior in college. After years of driving his little sister and her garage band of the week around to every Elks Lodge function hall and local bar mitzvah, he couldn't help but be excited for her. Unfortunately, that excitement wouldn't last.

It was a fluke, really, Hiroshima Shadow's first record deal. Some local dj had heard them at an open mic night or something. Jack still wasn't entirely sure of all the details; he'd had midterm to cram for when it happened. But they'd barely even been a real band back then: just Donna, and Paul, and Steph replacing Lizzie, who'd quit to go back to school for accounting. The name had been a work in progress.

But even in those early days, when they still played a lot of covers by the Clash and the Dead Kennedys and sometimes Pansy Division, but with a lot more indistinct screaming, it only seemed like it would be a matter of time before the rest of the world would come to appreciate how good of a guitarist Donna was. How big of a star she would be. The smirking face on far too many billboards.

Hiroshima Shadow's rise had been almost meteoric. Warped Tour and MTV and Rock am Ring in Germany. By then, Donna and Paul had been writing most of their own songs, scathing and funny and haunting, and easier on Donna's vocal chords than the screaming of the early days. They'd broken up before the year was over, and reformed, without their bassist, as the O-Ring, a kind of "fuck you" to Paul's homophobic parents.

Paul had spent that Thanksgiving on their couch, drinking and watching hockey with Jack while Jack's mom fretted about the turkey and the pie and the stuffing. Donna, Dawn Clearly by then, some announcer's drunken mistake that she had just gone with, could never have been accused of being the most supportive of friends. It was the first time that Jack could remember being really, genuinely angry with his sister.

It wasn't the last. Especially not when the first paparazzi photos came out.

Jack had been 25 then, still working as a software developer. Still a little heartbroken from having to turn Steph down, the touring and the fame already too much for him to deal with. Even for someone like Steph.

It was Janice in Administration who had shown him the pictures. Donna, visiting him at his new apartment. Donna and him, grabbing lunch. Donna, borrowing his Rutgers hoodie when it got too cold out.

They were all over the supermarket tabloids and the internet. They'd even printed his name.

It had taken Donna two days to put out a statement. By then, the damage had already been done.

[thedojoofintellect]

Warfare

The United States has the best trained military in the world. The United States armed forces has over eight thousand tanks and their aerial vehicles include the B2 stealth bomber and the Lockheed martin F-22 raptor. The tank used by the U.S. Army is the M1A2 Abrams tank. During WWII, America's military used the Sherman tank while Nazi Germany used the Panzer tank. German Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, nicknamed the Desert Fox, is considered the father of modern tank warfare.

Total war refers to a state of armed conflict during which the belligerent parties target far more than they would in a conventional warfare situation. Scorched earth policy is enacted by targeting things that are of use to the enemy. Mutually assured destruction, a cold war doctrine, refers to a scenario in which two nations threaten to deploy nuclear warheads, which would result in the complete annihilation of both countries.

Counterproliferation is the interception of the rapid and often excessive spread of nuclear weapons. Insurgency is the rebellion against a government, usually one's own. Insurrection is another word for rebellion. A coup d'etat is the overthrow of a government. Espionage is discovering the military and political secrets of other nations.

The three branches of government are executive, legislative, and judicial. A republic enjoys a division and separation of powers in its government. As far as the public is permitted to know, the United States has several thousand nuclear weapons and the same is true for Russia.

The earliest manifestation of the internet, called ARPANET, was the work of the Department of Defense in 1969. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency reportedly was attempting to create super-soldiers by trying to figure out a way to lower the empathy of sldiers, thereby creating more efficient killing machines.

The Naval Special Warfare Development Group, also known as DEVGRU and formerly SEAL Team 6, are credited for the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound and bin Laden's death during this operation, which was called Operation Neptune Spear. The Central Intelligence Agency recruits members of Seal Team Six to work for the Special Operations Group of the CIA's Special Activities Division. The same is true for 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, better known as Delta force. Seal Team Six and Delta Force are amongst the premier counterterrorism units of the United States military.

Osama Bin Laden's Secret Service codename was Geronimo, and President Obama's is Renegade. George W. Bush's Secret Service code name is Tumbler. Some examples of clandestine operations include the Mossad's Operation Wrath of God, the CIA's Project MKULTRA and Operation CHAOS, as well as Project Camelot and Operation Gladio, among many others.

