#u.s. bs

[storiesconsumemysoul]

Excerpts from the Reuters report (by Chris Bing and Joel Schectman) on June 14th, 2024:

A little medical and historical context:

Academic research published recently has shown that, when individuals develop skepticism toward a single vaccine, those doubts often lead to uncertainty about other inoculations. Lucey and other health experts say they saw such a scenario play out in Pakistan, where the Central Intelligence Agency used a fake hepatitis vaccination program in Abbottabad as cover to hunt for Osama bin Laden, the terrorist mastermind behind the attacks of September 11, 2001. Discovery of the ruse led to a backlash against an unrelated polio vaccination campaign, including attacks on healthcare workers, contributing to the reemergence of the deadly disease in the country.

The capitalist and imperialist motives:

Beijing didn’t limit its global influence efforts to propaganda. It announced an ambitious COVID assistance program, which included sending masks, ventilators and its own vaccines – still being tested at the time – to struggling countries. In May 2020, Xi announced that the vaccine China was developing would be made available as a “global public good,” and would ensure “vaccine accessibility and affordability in developing countries.” Sinovac was the primary vaccine available in the Philippines for about a year until U.S.-made vaccines became more widely available there in early 2022. Washington’s plan, called Operation Warp Speed, was different. It favored inoculating Americans first, and it placed no restrictions on what pharmaceutical companies could charge developing countries for the remaining vaccines not used by the United States. The deal allowed the companies to “play hardball” with developing countries, forcing them to accept high prices, said Lawrence Gostin, a professor of medicine at Georgetown University who has worked with the World Health Organization. The deal “sucked most of the supply out of the global market,” Gostin said. “The United States took a very determined America First approach.” To Washington’s alarm, China’s offers of assistance were tilting the geopolitical playing field across the developing world, including in the Philippines, where the government faced upwards of 100,000 infections in the early months of the pandemic.

The gov. authorization:

In the past, such opposition from the State Department might have proved fatal to the program. Previously in peacetime, the Pentagon needed approval of embassy officials before conducting psychological operations in a country, often hamstringing commanders seeking to quickly respond to Beijing’s messaging, three former Pentagon officials told Reuters. But in 2019, before COVID surfaced in full force, then-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper signed a secret order that later paved the way for the launch of the U.S. military propaganda campaign. The order elevated the Pentagon’s competition with China and Russia to the priority of active combat, enabling commanders to sidestep the State Department when conducting psyops against those adversaries. The Pentagon spending bill passed by Congress that year also explicitly authorized the military to conduct clandestine influence operations against other countries, even “outside of areas of active hostilities.”

And one last one following up on the secret order and General Dynamics IT:

The senior defense official said the Pentagon has rescinded parts of Esper’s 2019 order that allowed military commanders to bypass the approval of U.S. ambassadors when waging psychological operations. The rules now mandate that military commanders work closely with U.S. diplomats in the country where they seek to have an impact. The policy also restricts psychological operations aimed at “broad population messaging,” such as those used to promote vaccine hesitancy during COVID. The Pentagon’s audit concluded that the military’s primary contractor handling the campaign, General Dynamics IT, had employed sloppy tradecraft, taking inadequate steps to hide the origin of the fake accounts, said a person with direct knowledge of the review. The review also found that military leaders didn’t maintain enough control over its psyop contractors, the person said. A spokesperson for General Dynamics IT declined to comment. Nevertheless, the Pentagon’s clandestine propaganda efforts are set to continue. In an unclassified strategy document last year, top Pentagon generals wrote that the U.S. military could undermine adversaries such as China and Russia using “disinformation spread across social media, false narratives disguised as news, and similar subversive activities [to] weaken societal trust by undermining the foundations of government.” And in February, the contractor that worked on the anti-vax campaign – General Dynamics IT – won a $493 million contract. Its mission: to continue providing clandestine influence services for the military.

I would highly recommend reading the whole thing (link at the top) especially if this is the first you've heard of this happening. The article goes into the specifics of the Philippines-Us-China relations during this time and the devastating rates the country was facing when the U.S. was doing this shit. There is also a good chunk on how they targeted Muslim majority regions with disinformation about pig derivatives in the sinovac and the attempted pushback by religious scholars to assure their populace that even if it did, taking it would still not be haram under these circumstances.

