I could murder a cup of tea

[kellydeal]

Yes.

[qi-tah]

Terraced Villa in Peregrinus - 1 by Gabriel Thomson Via Flickr: Built for the Summer Joust, Guild category, Team Kaliphlin 

 After the civil war in Kaliphlin ended in stalemate, the main concerns of it's leaders turned to how to rebuild their shattered economy. Marauding armies had raided and decimated farms throughout the land, leading to widespead hunger and deprivation. Peregrinus had fared somewhat better than it's neighbouring provinces, as most of it's battles had been fought against Ulandis on the sea. Although not blessed with much arable land, the locals have made do by cutting into the hillsides, creating terraces where produce can be grown. Soldiers from both sides of the conflict have found ready work on the land, finding a new common purpose after the exhaustion of war.

So this is something else i’ve built recently - quite a quick build, only 5 days. Feeling like i am getting back into my stride after again after losing my job back in March. :)

[theauspolchronicles]

Can you go through why voting for Liberals may not (will not?) be in the best interests of Australia?

How about everything? 

They’re the weak on climate change

Their direct action plan is a costly waste of time that won’t reduce emissions by much

They are more focused on propping up the dying industry of coal than investing in transitioning into renewable energy - the inevitable future that will create millions of jobs. This could have something to do with how the coal mining industry loves giving Liberals political donations…

A bunch of them are deniers that climate change is even a thing

Julie Bishop claimed the great barrier reef was not in danger… despite a government scientific report saying it was. The Liberals don’t like scientists telling them climate change is destroying the environment even if it’s their own scientific agencies telling them it.

They have the least gender diversity of the 3 main parties

The party chose the blatantly sexist Tony Abbott to lead them and ditched him not for his misogyny so a lot of them are also sexist

Former Liberal MP Sue Boyce said that Tony Abbott was less sexist than a lot of her colleagues, stating that some men yearned for the days where “mother’s stayed home and looked after the children.” Yeah. Tony Abbott wasn’t that sexist compared to his colleagues.

They prefer supporting big business over actual people leading to massive tax cuts to the wealthy and then we have to deal with the lost revenue they float ideas like raising the GST (which affects the poor the most) or cutting penalty rates (which just destroys a bunch of people’s incomes all for the sake of a business spending less money. Who could that possibly benefit except those who already have money?) Clearly they value rich people more than the lower/middle class.

This is backed up by how the richest electorates tend to vote Liberal so they by nature would not have most of Australia’s best interests in heart

They tried to deregulate university fees but only got it stopped by the senate so need to find new ways to burden students with debt. Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz heavily criticised this plan as heading towards the American system of education where debt causes a lot of economic issues. 

Overall Liberals are shit economic managers both historically and currently.

They doubled the deficit in a short period of time

Their new plan to get young people into the workforce is basically paying businesses to hire people for $4 an hour.

This is similar to the work for the dole policy but slightly different. Work for the dole spent a billion dollars trying to increase the likelihood of getting people into work by a whopping… 2%. Oh and only 19% of people found a job 3 months after it whereas 47% of people in Labor’s previous “wage connect” program remained employed after it.

This plan may or may not be illegal under the current fair work act.

They straight up torture children in detention centres because that’s what the conditions are like. Torture.

Asylum Seekers are going to suffer life long mental health issues due to the horrible conditions in detention centres which lead to such horrible things as depression and self harm.

Papau New Guinea found that these detention centres were illegal and violated human rights so no longer wants to operate the Manus Island detention centre.

They’re breaking international law turning back the boats and there’s little evidence it saves lives, but does give refugees the chance to die elsewhere so we don’t have to feel bad about seeing it

Their stance to protect LGBT people is apathetic. If they cared for marriage equality they’d make it a policy. Instead the plebiscite is going to cost millions and let people viciously attack the LGBT+ community and cause serious psychological harm to an already oppressed group. Woo.

Oh yeah and that plebiscite isn’t binding either so we could have a massive hate-filled campaign from right wing groups causing immense harm and distress to the LGBT community, get a majority “YES” vote, then have a LNP dominated government ignore the decision and stick to their firmly held beliefs that queer people don’t deserve equal rights. It’s just free reign for people to spend millions of dollars saying “fuck you” to queer people for months on end.

Some Liberals are outright proud of their homophobia like George Christensen who wanted to have the safe schools program completely axed. He saw a program designed to decrease bullying of LGBT youth (which causes LGBT people to have higher rates of depression and suicidal behaviours than the general population) and thought “nah, that’s not good for kids.” A program that would have helped prevent suicides in teenagers was not a good idea in his mind.

Malcolm Turnbull suggested the way into the difficult to afford housing market was to have a rich parent “shell out” money for you. Way to look proactive on trying to fix those housing bubble issues you asshole.