The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima during WWII equated to around ten kilotons of trinitrotoluene and the one dropped on Nagasaki was the equivalent of around fifteen to twenty metric tons of TNT. Some of today's hydrogen bombs, which are thermonuclear devices, have a destruction yield of millions of metric tons of TNT.

The U.S. Army's Special Forces, also known as the Green Berets, are skilled in a host of unconventional warfare activities. They go behind enemy lines during stealth reconnaissance missions to gather intel on their adversaries and to acquire information regarding enemy territory. They are also experts in guerrilla warfare.

War has been transpiring since time immemorial. It seems as though the United States of America is always battling somebody. Some wars that the USA has participated in throughout its history are revolutionary war, the war of 1812, the civil war, World War I, World War II, the , the Cold War (though not a war in the conventional sense), the Korean war, the Persian gulf war, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Second Indochina war, which is also known as the Vietnam conflict.

During the Obama Administration, the people in charge of America's military were the commander-in-chief, Barack Obama, the defense secretary, Ash Carter, and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Joseph Dunford.

It is axiomatic that there have been countless wars outside of U.S. history. Some of them include the Punic Wars, the Thirty Years War, the Trojan War, the Peloponnesian wars, the Spanish Civil War, the Greco-Roman conquests, and the conflicts waged by tribes of the enigmatic prehistoric world.

It seems that the onset of World War III is not necessarily that far off. As tension amongst Russia, China, America, and the Arab world heightens, it only seems reasonable to adopt the supposition that global thermonuclear war could jeopardize the future of our civilization.

[theycalledusenemy]

They Called Us Enemy

The book.

They called us enemy by George Takei. Published on July 16th, 2019. Reviewed by EKP.

Historical Content.

On Sunday, December 7th, 1941 the Japanese attacked the Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. It was broadcasted on the radio for everyone in the united states to hear. About thirty minutes later the president declared war on Japan. Seventy- four days after Pearl Harbor the president issued an executive order 9066 on February 19, 1942. Ten days later the entire west coast was declared a "military zone." Throughout the spring of 1942 all Japanese Americans living was to report to designated landmark for processing removal. Over the time of June 17th, 1940-1942 financial assets property and businesses of nearly all Japanese American were seized. 1943 California passed a law that any farm equipment left behind could be seized by the states. And on March 24th the Army began targeting first districts for evacuation, a curfew was issued. Anyone of Japanese Ancestry needed to stay home from 8pm-6am. Japanese Americans could not travel more than five miles from their residence or place of employment. Spring of 1942, Japanese were unloaded at Santa Anita racetrack. Each family were assigned a horse stall.

October 7th, 1942 Rohwer Relocation Center AKA camp Rohwer was the easternmost of the ten internment sites. The camp had thirty-three blocks, which housed two-hundred and fifty people. Rohwer was home to 8,500 Japanese Americans. January of 1943 no Japanese american was not allowed to join the military, and all Japanese already in the military were forced to surrender their weapons. On February 3rd, 1943 Japanese Americans were able to join the military if they were "Loyal citizens." 442nd regimental combat team was created, as a special all Nisei unit, made of thousands of volunteers from Hawaii and from Internment camps on the mainland. Over at eastern France the 1st battalion, 141 regiment of 36th "Texas" division was surrounded and cut off from supplies while patrolling the Vosges Mountain. Segregated soldiers of the 442nd were sent to break through German lines on October 26th, 1944. Five days of intense fighting, but the 442nd were able to break through and rescue 211 men. The 442nd suffered over 800 casualties. 42 were sent to Bavaria as prisoners were they were held until the POW camp was liberated in April 1945.

May 9, 1944. One year and seven months after arriving at Rohwer, George and his family relocated to Tule lake. July 1st 1944, H.R. 4103 was drafted by attorney General Francis Biddle. The bill gave Japanese Americans the right to give up their rights as United States citizens. February 23, 1944 house vote for H.R. 4103 by a vote of 111 to 23. December 18, 1944 was the closure of the Japanese Camps. August 1945, News from the outside reached the camps, Hiroshima bombing and the Nagasaki bombing. August 14, 1945 Japan surrenders and the war was ended. The government cut camp services. November 15, 1945 the first ship of deported "enemy Aliens" was to depart. Among those was George's mother.