Framing is centrist-y but still solid reporting and a great read.

i rlly do not think white global northerners understand how fucking bad the anti sinovac psyop was in context of the philippines and other targeted countries being from the global south, with a history of economic and military intervention and destabilization by the usa specifically.

i live in the philippines and sinovac was the only available vaccine for MONTHS of the pandemic. people were fucking dying and we had no pfizer, no j&j, no astrazeneca, no moderna. sinovac was the ONLY vaccine supply we had. and the supply wasnt even enough for even my small city. we do not have the infrastructure to manufacture our own vaccines and tests. we were entirely reliant on imports from other countries who Did have the capacity to manufacture such things

i got up early for several days straight to go to a pop up walk in vaccination site (were talking there by 7:30am) set up in a fucking public basketball court because it was the only way to get vaccinated, and 3 times i had to go back empty handed so to speak after exposing myself to this massive opportunity for transmission because they fucking ran out of shots and prioritized the elderly and disabled and i didnt have my legal pwd (person with disability) card yet. i had to go to a different barangay (local unit of government) to get my shot MONTHS LATER and only got mine because one of my family was in the local govt and reserved some shots for us.

many filipinos use facebook which is where some of the psyop was conducted because you can use it for free on your phone and it is often where news is disseminated. i know we have that joke about People Believing Anything They See On Facebook but i cannot stress enough that people here get local news from fb the same way you (used to) get news from twitter about shit like localized emergencies and whatnot.

because we are third world, you know that the state of our education system is nothing compared to the states. media and news literacy here is dangerously low and the population is sensitive to mis/disinformation, as can be seen during the 2022 presidential elections where the usa Also interfered lol. i cannot stress enough how much of the population was susceptible to this psyop, especially those in poverty who couldnt afford proper education. hell, even educated people fell for this shit. do you think jhunjhun who didnt finish grade 6 would be able to identify disguised foreign intervention that was in his own language?

we were already recovering from public scrutiny of a different vaccine, a dengue vaccine, which lowered public trust in inoculation. and then the usa goes and does THIS??? i cannot emphasize enough that they are directly responsible for the tens and thousands of unvaccinated covid deaths. they are responsible for my friends having to bury their unvaxxed parents and grandparents at the age of 19. they are responsible for mass death and disability.

but were just a country in the periphery. so who cares about us? our lives are worthless to the usa, which is why they admitted that they did this when they would otherwise "never" to their own population. third worlders arent real people to your government. we are merely statistics and a petri dish for experimentation. so who cares if we die? the real important thing isnt our lives, its that the usa has more control over us than china.

[wongkarwine]

i think it's so funny i set aside 3k for my 2023 FSA/HSA account intended for lasik. as I was doing research for it, i decided i'm not going through with it for now. so I was like oh shit what am I gonna do with my funds, they don't roll over, halfway through the year. but surprise! dental work needed will eat up the 2k I had left

[miscellaneousjay]

In light of the election results, those of us chillin in the margins, how are yall doing? I was jamming to some of my fave songs for most of the day because this shit cannot possibly be happening AGAIN! When I found out this morning, I was at a loss for words. People really don’t gaf about their freedom until it’s snatched from under them. They don’t care until it’s them. The only good things about this coming presidency is that 1) once the rest of us have been deported or just made powerless and have to adapt once again, there won’t be anyone to save the folks who didn’t think they could be touched and 2) Orange Voldemort can’t run again after this term (if I’m not mistaken). If you are a follower of his, don’t comment, don’t reblog, just ignore and block because that’s what I’ll be doing to protect my peace. I don’t entertain the thoughts of people who think my existence is up for debate.

-A Concerned and Aware Black American Woman

*white people and/or anti-Black non-Black minorities

[seymourmusicclub]

Drake, 21 Savage - On BS (Audio)

[binghe-malewife-goals]

Biggest dingus of the year

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Dean Obeidallah at The Dean's Report:

On August 20, a little before dawn, 87 year-old Lidia Martinez was abruptly jarred awake by an unexpected knock on her door. The longtime activist who for over 35 years has worked to expand voter registration among seniors and veterans in south Texas, cautiously peered out the door. Standing on her doorstep were nine police officers dressed in tactical gear and carrying firearms. After showing her a search warrant, Martinez’s home was searched as she was forced to stand outside in her nightgown in her driveway in full view of her neighbors. Martinez was later questioned for three hours after which the police seized her phone, computer, personal calendar and more.

[...]

These bad faith searches orchestrated by Paxton were predicated on the claim that the people being investigated were registering non-citizens to vote—despite zero evidence presented of wrongdoing. Very alarmingly, if Donald Trump and House GOP have their way, these types of raids would be happening nationwide with federal law enforcement under a GOP President.  That is why GOP House Speaker Johnson is now demanding the proposed SAVE Act be included in any deal to provide funding to keep the government open.

To be clear, federal and state law already makes it a crime for non-citizens to vote. But this new federal legislation would establish criminal penalties for registering an applicant to vote in a federal election who fails to present documentation proving U.S. citizenship.  That means that what we are seeing in Texas is coming attractions of what the GOP wants to do nationally.

Keep in mind despite Texas AG Paxton’s two year investigation, no charges  have been filed against any of the people whose homes were searched.  Indeed, there may never be charges because even Paxton’s basis for the search is BS. In his press release announcing the investigation, the Texas AG presents no evidence of wrongdoing. Instead, Paxton makes baseless claims like these organizations have set up voter registration booths outside state agencies where people could register inside. Paxton’s press release literally includes this question with no answer: “Why would they need a second opportunity to register with a booth outside?” But nowhere in his press release does he even allege any criminal conduct—only questions.

