#net prophet

[oharac0re]

face it, tiger, you just hit the jackpot !

[blakekarter82]

At it again

[net-prophet]

btsv spoilers (100% real not fake not clickbait)

& this doodle i did

[milimeters-morales]

[tendevour]

your soul will be taken by the Angel of Death, who is in charge of you. then to your Lord, you wil l 𝑎̥̊⃝𝑙̥̊⃝𝑙̥̊⃝;;??? be returned.

[professionalnooneatall]

This is a feature-length documentary about being queer, about cyberpunk, about movies and about life and it's free to watch

[cool-person-yey]

do other ppl also have very realistic dreams that they sometimes confuse with reality or is that just a me thing

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

Jeremiah Confronted by a False Prophet

1 The following events occurred in that same year, early in the reign of King Zedekiah of Judah. To be more precise, it was the fifth month of the fourth year of his reign. The prophet Hananiah son of Azzur, who was from Gibeon, spoke to Jeremiah in the Lord’s temple in the presence of the priests and all the people. 2 “The Lord God of Israel who rules over all says, ‘I will break the yoke of servitude to the king of Babylon. 3 Before two years are over, I will bring back to this place everything that King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon took from it and carried away to Babylon. 4 I will also bring back to this place Jehoiakim’s son King Jeconiah of Judah and all the exiles who were taken to Babylon.’ Indeed, the Lord affirms, ‘I will break the yoke of servitude to the king of Babylon.’”

5 Then the prophet Jeremiah responded to the prophet Hananiah in the presence of the priests and all the people who were standing in the Lord’s temple. 6 The prophet Jeremiah said, “Amen! May the Lord do all this! May the Lord make your prophecy come true! May he bring back to this place from Babylon all the valuable articles taken from the Lord’s temple and the people who were carried into exile. 7 But listen to what I say to you and to all these people. 8 From earliest times, the prophets who preceded you and me invariably prophesied war, disaster, and plagues against many countries and great kingdoms. 9 So if a prophet prophesied peace and prosperity, it was only known that the Lord truly sent him when what he prophesied came true.”

10 The prophet Hananiah then took the yoke off the prophet Jeremiah’s neck and broke it. 11 Then he spoke up in the presence of all the people. “The Lord says, ‘In the same way I will break the yoke of servitude of all the nations to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon before two years are over.’” After he heard this, the prophet Jeremiah departed and went on his way.

12 But shortly after the prophet Hananiah had broken the yoke off the prophet Jeremiah’s neck, the Lord spoke to Jeremiah. 13 “Go and tell Hananiah that the Lord says, ‘You have indeed broken the wooden yoke. But you have only succeeded in replacing it with an iron one! 14 For the Lord God of Israel who rules over all says, “I have put an irresistible yoke of servitude on all these nations so they will serve King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. And they will indeed serve him. I have even given him control over the wild animals.” 15 Then the prophet Jeremiah told the prophet Hananiah, “Listen, Hananiah! The Lord did not send you! You are making these people trust in a lie! 16 So the Lord says, ‘I will most assuredly remove you from the face of the earth. You will die this very year because you have counseled rebellion against the Lord.’”

17 In the seventh month of that very same year the prophet Hananiah died. — Jeremiah 28 | New English Translation (NET Bible) NET Bible copyright © 1996-2006 by Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. All rights reserved. Cross References: Genesis 7:4; Exodus 32:12; Leviticus 26:14; Deuteronomy 18:22; Deuteronomy 28:48; Joshua 9:3; Joshua 10:12; 1 Kings 1:36; 1 Kings 14:15; 1 Kings 22:28; 2 Kings 24:13; 2 Kings 25:27; 1 Chronicles 3:19; 2 Chronicles 36:10; Psalm 107:16; Jeremiah 1:2; Jeremiah 7:8; Jeremiah 14:14; Jeremiah 15:12; Jeremiah 20:6; Jeremiah 22:10; Jeremiah 25:11; Jeremiah 27:2; Jeremiah 27:10; Jeremiah 27:12; Jeremiah 29:1; Jeremiah 37:19; Ezekiel 33:33; 1 Corinthians 14:16