September 1945 nearly 1,000 renunciants formed the Tule Lake Defense Committee. And on November 13, 1945 two days before deportations were scheduled to start Collins filed habeas corpus suits representing 935 plaintiffs. November 14, 1945 a Japanese American attorney and an associate of Collins delivered the good news. More than 3,000 people that received hearings, nearly 90 percent were released. But in 1945, courtroom success meant they were cleared to relocate anywhere in america. March 6, 1946 And George and his family were one of the last remaining internees on the block. July 15, 1946 and the 442nd was the most decorated unit of its size president Truman honored dozens of its members with distinguished service cross. The second- highest honor that could be awarded. Many years later the government recognized their heroism with the congressional medal of honor in July 21, 2000.

Perspectives.

"Though they responded in different ways; caring for their family, fighting on the battlefield. Or serving time for their principles, all Japanese Americans showed incredible courage and heroism. They proved that being american is not just for some people. They all made difficult choices to demonstrate their patriotism to this country, even when it rejected them." (Takei 123) No matter what your genetics comes from, everyone showed their heroism to the country, even when it wasn't accepted.

Summary.

The story "They Called us Enemy" by George Takei is a book about the unjust treatment the Japanese American's served after the attack on Pearl Harbor. After the attack George and his family living in Boyle, Los Angeles was taken from their home and sent to a concentration camp. His family of five include him, his younger sister and brother and his two parents, where sent to camp Rohwer. They were forced on trains with nothing and kept hidden from public. When they arrived their family was given their own horse stall to use as their new home. It was smelly, but worst of all because of the horrendous condition the stables was in many contracted illnesses. including George and his little baby sister. With medicine they was able to overcome it. But even in the dark time George remembered good memories like meeting other Japanese american families like the Takahashi family. Mrs Takahashi had four children and was a single parent because her husband was arrested for being a Buddhist minister. Next was the Yasuda family. Mrs. Yasuda's husband was arrested or being a Japanese Language school teacher.

Something George noticed was that the police went after people with high positions of power. George Takei father was selected to be responsible of their community inside the camps because he had a good understanding and comprehension in both English and the Japanese languages, and the democracy process. He was titled as he block manager which came with many benefits. While his parents were trying to settle to their new locked up home George and his brother saw the camp as a new place to explore. George learned from his father about many things like how to be polite. One of his memories to that was when older teens from the camp convinced him to yell 'sakana beach' to the guard in hopes of getting what he wanted. He was shunned and got kicked away, the confused kid went to his father where he learned that it was a bad word. Now being older George understands that 'sakana beach' sounded like 'son of a bitch' in English.

Because of his fathers block manager position they was able to rent a jeep and explore father parts of camp Rohwler. They went to farm and saw many animals one being the hog which George calls an Arkansas dinosaur. Even though something as small as a jeep ride to a barn was, it will always remain in George's memories. "It was a fond memory that glows radiantly with warmth." He wrote.

Many months passed Christmas came and in January 1943 everyone in the camps were force to pledge their loyalty to the states and Japanese Americans were finally able to serve in the military due to high casualties numbers. To test their loyalty questionnaires were handed to every adult in the campus. Two questions stood out the most. George Takei's parents became known as the no-no's because of answering no's to those questions. Whereas other Japanese American families whole heatedly pledged their loyalty to the states.

One year and seven months after arriving at Rohwer they was being relocated again, but this time they were sent to camp Tule Lake a maximum- security segregated place, guarded by battle ready soldier, machine gun towers and tanks for no-no's like his parents. The new camp was very different from the Rohwers. Some people rallied in full support of Japan which caused many raids. Even with all the negative things happening around there was some good in it all. A man named Herbert Nicholson delivered books to everyone in the concentration camp, even after being attacked he still showed. He devoted his life to advocating for Japanese American's during and after the war.

July 1st 1944 public law 78-405 was signed by the president. Any Japanese american could sign their rights on being an american citizen. They had the right to become an enemy alien. George takei's mother took that offer in hopes of trying to protect her family. August and word spread of America's bombing on Hiroshima, than Nagasaki. Japan surrendered and the war was ended. So the government closed all concentration camps. Scared of what would happen to their family they seeked legal advice from Theodore Tamba. He was able to grant all their American citizenship back after signing it away.

Getting back into society was difficult for George he still faced the constant open discrimination because of his race but he was strong to push through. He was able to look back into his and many other cases and grant many people the citizenship and freedom they deserve.