And Paxton—a close ally of convicted felon Trump—showed his bad faith earlier in August on a radio show when he peddled lies about non-citizens voting. Paxton declared, “There’s a reason Joe Biden brought people here illegally. I’m convinced that that’s how they’re going to do it this time, they’re going to use the illegal vote. Why were they brought in, why did he bring in 14 million people?” adding, “He brought them here to vote.”   That is nothing more than the type of BS you hear on Fox News. But now Paxton has weaponized government by targeting people registering those he believes will vote for Democrats. The backlash to Paxton’s actions have been swift. LULAC requested that the Department of  Justice investigate Paxton's office for Voting Rights Act violations. LULAC CEO Juan Proaño and the group's national president, Roman Palomares, summed up well what is really going in their letter to the DOJ: "These actions echo a troubling history of voter suppression and intimidation that has long targeted both Black and Latino communities, particularly in states like Texas, where demographic changes have increasingly shifted the political landscape.”

The Texas GOPs voter intimidation tactics are based on the faux outrage campaign against noncitizen voting.

[mariacallous]

Students and activists from multiple faiths are sounding the alarm over the Trump administration and lawmakers’ efforts to silence dissent on college campuses over issues like Palestinian rights — accusing officials of using allegations of antisemitism as a pretext to crush free speech and exert control over the country’s higher education system.

At a hearing Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee listened to testimony related to the rise in antisemitism in the U.S., particularly after the deadly Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023. With the exception of temporary, fragile ceasefires, Israeli forces have been fighting in Gaza — and destroying infrastructure and killing civilians — ever since.

The U.S. also has seen a rise in Islamophobia since the attack, though Wednesday’s Senate hearing did not include concerns over that issue. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the Republican-controlled committee’s ranking member, stressed that the panel under his leadership had held multiple hearings on hate against all faiths. He added that the mother of Wadee Alfayoumi, the 6-year-old Palestinian American boy murdered by his landlord in Illinois, attended a previous hearing.

“It was clearly a hate crime, and it was based on their religion,” Durbin said. “And the fact that that was part of the hearing did not diminish in any way my strong feelings about antisemitism. It is the same hatred that we’re trying to stamp out today.”

In the spring of 2024, protests erupted on college campuses across the country, with students and faculty of all faiths peacefully demanding that the U.S. government – the Biden administration at the time – stop supporting Israel in its destruction of Gaza and the Palestinian people.

Similar to the students who protested the Vietnam War, participants faced police brutality, far-right agitators, retaliation by their schools and mostly unfounded accusations of being antisemitic. Just Wednesday, Columbia University’s Barnard College expelled a third student for participating in pro-Palestinian activism.

“It is essential we continue working to dismantle real antisemitism while also defending our friends and community members who are falsely accused of antisemitism,” Ellie Baron, a Bryn Mawr College student who is part of this year’s graduating class, said in a statement. “The only [way]forward is through forging greater solidarity with all people who are targeted by fascism and supremacist ideologies, including antisemitism and anti-Palestinian racism.”

President Donald Trump has threatened to essentially sanction universities that allow peaceful protests for Palestinian human rights, and he has even called for revoking the visas of foreign students who participate in those protests. At Wednesday’s hearing, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) repeatedly questioned why the government should not enact Trump’s pledge todeport foreign students who commit “an act of violence against a Jewish student.”

“Well, that’s already the law,” civil liberties attorney Jenin Younes posted on X. “So everyone with a brain knows these ‘antisemitism’ related [executive orders] aren’t about prosecuting violent crime or other illegal conduct like harassment and vandalizing property. They’re about suppressing disfavored speech and you’re smart enough to know that this is a grave violation of 1A.”

Despite Trump and his allies’ statements that they care about Jewish safety, the president’s actions have done the opposite. Trump and his billionaire friend Elon Musk are behind the layoffs of at least a dozen government officials from the Education Department’s office of civil rights, which looked into students’ complaints of discrimination — including antisemitism.

The president has a history of objectively antisemitic statements, like saying that any Jewish person who votes for Democrats “hates their religion,” and implying that Jewish Americans have dual loyalty with Israel. On his first day in office this term, Trump issued full pardons to rioters who carried out the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, including white nationalists and others who brought antisemitic symbols to the Capitol.

Musk has also come under fire for giving a Nazi-like salute during an event, openly supporting far-right German politics and saying that society should stop paying so much attention to the Holocaust.

“It is reprehensible that MAGA senators who have aligned themselves with white nationalists and antisemites like Elon Musk are putting on this hearing to crack down on the movement for Palestinian rights and for our civil liberties writ large under the guise of fighting antisemitism,” Jewish progressive group IfNotNow said Wednesday. “We refuse to let our Jewish community be the face of the Trump-Musk administration’s attacks on our rights.”