[19thcenturyfuck]

> get trapped in acid trip dimension for extended period of time

> get out of acid trip dimension only to find that it is now 100+ years in the future

> forget own name and entire life

> immediately hit on future spider-man

> feelsneutralman.jpg

[oharac0re]

belanova album cover redraw with the sillies

[fellhellion]

this is not even serving cunt guys come on if you’re going to aggressively sexualise women you can at least give her a look that actually serves

[net-prophet]

Sneak peeks for a very special someone’s birthday countdown

[unconventional-lawnchair]

Too Much Like Me

Potter!Reader tells her dad she's been asked on a date.

Summary: James finds out Lily's type in men is apparently genetic.

Wc: ~1.7k

CW: Just chaotic fluffy hijinks - a jab about Americans

“Dad.” You trailed James into the kitchen, fighting to keep your voice calm despite the storm brewing ahead.

But James Potter, in all his dramatic glory, had gone entirely deaf. Arms flailing like a prophet warning of doom, he roared, “Family meeting!”

“No! No family meeting!” you yelped, lunging for his arm. You barely stifled a laugh as he flailed harder, like a fish trying to escape the net.

James spun around, courtroom-drama style, and gasped at you with the intensity of someone catching their child red-handed with a cursed artifact. “Fred Weasley? Our Fred Weasley? That Fred Weasley?”

“Yes, that Fred Weasley,” you groaned, dragging your hands down your face. “Merlin’s saggy balls, I regret telling you already.”

James slammed his hand on the counter for emphasis, pivoting toward the sitting room like a man possessed. “Lily!” he thundered, shaking the walls. “Lily, get in here! Your daughter’s lost her mind!”

“Dad, for Merlin’s sake!” You tried to grab him again, but James had started pacing now, looking like a wizard unjustly accused of crimes against decorum.

“Not in my house! Not under my roof!” He spun around, hazel eyes bulging with a level of betrayal that deserved an award. “Fred Weasley doesn’t know the meaning of curfew! Or- Merlin help us- a respectable bedtime! Do you think I’m letting that chaos into my family? After all I’ve sacrificed? For you?”

“James,” came Lily’s voice, calm but laced with amusement. She stood in the doorway, arms crossed and eyebrows raised, her lips twitching. “What are you yelling about this time?”

James turned to her, a man on the brink. “Fred Weasley! He asked her out! Our daughter! On a date! Alone! With no chaperone!”

Lily blinked, then turned to you with a grin brighter than a Patronus. “Oh!” she gasped, her eyes lighting up. “He finally asked?”

James froze mid-tirade, pointing an accusatory finger at his wife. “Finally? What do you mean, finally? Have you been... supporting this? Encouraging it?”

Lily shrugged, her grin widening as she pushed off the doorframe and sauntered into the kitchen. “He’s a lovely boy, James. Polite, clever, charming. He reminds me of someone I used to know.”

“Don’t you dare—” James began, his tone low and dangerous.

“You,” Lily finished brightly, jabbing him in the chest. “Fred’s just like you were. All mischief and charm. No wonder she likes him.”

James gawked at her like she’d suggested selling their house to a pack of trolls. “That’s exactly why she can’t date him! I was Fred Weasley, Lily! Do you know what I would’ve done if someone let me date their daughter?”

“You married her,” Lily said sweetly, leaning over to plant a kiss on his cheek, winking at you as it effectively stunned the red mess that was your father.

James froze, his mouth opening and closing like a fish gasping for air, completely derailed by Lily’s well-placed jab and affectionate kiss. He finally managed to sputter, “That’s- That’s completely different!”