It’s reminiscent of Joe Hockey’s “just get a good job” remark on the housing market issue. Just be richer OK? Life’s great for the rich so just become one of those people.

They’re always trying to cut the welfare budget and shame the poor/unemployed. They keep saying things like being “efficient” or “cracking down on dole bludgers” and “being a lifter not a leaner” when really the aged pension is the increasing issue (and you can’t just tell your elderly nan to stop being so reliant on the pension… so they increased the minimum age in which people are eligible for it instead)

Simply just cutting welfare won’t help people find jobs as there are more unemployed people than there are available jobs.

They introduced metadata retention laws so everything you do online is tracked and stored for 2 years for the sake of “fighting crime” at the expense of your privacy… despite this being trialed in other countries and found it had no real effect and was even deemed unconstitutional in Germany.

Oh and actually not everything you do is tracked because as former communications minister Malcolm Turnbull helpfully pointed out: there’s tons of ways around it.

So your privacy is being invaded, but not very effectively, for the sake of preventing crime (which it won’t do), and ultimately just ends up costing us money. 

Speaking of the internet remember how their shitty NBN was meant to be cheaper and faster to roll out than Labor’s faster internet plan? And then it went horribly behind schedule and the budget continued to grow and grow by several billion? Yeah. We’re being burdened by a massive infrastructure project that’s inferior, slow, costly, and is inevitably going to have to be replaced anyway by something we should have done years ago instead. How did they get the reputation for being strong economic managers again?

Oh and plus they do really random dumb shit that doesn’t get lots of attention because it’s not a big issue that affects everyone like how they made the cost of applying for a divorce higher. Just cos.

So yeah TL;DR: They’re destroying the planet for the sake of a nonsensical business decision, they’re frequently at least one if not all three of the following: sexist, racist, and/or homophobic, they would rather torture refugees than house them properly yet want you to think they’re “humane”, they’re out of touch rich people who think poor people should just work harder instead of being lazy and poor, they’re bad economic managers despite their reputation, they waste money on dumb things like invading your privacy for absolutely no reason and shitty NBN, and they randomly fuck with things to make people’s lives harder in small ways. Only vote for them if you’re a rich straight white male with offshore investments and a complete lack of empathy for any human being not as fortunate as you.

[magweno]

That post about Scottish tweets ripping Donald Trump apart is good but here are some more. I think “Trump is a Cunt” held by Janey Godley is my favourite.

[out-there-on-the-maroon]

I would like to thank the entire population of Scotland.

[malenkho]

[errantharlot-deactivated2018090]

I sometimes fear that people think that fascism arrives in fancy dress worn by grotesques and monsters as played out in endless re-runs of the Nazis. Fascism arrives as your friend. It will restore your honour, make you feel proud, protect your house, give you a job, clean up the neighbourhood, remind you of how great you once were, clear out the venal and the corrupt, remove anything you feel is unlike you…It doesn’t walk in saying, “Our programme means militias, mass imprisonments, transportations, war and persecution.”

a post my mum shared on fb earlier (via mnrva)

Written by the poet Michael Rosen

(via coldalbion)

YES YES YES

Facism almost always walks in and offers two things:

1) identification of a legitimate problem (often poverty/a failing economy/a lack of jobs)

2) identification of an Other who can be blamed and removed so that the problem is solved and the future is prosperous and safe.  (The Other almost never caused the problem, but that’s not the point; the point is how you can tell the story to link them together.)  The idea of the Other being to blame is often softened, at first:  “Well, we’re not talking about ALL [group], just the bad ones!”  Just punishments for the “bad” people, and you and your friends and family get your future back.  

It’s a deal an awful lot of people will take, if they are brought to believe in it.

(via decepticonsensual)

[femfreq]

Anita Sarkeesian visited downtown NYC to chat with The New Yorker editor David Remnick on the latest episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour. The two discuss Tropes vs. Women in Video Games, the toll of harassment, and our upcoming series, Ordinary Women: Daring to Defy History. Listen to the full interview: http://www.wnyc.org/story/anita-sarkeesian-undaunted/

[fromgreecetoanarchy]

[theauspolchronicles]

Can you please explain Pauline Hanson's political views so I can help my family understand that she would be bad to have as a leader just in general?

Well you see she’s a fucking racist. Here she is trying to campaign on the idea that “dem Muslim’s be bad”:

To start off with: prohibiting mosques is against Section 116 of the Australian Constitution. My mother being a horrible person who dislikes Muslims still understands the necessity of defending their religious freedom because you see if you decide to enforce anti-religious rules against one group then what’s to stop you from enforcing it on another? As a Christian she’d like her faith respected and so therefore she should respect other faiths and their right to exist without interference even if she has a negative view towards them. So first up, Pauline Hanson is a bitch who wants to fuck with the constitution to single out a group with no basis other than “I don’t like them.”