Protecting education and open dialogue is vital to “the ability of Jewish students to succeed and thrive,” Tufts University student Meirav Solomon testified at the Senate hearing on Wednesday.

Some lawmakers support adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which labels most criticism of the State of Israel as antisemitic. Civil and human rights groups – as well as the definition’s original co-author – have strongly opposed it as “overbroad” and “unconstitutional,” particularly in education spaces.

In November, a federal judge ruled that a state-level executive order threatening funding to Texas colleges and universities who don’t update campus free speech policies to include the IHRA definition of antisemitism likely violates the First Amendment.

“Distorting the meaning of antisemitism and making Jews the face of a campaign to crush free speech is deeply dangerous to Jewish Americans,” Barry Trachtenberg, presidential chair of Jewish history at Wake Forest University, said in a statement, “and all of us who work for collective liberation.”

[jesse-is-inarguably-purple]

i am actually involved in local community services and initiatives, i do donate to causes and i am protesting my ass off. y’all act like all leftists spend all our time picking fights on twitter instead of organizing our communities to fight against the genocide in Gaza, u.s. imperialism, and global capitalism, all while taking care of each other in a system designed to profit off the suffering of people of color and the working class. you know what “performative mock activism” is? acting like voting for the next Town Destroyer is some moral imperative more important than liberation and radical care. instead of spending your time doing free PR work for cops and war criminals, you could shut the fuck up and donate to Palestinians in Gaza, organize a direct action, run jail support, get educated (feel free to ask me for book recs!), etc. in the meantime please keep this lib propaganda off my dash or im gonna have to start blocking people

“no one for president” you sound like such a fucking cringe edgelord and unless u plan on staging a massive revolution in a country of 300 million spanning 3.8 million square miles and overthrowing the government before November I would suggest voting for the candidate who DOESNT cater to white supremacy subcultures, getting involved in local community services & initiatives, donating to causes, or campaigning/protesting instead of this performative mock activism

[coochiequeens]

I know this blog focuses on TIMs invading women’s sports and locker rooms but Saving Women’s Sports means more than that. Like calling out sexist bs when companies give men real clothes to compete in and women get basically underwear.

The Nike Air Innovation Summit in Paris on Thursday.Credit...Dominique Maitre/WWD, via Getty Images

By Vanessa Friedman April 12, 2024

Ever since the Norwegian women’s beach handball team turned the fact that they were required to wear teeny-tiny bikini bottoms for competition into a cause célèbre, a quiet revolution has been brewing throughout women’s sports. It’s one that questions received conventions about what female athletes do — or don’t — have to wear to perform at their very best.

It has touched women’s soccer (why white shorts?), gymnastics (why not a unitard rather than a leotard?), field hockey (why a low-cut tank top?) and many more, including running.

So it probably should not have come as a shock to Nike that when it offered a sneak peek of the Team U.S.A. track and field unies during a Nike Air event in Paris celebrating its Air technology on Thursday (which also included looks for other Olympic athletes, like Kenya’s track and field team, France’s basketball team and Korea’s break dancing delegation), they were met with some less-than-enthusiastic reactions.

See, the two uniforms Nike chose to single out on the mannequins included a men’s compression tank top and mid-thigh-length compression shorts and a woman’s bodysuit, cut notably high on the hip. It looked sort of like a sporty version of a 1980s workout leotard. As it was displayed, the bodysuit seemed as if it would demand some complicated intimate grooming.

Citius Mag, which focuses on running news, posted a photo of the uniforms on Instagram, and many of its followers were not amused.

“What man designed the woman’s cut?” wrote one.

“I hope U.S.A.T.F. is paying for the bikini waxes,” wrote another. So went most of the more than 1,900 comments.

The running comedian Laura Green posted an Instagram reel in which she pretended to be trying on the look (“We’re feeling pretty, um, breezy,” she said) and checking out the rest of the athlete���s kit bag, which turned out to include hair spray, lip gloss and a “hysterectomy kit,” so the women would not have to worry about periods.

When asked, Nike did not address the brouhaha directly, but according to John Hoke, the chief innovation officer, the woman’s bodysuit and the man’s shorts and top are only two of the options Nike will have for its Olympic runners. There are “nearly 50 unique pieces across men’s and women’s and a dozen competition styles fine-tuned for specific events,” Mr. Hoke said.

Sha’Carri Richardson

Women will be able to opt for compression shorts, a crop top or tank and a bodysuit with shorts rather than bikini bottoms. The full slate of looks was not on hand in Paris but more will be revealed next week at the U.S. Olympic Committee media summit in New York. The Paris reveal was meant to be a teaser.