“How, exactly?” Lily teased, raising an eyebrow as she crossed her arms again. “Because if I recall correctly, you were a menace, Potter. A charming menace, but a menace nonetheless. Fred’s cut from the same cloth, and you turned out all right.”

James spluttered, gesturing wildly at you. “Because this is my daughter! She’s not supposed to fall for charmers like Fred Weasley! I can’t just let this happen! Where’s the fatherly dignity in that?”

“Oh, James,” Lily sighed, patting his shoulder with exaggerated pity. “I hate to break it to you, but you lost your ‘fatherly dignity’ the day you wore those matching Christmas jumpers with Sirius.”

“That was solidarity!” James barked, his ears reddening as he straightened his posture in a futile attempt at reclaiming authority. “And anyway, this is different. I’m supposed to protect her! Shield her from the heartbreakers and mischief-makers of the world.”

“Fred’s not a heartbreaker, Dad,” you said, exasperated but amused. “He’s actually- dare I say- nice? And maybe even mature? A little bit?”

James looked like he might faint. “Mature?! You’re telling me Fred Weasley- the bloke who turned all the Quidditch goalposts into giant marshmallows- is mature?! What next? He’s taken up knitting?”

“Knitting would be a good look for him,” Lily quipped, clearly enjoying herself. “Very soothing hobby. He could knit you a jumper, James, to match that dignity you’ve misplaced.”

You couldn’t help but snort at the visual, and James threw his hands up, pacing the kitchen again. “I can’t believe this. I’m being outnumbered in my own home.”

“It’s called democracy- like the Americans,” Lily said, smirking as she leaned against the counter. “And right now, you’re the losing party.”

James stopped pacing to glare at her. “Fred acts like a damned American..” He mumbled before he raised his voice. “This is treason. Pure, unadulterated treason.”

“James,” Lily replied patiently, though her lips twitched with amusement. “You’ll survive.”

At that moment, Harry wandered into the kitchen, his face set in curious confusion as he surveyed the scene. He held a plate of leftover treacle tart, chewing leisurely. “What’s with all the shouting, then?” He asked, his tone disinterested but his eyes sparkling with intrigue.

James immediately pounced, pointing an accusatory finger at you. “Your sister has decided to go on a date with Fred Weasley, Harry! Fred Weasley! What do you have to say about that?”

Harry blinked at him, clearly trying to piece together the situation. Then his gaze slid to you, and his smirk grew as he swallowed a bite of tart. “Fred, huh?” he said, his tone dripping with amusement. “Nice. Bold choice. Never a dull moment with a Weasley.”

“Bold-? Harry!” James looked genuinely wounded. “This is a betrayal! Your own sister-"

“Is an adult,” Harry interrupted, shrugging. “And you’re acting like she’s run off to marry Voldemort’s ghost.”

“Don’t give him ideas,” you muttered under your breath, earning a snort from Harry.

“Not helping, Harry!” James barked, looking thoroughly frazzled now. He pointed at you again. “Fine! Go on your date! But I’m watching him. One toe out of line, and-”

“And what?” you challenged, grinning now as Lily watched on, clearly entertained. “You’ll duel him? Turn him into a marshmallow like his Quidditch goalposts?”

James opened his mouth, floundering for a retort, but Lily stepped in, tugging him gently away from the center of the chaos. “Come on, love,” she cooed soothingly. “Why don’t we sit down, have a cuppa, and let the kids handle their own lives for once?”

James sighed, finally deflating. “Fine,” he grumbled, shooting you one last suspicious look. “But mark my words- an eye for an eye! Harry, date his younger sister!”

Harry froze, the bite of treacle tart halfway to his mouth as the words sunk in. His eyes darted between you, Lily, and James, clearly trying to figure out if this was his moment to fess up or quietly Disapparate.

“What?” James demanded, noticing Harry’s hesitation. “What’s with that face? Don’t tell me you’ve already thought about it!”