Theme

The theme of this book is to show the injustices and discrimination that Japanese American's faced during World War 2. Sharing the joy and terrors of growing up under legalized racism, his mother's hard choices and his fathers faith in democracy, and how those experiences changed his future. Citizenship is important even in the most valuable times. "While some protested against the U.S. Government, lured by pro-Japanese militans other had more personal concerns with thoughts of trying to force washingtons hand in order to protect her family my mother made the bold decison to renounce her citizenship." (Takei 154) "As a teenager I became curious about the internment camps. I searched all my civil and history books, but there was nothing about the internment of Japanese Americans." (Takei 173)

Perspectives.

"There were fishermen and farmers, shopkeepers and professionals. We were so diverse, all so different and yet, we were all the same. We were all Japanese Americans and were all in block 6 at camp Rohwer. That was our common denominator." (Takei 76) Everyone at the camp were so different but shared one thing; their race.

Character.

George Takei changed when he was a teenage in high school. Having many fuzzy memories about his childhood in the concentration camp, so he searched for anything on that topic but found nothing. It was like America had swept what they did to his family and many more under the carpet. So he worked hard to make his voice heard about his and many of the United States injustices based of race. "It was after those dinner talks with my father that informed so much of my world overview and instilled in me a desire to share our story with as many people as possible." (Takei 196)

Perspectives.

"We were loaded onto trains headed east, but not being 'tagged' to keep of us like cattle. To my parents, it was yet another de-humanizing act." (Takei 36) Because of Takei's young age he never understood how unfair he was being treated. But to his parents everything was inhuman and degrading seeing the country you supported turn their back on you.

Character.

Was putting Japanese Americans in camps reasonable? The emergency Detention Act Title 11 of the Internal Security Act of 1950. It restricted the freedom of a certain individual or a group of individuals based on actions that may be taken that would threaten the security of a nation or a particular area. "Masumi Izumi links the Emergency Detention Act with Japanese American wartime incarceration in her cogent study, The Rise and Fall of America’s Concentration Camp Law. She dissects the entangled discourses of race, national security, and civil liberties between 1941 and 1971 by examining how this historical precedent generated “the concentration camp law” and expanded a ubiquitous regime of surveillance in McCarthyist America." (Temple University Press, Izumi, 2020)

Reflection.

Something I learned from this book is to keep your spirit until you cant no more. Don't let fear dictate or control you life or decisions like the American Government did with locking up the Japanese Americans. But while I learned life lessons from the book I learned a new insight on another cruel american treatment to something that isn't accepted by them. I would rate this book 3.5 stars out of 5. I think this book needs more insight on the camps. But overall it was a good book, that didn't openly say America was wrong. While also giving us happy moments in such a dark moment.

[todayaims]

World War II- A Global Conflict and its Impact

World War II, one of the most significant and devastating conflicts in human history, unfolded between 1939 and 1945, reshaping the geopolitical landscape and leaving an indelible mark on the course of the 20th century. Fueled by political ideologies, territorial ambitions, and economic disparities, the war involved nations from around the globe and brought about unprecedented changes in warfare, technology, and diplomacy.

Causes and Origins:

The roots of World War II can be traced back to the aftermath of World War I. The harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles, economic instability, and the rise of authoritarian regimes in Europe set the stage for a renewed global conflict. Adolf Hitler's aggressive expansionist policies, particularly in Eastern Europe, ignited tensions, eventually leading to the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany on September 1, 1939.

Global Scale:

What started as a European conflict quickly escalated into a truly global war. The Axis Powers, led by Germany, Italy, and Japan, sought to expand their territories, while the Allies, including the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, China, and later the United States, joined forces to counter the aggressors. Theaters of war spanned continents, from the beaches of Normandy to the Pacific islands, the frozen landscapes of Eastern Europe, and the deserts of North Africa.

Major Battles and Turning Points:

World War II witnessed a series of major battles and turning points that shaped its outcome. The Battle of Stalingrad (1942-1943) marked a pivotal moment on the Eastern Front, where the Soviet Union successfully halted the German advance. In the Pacific, the Battle of Midway (1942) shifted the balance of power in favor of the Allies, crippling the Japanese navy.