Anna Cockrell.Credit...Dominique Maitre/WWD, via Getty Images

Mr. Hoke also pointed out that Nike consults with a large number of athletes at every stage of the uniform design. Its track and field roster includes Sha’Carri Richardson, who happened to be wearing the compression shorts during the Paris presentation, and Athing Mu. And there are certainly runners who like the high-cut brief. (The British Olympic sprinter Dina Asher-Smith, another Nike athlete, told The New York Times last summer that while she opts to run in briefs, she also leans toward a leotard style, rather than a two-piece.)

What Nike missed, however, was that in choosing those two looks as the primary preview for Team U.S.A., rather than, say, the matching shorts and tanks that will be also available, it shored up a longstanding inequity in sports — one that puts the body of a female athlete on display in a way it does not for the male athlete.

“Why are we presenting this sexualized outfit as the standard of excellence?” said Lauren Fleshman, a U.S. national champion distance runner and the author of “Good for a Girl.” “In part because we think that’s what nets us the most financial gain from sponsors or NIL opportunities, most of which are handed out by powerful men or people looking at it through a male gaze. But women are breaking records with ratings in sports where you don’t have to wear essentially a bathing suit to perform.”

The problem such imagery creates is twofold. When Nike chose to reveal the high-cut bodysuit as the first Olympics outfit, purposefully or not, the implication for anyone watching is that “this is what excellence looks like,” Ms. Fleshman said.

That perception filters down to young athletes and becomes the model girls think they have to adopt, often at a developmental stage when their relationships with their bodies are particularly fraught.

And more broadly, given the current political debate around adjudicating women’s bodies, it reinforces the idea that they are public property.

Still, Ms. Fleshman said, “I’m glad Nike put this image out as the crown jewel of Olympic Team design,” because it may act as the catalyst for another conversation that has been long overdue.

“If you showed this outfit to someone from the W.N.B.A. or women’s soccer, they would laugh in your face,” she said. “We shouldn’t have to normalize it for track and field anymore. Time’s up on that.”

[thecoolestastrophile]

It's so dystopian here rn

Kids are dying at school due to guns. Meanwhile, the U.S. government decided it was more important to ban a social media app over national security concerns that they have no proof of. Money speaks, and it will never be in the people’s favor

[reasonsforhope]

I'm sorry I'm sending so many asks. I've been struggling like this for a year now, and it's barely gotten easier, but you've often been a good help with my anxiety. I really appreciate everything you do. It's hard to have hope.

I've had a really bad moment again recently. I have to be honest, the worst thing, that makes me the most anxious out of everything else, is COVID. Because it feels like nobody is paying attention, and that there is no good news. There is never any good news. COVID is always the catalyst for the worst of my anxious slumps. It's really bad. COVID is very, very scary. If you somehow have anything for that, I'd be thankful. Often I've only been able to set my heart on nasal vaccines, or next gen vaccines in general, but they're not going fast enough whatsoever.

I'm sorry, again. I don't want to try and treat you like a therapist. I just trust you. If this is too overwhelming, you can just delete it, but if you do, I'd like to know. Just so I'm not waiting for it to be answered.

I just ravaged through someone's doomy collapse blog, again, after stumbling on it in my rising anxiousness, and it was not good. I think I'm clearly too open-minded of a person to some degree, and I feel so pulled around by information that I see. I don't want to be placated, out of the loop, or lied to, but I don't want to feel hopelessly depressed. Everything is too complex. I feel like I've been through this maze, top to bottom, over and over again, and again. I just wish I knew how much truth their words held, or anyone else's words held.

And I wish we were all masking, at the very least. I'm holding myself back from swearing. I don't know if you'd have a good way to counteract general "collapse" thoughts, either. But that's also a thing.

<3 I'm touched by your trust.

I just found some good news about COVID - the first genuinely good covid-related news article I've seen in a while, instead of all of the "ah but young abled people are fine!" bs - and remembered this ask.

"As new varieties of the coronavirus took center stage during the COVID-19 pandemic, the odds of developing long COVID dropped. Those who were vaccinated against the virus saw the biggest plunge over time.

For every 1,000 unvaccinated people, 104 developed long COVID up to one year after an infection during the pre-delta phase of the pandemic. That fell to 95 per 1,000 during the delta variant’s era and 78 during omicron’s reign. Among vaccinated people, just 53 out of 1,000 developed long COVID up to a year after infection during delta and only 35 during omicron, researchers report July 17 [2024] in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The study of U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care System data looked at people who had a COVID infection from March of 2020 — the month the pandemic began — to the end of January in 2022. The researchers, from the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System, compared the rates of long COVID during three phases of the pandemic among those who had and had not gotten vaccinated...

A comparison of omicron infections with infections from prior eras found that 72 percent of the drop in the long COVID rate during omicron was attributable to vaccines. The remainder was due to changes in the virus and improvements in medical care and the use of antiviral treatments during the omicron phase.

Even with the steep decline in the occurrence of long COVID for vaccinated people, there is still a risk, the researchers write. With “the large numbers of ongoing new infections and reinfections, and the poor uptake of vaccination,” they continue, this “may translate into a high number of persons” with long COVID."