Lily covered her mouth, her shoulders shaking with silent laughter. You, on the other hand, burst out laughing immediately, doubling over as the image of James putting two and two together hit you.

“Why are you laughing?” James barked, looking between the two of you like he was missing the punchline to a joke everyone else got. “What’s so funny? Harry, explain yourself!”

Harry, clearly seeing no way out, sighed and placed his plate of treacle tart on the counter. “Dad,” he started, bracing himself, “I’m already dating Ginny.”

James froze. Completely, utterly froze. His jaw hung slack, his hands hovering mid-air like a malfunctioning automaton.

“You’re what?” He whispered, his voice teetering on the edge of shock and betrayal.

You howled with laughter, tears forming in your eyes. “Oh, Merlin, this is priceless!” You gasped. “Dad, your face- your face!"

“James, breathe,” Lily advised through her own laughter, leaning against the counter for support. “You’re going to give yourself a stroke.”

James finally snapped out of his trance, his eyes narrowing into sharp points of indignation. “Ginny?! Ginny Weasley?! First her with Fred, and now you- how long has this been going on?”

Harry scratched the back of his neck, clearly trying to make himself look smaller. “A while.”

“A while?" James repeated, his voice cracking. “Define ‘a while.’ A few days? Weeks?”

Harry hesitated. “Since... fifth year?”

“Fifth year?!" James bellowed, looking like he might explode. “That’s years! Years, Harry! And you didn’t think to tell me?!”

“What was I supposed to say?” Harry shot back, clearly frustrated now. “‘Hey, Dad, by the way, I’m snogging Ron’s little sister’? That would’ve gone over well.”

“Well, it’s certainly better than me finding out like this!” James cried, gesturing wildly at nothing in particular. “My own son! Betraying me! I raised you better than this, Harry!”

Lily wiped her eyes, still chuckling. “Oh, don’t be so dramatic, James. They’re clearly happy, and Ginny’s a wonderful girl. You love her.”

“That’s not the point, Lily!” James snapped, his hands flying to his hair. “It’s- this is-!Fred! Ginny! My children and their Weasleys! What’s next? Ron’s going to marry into the family, too?”

Harry raised an eyebrow. “Well... technically, Hermione-"

“No! They got her too!?" James cut him off, throwing his hands in the air. “Don’t even tell me! I won’t survive it! This is it- this is how I go. Betrayed by my own family and buried in a sea of Weasleys.”

You leaned against the counter, wheezing with laughter. “Dad, you’re being ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous?” James turned to you, his face a picture of righteous indignation. “You don’t understand. I fought a war for this family- for this! And now my legacy is going to be a house full of Weasleys!”

“Sounds cozy,” Lily teased, patting his arm. “You’ll come around, James. You always do.”

James groaned, sinking into a chair as if all the fight had been drained out of him. “Fine,” he muttered, waving a hand dismissively. “Fine. Date your Weasleys. Marry them. Name your kids Fred and Ginny Jr. for all I care.”

You patted his shoulder, grinning. “Love you, Dad.”

He shot you a glare but muttered, “Love you, too. But don’t think for one second I’m not watching Fred like a hawk.”

“And Ginny?” Harry asked, daring to push his luck.

James pointed a warning finger at him. “You, young man, are on thin bloody ice."

Lily hushed James as she patted his back, leading him out of the kitchen. He continued to blabber on, muttering something along the lines of;

“Is this my fault?”

“Merlin, does Molly know?”

“Bloody redheads- OW!”

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Red Lobster was killed by private equity, not Endless Shrimp

For the rest of May, my bestselling solarpunk utopian novel THE LOST CAUSE (2023) is available as a $2.99, DRM-free ebook!