The Normandy Invasion, commonly known as D-Day (June 6, 1944), represented a massive Allied operation that ultimately led to the liberation of Western Europe from Nazi occupation. Meanwhile, in the Pacific, island-hopping campaigns brought Allied forces closer to Japan.

Holocaust and Atrocities:

One of the darkest aspects of World War II was the Holocaust, the systematic genocide orchestrated by the Nazis. The Holocaust resulted in the mass murder of six million Jews, along with millions of others, including Romani people, Poles, Soviet POWs, and individuals with disabilities. The atrocities committed during this period remain a haunting reminder of the consequences of unchecked hatred and prejudice.

Technological Advancements:

World War II witnessed rapid technological advancements that transformed the nature of warfare. The use of tanks, aircraft, and naval vessels on an unprecedented scale defined the conflict. The development of the atomic bomb, culminating in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, forever altered the geopolitical landscape and ushered in the nuclear age.

Aftermath and the Birth of the United Nations:

The conclusion of World War II marked the beginning of a new era. The devastation wrought by the conflict prompted a collective effort to establish international institutions that would prevent such global calamities in the future. In 1945, the United Nations was founded, serving as a platform for diplomatic dialogue and conflict resolution.

The war's aftermath also saw the division of Germany and the onset of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, a geopolitical struggle that would define global politics for decades.

Legacy:

World War II's legacy endures in the collective memory of nations and individuals. The war's impact on geopolitics, human rights, and technological innovation is immeasurable. The lessons learned from the conflict continue to shape international relations, emphasizing the importance of diplomacy, cooperation, and the pursuit of peace in the face of global challenges. World War II remains a poignant reminder of the human capacity for both destruction and resilience, underscoring the need for vigilance and a commitment to fostering a more just and peaceful world.

[kick-the-clouds]

The Shadows of the Past: Unveiling the Nuances of Hatred

In the deepest corners of our souls lurks an emotion so profound, so potent, and yet intangible – hatred. Throughout history, this visceral feeling has fueled wars, sparked revolutions, and cast a dark shadow on humanity's collective conscience. To truly understand the complexities of hatred, one must embark on a journey through time, unearthing the hidden nuances that lie within. Join us as we delve into the annals of history, uncovering random and obscure examples that shed light on how to identify hatred in others and within ourselves. As the dust settles on pages long forgotten, whispers of the past beckon us to examine the seeds of hatred sown throughout history. One such instance lies in the darkest chapters of the thirteenth century, where the infamous Children's Crusade unfolded. Driven by religious fervor and promises of divine intervention, thousands of innocent children ventured into the unknown, only to face slavery, exploitation, and death. At the heart of this tragedy, lies the deep-seated antipathy between cultures, the embodiment of hatred in its purest form. Moving forward, we stumble upon the turbulent sixteenth century, a time of religious upheaval and intolerance. In the Dutch Revolt, William Silent, the revered leader of the Dutch resistance, became a symbol of resistance against Spanish tyranny. Yet within the ranks of the rebellion, simmering hatred amongst various factions threatened to tear them apart. Obscured by a common enemy, internal divisions fueled by animosity jeopardized their cause, highlighting the perils of unchecked hatred even amidst a unified front. Fast forward to the twentieth century, and witness the chilling atrocities of the Second World War. Among the annals of this monumental conflict, stands the forgotten story of a young Japanese-American girl named Sadako Sasaki. Born in the aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima, Sadako's life was a harrowing testament to the ripple effects of hatred. Afflicted with radiation-induced leukemia, she sought solace in the ancient tradition of origami, believing that folding a thousand cranes would grant her a wish for peace. Alas, her wish went unfulfilled, and in her poignant tale, we find the traces of dormant hatred that lingered even after the war had ended. Expanding our perspective, let us grasp the essence of hatred by analyzing these random, obscure, yet historically significant examples. Through their stories, we begin to unravel the intricate layers that cloak this powerful emotion. It whispers in the shadows, festers within the hearts of the oppressed, and blinds the eyes of the oppressors. The truest test of our understanding lies in recognizing the signs of hatred, both in others and within ourselves. As we conclude this exploration of history's echoes, may we emerge with a renewed sense of awareness. Hatred, though a formidable force, need not define us. By acknowledging its existence and identifying its roots, we can strive to break free from its grip, forging a brighter future where tolerance and love prevail. Let us embark on this journey together, casting light into the darkness, until the echoes of hatred are silenced, and compassion reigns supreme.