-via ScienceNews, July 17, 2024

--

Masking continues to be important. The virus continues to be a problem. But especially given the decline in masking, I'm really encouraged to see this news. Because long covid IS scary. And I'll take any good news on this front that I can get.

It's especially encouraging because it shows how much staying on top of your vaccinations really does matter and really can prevent long covid.

I'm also really hopeful (though I don't have a related background and have no idea how realistic my hopes are) that this trend has been continuing past the end of the study (2022).

[tanadrin]

Extended postal abbreviations for North America and some adjacent states and territories

I recently came into possession of a list of postal abbreviations used by the North American Postal Union in the year 2064 for delivering physical mail in the countries and territories it is responsible for. This system takes advantage of the fact that there is no overlap between American and Canadian postal abbreviations, and extends that list with several new additions, principally covering Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and various dependent territories--both of other countries, whose territories happen to lie in North America, and of North American states, who happen to have possessions elsewhere.

AA: U.S. Armed Forces - America

AB: Alberta

AC: Agua Caliente Reservation

AE: U.S. Armed Forces - Europe

AG: Aguascalientes

AH: Allegheny Reservation

AI: NAU Antarctic Bases

AK: Alaska

AL: Alabama

AN: Anguilla

AO: Alto California

AP: U.S. Armed Forces - Pacific

AR: Aruba

AS: American Samoa

AT: Antigua and Barbuda

AZ: Arizona

BA: The Bahamas

BC: British Columbia

BE: Belize

BI: Blackfeet Indian Reservation

BJ: Baja California (NO LAUGHING)

BO: Bonaire

BR: Barbados

BS: Baja California Sur

BU: Bermuda

BV: British Virgin Islands

CA: California

CB: Cuba

CC: Curacao

CD: Coeur d'Alene Reservation

CE: Colville Reservation

CF: Canadian Armed Forces

CH: Chiapas

CI: Chihuahua

CJ: Canadian Manchuria

CK: Canadian Kamchatka

CL: Colima

CM: Campeche

CN: Cheyenne River Reservation

CO: Colorado

CR: Costa Rica

CT: Connecticut

CU: Coahuila de Zaragoza

CV: Colorado River Indian Reservation

CW: Crow Reservation

CY: Cayman Islands

CZ: Panama Canal Zone (defunct)

DE: Delaware

DC: District of Columbia

DO: Dominica

DL: Deltaland ("North Louisiana")

DR: Dominican Republic

DT: Enclave of Detroit

DU: Durango

EJ: East New Jersey

ES: El Salvador

FA: Fort Apache Reservation

FB: Fort Berthold Reservation

FH: Fort Hall Reservation

FL: Florida (defunct)

FM: Micronesia

FP: Fort Peck Indian Reservation

FR: Flathead Reservation

GA: GeorgiaHI: Hawaii

GD: Guadeloupe

GE: Grenada

GI: Gila River Indian Reservation

GL: Greenland

GN: Guanajuato

GR: Guerrero

GT: Guatemala

GU: Guam

HA: Haiti

HD: Hidalgo

HI: Hawaii

HO: Honduras

HR: Hopi Reservation

IA: Iowa

ID: Idaho

IK: Independent Kentucky

IL: Illinois

IN: Indiana

IO: Island State of New Orleans

IP: NAU Inner Planets Bases

IR: Isabella Reservation

IS: International Space Station

JA: Jalisco

JM: Jamaica

KS: Kansas

KY: Kentucky

LA: Louisiana (defunct)

LF: Lake Erie Flotilla

LL: Leech Lake Reservation

LT: Lake Traverse Reservation

MA: Massachussetts

MB: Manitoba

MC: Michoacan

MD: Maryland

ME: Maine

MF: Mexican Armed Forces

MG: Montserrat

MH: Marshall Islands

MI: Michigan

MN: Minnesota

MO: Missouri

MP: Northern Mariana Islands

MQ: Martinique

MR: Morelos

MS: Mississippi

MT: Montana

MW: Mississippi Choctaw Reservation

MX: Mexico

MY: Mexico City

NA: Nayarit

NB: New Brunswick

NC: North Carolina

ND: North Dakota

NE: Nebraska

NG: New Jersey (Legitimist Faction)

NH: New Hampshire

NI: Nicaragua

NJ: New Jersey (defunct)

NL: Newfoundland and Labrador

NM: New Mexico

NN: Navajo Nation

NO: Nuevo Leon

NP: Nez Perce Reservation

NS: Nova Scotia

NT: Northwest Territories

NU: Nunavut

NV: Nevada

NY: New York

OA: Oaxaca

OE: Oneida Reservation

OH: Ohio

ON: Ontario

OK: Oklahoma

OO: Ohkay Owingeh

OP: NAU Outer Planets, Satellite, and Asteroid Bases

OR: Oregon

OS: Osage Reservation

OW: Royalist Ottowa

PA: Pennsylvania

PD: Pine Ridge Reservation

PE: Prince Edward Island

PI: Philippine Islands (defunct)