A decade ago, a hedge fund had an improbable viral comedy hit: a 294-page slide deck explaining why Olive Garden was going out of business, blaming the failure on too many breadsticks and insufficiently salted pasta-water:

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/940944/000092189514002031/ex991dfan14a06297125_091114.pdf

Everyone loved this story. As David Dayen wrote for Salon, it let readers "mock that silly chain restaurant they remember from their childhoods in the suburbs" and laugh at "the silly hedge fund that took the time to write the world’s worst review":

https://www.salon.com/2014/09/17/the_real_olive_garden_scandal_why_greedy_hedge_funders_suddenly_care_so_much_about_breadsticks/

But – as Dayen wrote at the time, the hedge fund that produced that slide deck, Starboard Value, was not motivated by dissatisfaction with bread-sticks. They were "activist investors" (finspeak for "rapacious assholes") with a giant stake in Darden Restaurants, Olive Garden's parent company. They wanted Darden to liquidate all of Olive Garden's real-estate holdings and declare a one-off dividend that would net investors a billion dollars, while literally yanking the floor out from beneath Olive Garden, converting it from owner to tenant, subject to rent-shocks and other nasty surprises.

They wanted to asset-strip the company, in other words ("asset strip" is what they call it in hedge-fund land; the mafia calls it a "bust-out," famous to anyone who watched the twenty-third episode of The Sopranos):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bust_Out

Starboard didn't have enough money to force the sale, but they had recently engineered the CEO's ouster. The giant slide-deck making fun of Olive Garden's food was just a PR campaign to help it sell the bust-out by creating a narrative that they were being activists* to save this badly managed disaster of a restaurant chain.

*assholes

Starboard was bent on eviscerating Darden like a couple of entrail-maddened dogs in an elk carcass:

https://web.archive.org/web/20051220005944/http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~solan/dogsinelk/

They had forced Darden to sell off another of its holdings, Red Lobster, to a hedge-fund called Golden Gate Capital. Golden Gate flogged all of Red Lobster's real estate holdings for $2.1 billion the same day, then pissed it all away on dividends to its shareholders, including Starboard. The new landlords, a Real Estate Investment Trust, proceeded to charge so much for rent on those buildings Red Lobster just flogged that the company's net earnings immediately dropped by half.

Dayen ends his piece with these prophetic words:

Olive Garden and Red Lobster may not be destinations for hipster Internet journalists, and they have seen revenue declines amid stagnant middle-class wages and increased competition. But they are still profitable businesses. Thousands of Americans work there. Why should they be bled dry by predatory investors in the name of “shareholder value”? What of the value of worker productivity instead of the financial engineers?

Flash forward a decade. Today, Dayen is editor-in-chief of The American Prospect, one of the best sources of news about private equity looting in the world. Writing for the Prospect, Luke Goldstein picks up Dayen's story, ten years on:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-05-22-raiding-red-lobster/

It's not pretty. Ten years of being bled out on rents and flipped from one hedge fund to another has killed Red Lobster. It just shuttered 50 restaurants and declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Ten years hasn't changed much; the same kind of snark that was deployed at the news of Olive Garden's imminent demise is now being hurled at Red Lobster.

Instead of dunking on free bread-sticks, Red Lobster's grave-dancers are jeering at "Endless Shrimp," a promotional deal that works exactly how it sounds like it would work. Endless Shrimp cost the chain $11m.

Which raises a question: why did Red Lobster make this money-losing offer? Are they just good-hearted slobs? Can't they do math?

Or, you know, was it another hedge-fund, bust-out scam?

Here's a hint. The supplier who provided Red Lobster with all that shrimp is Thai Union. Thai Union also owns Red Lobster. They bought the chain from Golden Gate Capital, last seen in 2014, holding a flash-sale on all of Red Lobster's buildings, pocketing billions, and cutting Red Lobster's earnings in half.

Red Lobster rose to success – 700 restaurants nationwide at its peak – by combining no-frills dining with powerful buying power, which it used to force discounts from seafood suppliers. In response, the seafood industry consolidated through a wave of mergers, turning into a cozy cartel that could resist the buyer power of Red Lobster and other major customers.

This was facilitated by conservation efforts that limited the total volume of biomass that fishers were allowed to extract, and allocated quotas to existing companies and individual fishermen. The costs of complying with this "catch management" system were high, punishingly so for small independents, bearably so for large conglomerates.

Competition from overseas fisheries drove consolidation further, as countries in the global south were blocked from implementing their own conservation efforts. US fisheries merged further, seeking economies of scale that would let them compete, largely by shafting fishermen and other suppliers. Today's Alaskan crab fishery is dominated by a four-company cartel; in the Pacific Northwest, most fish goes through a single intermediary, Pacific Seafood.

These dominant actors entered into illegal collusive arrangements with one another to rig their markets and further immiserate their suppliers, who filed antitrust suits accusing the companies of operating a monopsony (a market with a powerful buyer, akin to a monopoly, which is a market with a powerful seller):

https://www.classaction.org/news/pacific-seafood-under-fire-for-allegedly-fixing-prices-paid-to-dungeness-crabbers-in-pacific-northwest

Golden Gate bought Red Lobster in the midst of these fish wars, promising to right its ship. As Goldstein points out, that's the same promise they made when they bought Payless shoes, just before they destroyed the company and flogged it off to Alden Capital, the hedge fund that bought and destroyed dozens of America's most beloved newspapers:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/16/sociopathic-monsters/#all-the-news-thats-fit-to-print

Under Golden Gate's management, Red Lobster saw its staffing levels slashed, so diners endured longer wait times to be seated and served. Then, in 2020, they sold the company to Thai Union, the company's largest supplier (a transaction Goldstein likens to a Walmart buyout of Procter and Gamble).

Thai Union continued to bleed Red Lobster, imposing more cuts and loading it up with more debts financed by yet another private equity giant, Fortress Investment Group. That brings us to today, with Thai Union having moved a gigantic amount of its own product through a failing, debt-loaded subsidiary, even as it lobbies for deregulation of American fisheries, which would let it and its lobbying partners drain American waters of the last of its depleted fish stocks.

Dayen's 2020 must-read book Monopolized describes the way that monopolies proliferate, using the US health care industry as a case-study:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/29/fractal-bullshit/#dayenu

After deregulation allowed the pharma sector to consolidate, it acquired pricing power of hospitals, who found themselves gouged to the edge of bankruptcy on drug prices. Hospitals then merged into regional monopolies, which allowed them to resist pharma pricing power – and gouge health insurance companies, who saw the price of routine care explode. So the insurance companies gobbled each other up, too, leaving most of us with two or fewer choices for health insurance – even as insurance prices skyrocketed, and our benefits shrank.

Today, Americans pay more for worse healthcare, which is delivered by health workers who get paid less and work under worse conditions. That's because, lacking a regulator to consolidate patients' interests, and strong unions to consolidate workers' interests, patients and workers are easy pickings for those consolidated links in the health supply-chain.

That's a pretty good model for understanding what's happened to Red Lobster: monopoly power and monopsony power begat more monopolies and monoposonies in the supply chain. Everything that hasn't consolidated is defenseless: diners, restaurant workers, fishermen, and the environment. We're all fucked.

Decent, no-frills family restaurant are good. Great, even. I'm not the world's greatest fan of chain restaurants, but I'm also comfortably middle-class and not struggling to afford to give my family a nice night out at a place with good food, friendly staff and reasonable prices. These places are easy pickings for looters because the people who patronize them have little power in our society – and because those of us with more power are easily tricked into sneering at these places' failures as a kind of comeuppance that's all that's due to tacky joints that serve the working class.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/23/spineless/#invertebrates

[spidergrotto]

“now all i want is my partner back.” literally proposing to his situationship in the MIDDLE of a war i love them so much.

just found out this is ART and not a actual scene from the episode !!! cred: @net-prophet

[khoshekh0-0]

idk which one to draw as jayvik 🤔

Credit for first image: @net-prophet !!!