PM: Port Madison Reservation

PN: Panama

PR: Puerto Rico

PS: Puget Sound Arcology

PU: Puebla

PY: Puyallup Reservation

PW: Palau

QB: Qualla Boundary

QC: Quebec

QR: Quintana Roo

QU: Queretaro

RC: Grand Duchy of Reedy Creek

RG: Rio Grande Valley Special Economic Zone

RI: Rhode Island

RL: Red Lake Reservation

RO: Rosebud Indian Reservation

SA: Saba

SB: Saint Barthelemy

SC: South Carolina

SD: South Dakota

SE: Sint Eustatius

SF: Salt River Reservation

SG: Standing Rock Reservation

SK: Saskatchewan

SI: Sinaloa

SJ: Clerical State of the Society of Jesus of Southwest Michigan

SL: San Luis Potosi

SM: Saint Martin

SN: Saint Kitts and Nevis

SO: Sonora

SP: Santa Clara Pueblo

SR: Sint Maarten

SS: San Carlos Reservation

ST: Southern Ute Reservation

SU: Saint Lucia

SV: Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

SW: San Diego-Tijuana Autonomous Republic

SX: Southeast England Occupied Territories

SZ: West Coast Containment Zone

TA: Tabasco

TC: Turks and Caicos Islands

TI: Trinidad and Tobago

TL: Tlaxcala

TU: Tulalip Reservation

TM: Tamaulipas

TN: Tennessee

TO: Tohono O'odham Reservation

TT: Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (defunct)

TU: Turtle Mountain Reservation

TW: Taiwan

TX: Texas

UB: NAU Undersea Bases

UM: U.S. Minor Outlying Islands

UO: Uintah and Ouray Reservation

UP: People's Democratic Republic of the Upper Peninsula

UT: Utah

VC: Veracruz

VD: Vancouver Reclamation District

VE: Vermont

VA: Virginia

VI: U.S. Virgin Islands

WA: Washington

WE: White Earth Reservation

WV: West Virginia

WI: Wisconsin

WL: Mandatory Wales

WJ: West New Jersey

WR: Wind River Reservation

WY: Wyoming

YA: Yankton Reservation

YO: Associated State of York

YT: Yukon Territory

YN: Yakama Nation Reservation

YU: Yucatan

ZA: Zacatecas

ZU: Zuni Reservation

[avada-kedavra-bitch-187-films]

Bridgerton Season 3 part 1

Episodes 1-4

Spoilers

I love how it went from #8 (top 10 tc shows in the U.S today) to number 1 in a matter of hours

- Sign language!!

- I need more Kate and Anthony

- Francesca is beautiful

- Kate has gotten so much prettier i dont know how but she did like i love the outfits

- I love the emerald green dress on Penelope it fits her perfectly

- She lifts your spirits but u wouldn't court her Tf (Colin)

- He saying everything u would say to someone u are courting (Colin)

- Oh shit he is pissed omg l'm so anxious pls don't get mad at pen (Colin)

- Man he is a hoe now (Colin)

- She mentioned his eyes and homeboy didn't know what to do

- BTS song!!!!

- Ahhhh the kisssssssssss

- Man if this is a dream I’ll die (Colin and Penelope having a great kiss)

- Omg he dreaming about her(Colin)

- No Benedict he isn’t alright he had a sex dream😂

- Who is this uninvited guest

- Man Philippa and finch have no idea what is happening in the world

- That baby(Colin) stumbling his words

- Yea u wish for her happiness with u not anyone else(Colin)

- The hot air balloon scene😍

- Ain’t no one care about u debling Colin had it u ain’t have to do nothing

- The songs are ❤️

- Get it Mama bridgerton

- Brother!!???

- Home girl seductive to Benedict *applause*

- I’m so happy for Mr & Mrs. Mondrich

- Colin heartbeat looking at pen❤️

- “I hope she is as well” mama bridgerton was talking about u Colin

- Damn debling why’d u have to interrupt

- Bs Colin u know u was asking about Penelope

- No one chooses the queens choose

- They are just sitting there in silence

- He worked for that club he shouldn’t have to give it away

- Debling do not ask for her hand

- U hoe (Colin)

- Francesca and kilmartin (however u spell it)

- Omg he gave her a music sheet

- I kinda hope Cressida finds someone

- Is mama bridgerton gonna have 2 love matches

- The fact that he realized she sits at the window looking for Colin

- Colin running after the carriage ❤️

- What if i did have feelings for u (ahhhhhhhh)

- Carriage sex ahhhhhhhhhhhhh

- Well almost sex

- could the driver not keep going😂

- Are you going to marry me or not

- Whatttttt

- The fuck that’s how they end this bitch

[viradahlen]

🌟 Wesker's Top 3 "oops i am a hypocrite pathetic wet cat/snake" moments 🌟

1. "The only thing that can defeat power is more power. That is the one constant in this universe. However, there is no point in power if it consumes itself"

*proceeds to turn into a giant spaghetti monster thanks to Uroboros, the snake/dragon eating its own tail that he ironically seems to allude to in the aforementioned quote* 🐍😑🍝

HONORABLE MENTION : "I see you are still resolved to go down with the ship, Colonel" (To Sergei Vladimir)

*a few years later*

🐍🙃🌋 *goes down with the ship*

2. "You gotta love Barry! he must really be afraid of Umbrella." 🐍😂

=> Wesker report II : "Accomplish the research successfully, or wither away like her (Lisa Trevor) ? There was of course only one choice." (🐍😨 *considers turning into Lisa* i am too beautiful to go to waste)

=> *fakes his death to escape Umbrella's grip*

=> *writes a whole diary wondering about Spencer's intentions*

🐍🙃 *is absolutely NOOOT afraid of Umbrella*

🌟 *runs away from Alexia" 🐍😨🏃‍♂️🏃‍♂️

🐍😒💦 *

3. That weird doggo fixation

"And that U.S. Government lap dog, Leon. If you do happen to encounter him, put him out of commission"

"Don't be a hard dog to keep under the porch, Barry."

"Fine. Keep your mutt. But don't come crying to me if you get bit"

(> 🐍🙃 "CHHHris I shoUld haVe kILLed yOu yEaRs agO" => "What are the Perks of Keeping One's Mutt already ??" 🐍🤔)

BONUS POINTS : is literally 🌟actually🌟 Umbrella's dog, lmao

*wears "property of Umbrella" glasses.

Jill: "You're just a slave of Umbrella." 😒

Wesker : "smart girl..." (🐍🙃💭😡😭 ("I will turn her into a puppet !!! One day !!" *petty AF, literally a mean goblin*)

**

Chris : "I've had enough of your BS! You're just another one of Umbrella's leftovers." 😡

Wesker: 🐍🙃❓️❓️❓️

[gender-thief2]

so for a U.S history assignment we had to like, write a fake break up letter because the declaration of independence was like the ultimate break up letter or some bs and i thought “hmmm how can i make this marauders” so i decided to write like regulus breaking up with james and i wanted to quote like his letter from the book so i put “i know i will be long gone by the time you read this” (not dead bc that was too dramatic) AND IT GOT FLAGGED ON MY FUCKING COMPUTER AND I GOT CALLED INTO GUIDANCE BC THEY THOUGHT I WAS GONNA OFF MYSELF IVE NEVER BEEN SO HUMILIATED IN MY LIFEEE

[ravensuperr]

Freakshow and RICO Charges

Okay, so this isn’t really a problem — more like a thought I’ve been having, like questioning life honestly.

So I rewatched the Danny Phantom episode "Control Freaks," and I was like… wait, this all happened in one day? And also, wouldn’t Freakshow’s whole enterprise — Circus Gothica — technically fall under RICO charges?

The reason I’m even thinking about this is because of what’s been happening in the news lately, like the U.S. vs. Sean Combs case. And I feel like a lot of people on the internet have been Googling “What are RICO charges?” — and it made me wonder if Freakshow could be charged under something like that.

If you think about it, Circus Gothica is basically a criminal operation. Freakshow travels around with his circus, stealing money from every town he visits. We don’t know exactly how long he’s been doing this, but judging by how elaborate his train and setup are, it looks like it’s been building up for years — maybe around 10 years, give or take.

So let’s just assume a 10-year timeline. He’s been hitting small towns, maybe occasionally bigger cities — but not the major hubs of every state — and in that time, the amount of money and resources he’s stolen could definitely add up. So yeah… could he fall under RICO? I feel like he could.

Another thing that really bothered me: why didn’t Jack, Maddie, or Jazz call the cops when Danny went missing for 24 hours?

Like, come on — your younger brother or your son is missing. Nobody knows where he is. Sure, maybe Tucker or Sam gave a fake location or something, but I call BS on that excuse. Why didn’t anyone go to the police and say, “Hey, my son’s missing. We last saw him at school. He got detention for skipping school to see the circus. Now he’s just gone.”

I’m just like… bro. Watching this now with adult eyes, I’m realizing things I didn’t notice as a kid. Even as a kid, I remember thinking: “Why didn’t they go to the police?” If Jack and Maddie were too distracted, at the very least Jazz should’ve gone. She could’ve said, “My brother is missing, I asked his friends and they don’t know where he is, I’m seriously worried.”

I don’t know. Maybe I’m overthinking it — but this episode really made me question whether Jack and Maddie are good parents. There are definitely moments when they show they care about their kids and are genuinely concerned about their safety. But then there are other times when I’m like… do you even remember you have children?

Anyway, I know I got a little off topic, but yeah — those are just the vibes I’m feeling after rewatching that episode.