Her hatred of Muslims is utterly stupid. She’s all “all terror attacks are related to Muslims” which she then said “you can’t deny the facts” but clearly doesn’t understand what a fact actually is because Muslims account for a very small fraction of terrorist attacks worldwide.  Her hatred is unfounded. Her reasoning is based entirely on willful ignorance (it really doesn’t take much to just fucking look up even the most basic of statistics).

AND WHY HATE HALAL CERTIFICATION? Because, like every other nonsensical thing in her imaginary world in her head, she thinks it funds terrorism. It doesn’t. It sometimes helps those who certify it donate to charities that help build mosques which means Muslims and as Hanson things Muslims are terrorists then she must have made the connection through a series of thought processes strung along by her being a fucking idiot. Halal certification actually creates jobs and allows a decrease in cost for some food. Halal certification is good for the economy and the nation as a whole and is a polite and respectful way to let someone of a certain faith know if they can eat it, the same way food would have allergy advice written on the side.

Pauline Hanson is more into throwing an entire group of people under the bus for her fear mongering campaign than actually acknowledge the benefits of the things she wishes to ban.

You know what would help terrorism? If we didn’t treat Muslims like the enemy. Ostracising Muslims (or any other group for that matter) only creates that distance and hatred that allows them to become prey to extremist ideologies. Mosques aren’t a threat to Australian culture, Pauline Hanson is. She’s the shit stirrer who is going to get someone hurt, not some random woman with a hijab.

BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE!

She once claimed Aboriginals historically practiced cannibalising their babies as a reason why we should stop giving them welfare in the modern day. That’s a thing she just made up to justify her hatred of indigenous Australians. This woman is living a complete fantasy world where anyone who isn’t a white Australian-born Christian is a fucking danger to “proper” society. She wants you to be afraid of “ghetto forming” Asians swarming us. She hates the Aboriginal Flag and thinks we should just have the Australian Flag. She is just a super racist idiot who thinks she’s more popular than she is (we should still discourage people from believing her bullshit). She didn’t win a seat in the last Queensland election and asked for a recount (which was denied).

Honestly it’s possible to go on about her but I’d just be repeating the same thing over and over with different examples: she’s racist and islamophobic and lives in a fantasy world where facts don’t exist. She’s terrible for our country and should just go back to the good old days when she realised she wasn’t popular enough to win a seat and gave up politics. She’s only back to capitalise off the increasing hatred towards Muslims and is replacing her anti-Asian rhetoric with anti-Islam rhetoric. It’s opportunistic hate-mongering for the sake of personal gain. Fuck her. She is the worst type of politician.

[sharpestrose]

SBS ran an article (in their satire section) last year called Asian-Australians Wondering If Pauline Hanson Still Thinks About Them, including the magnificent quote:

Gabriella Rumasingap, 19, an Indonesian Muslim, told The Backburner that she was even more confused. “Obviously a huge racist like Pauline Hanson doesn’t particularly want me here, the question is just how much,” she said. “Honestly, all I’m looking for here is a little clarity.”

The sick part is that when she was around when I was a teenager, she was a dingbat fringe that could be dismissed as such. Which is not to say that she wasn’t deeply upsetting to have around, but her views were so out-there that she only really gained traction as a crank.

By today’s political climate she’s practically centrist. 

Anyway the real reason I’m reblogging this (I try to keep Hanson off my dash because she distresses some of my friends simply by existing, and understandably so) is to head off as much “that’s it, I’m moving to Australia” shit as possible before it hits my dash. We have fucking concentration camps for asylum seekers, guys. We’re just as much a mess as the UK or US as far as violent, xenophobic shit goes okay. It might be a slightly different type but it stinks just as badly. 

[trait-deactivated20221010]

BREXIT: what the heck does it all mean?

A lot of people have no clue why Europe is currently in a state of uproar and the only word people seem to be saying is “Brexit” so here’s a not-so-quick and easy-breezy explanation on the past 24 hours of CHAOS that has ensued:

The European Union (EU): an organisation of European countries that follows similar laws, allows for freedom of movement/labour, easy travelling (@people who planned on doing Eurotrips, not sure if you can count the UK in that anymore!) and trade with each other. The EU is important because before it was formed, the European continent was ravaged by 2 world wars, and a division because of the Cold War. This organisation has provided all the stability we’ve seen in the past 40-odd years.

So what the heck is a “Brexit”? Basically, the UK has just voted to leave the EU. Now this doesn’t seem like a TERRIBLE thing, but there are some serious political and economic consequences.

Economic implications:

- The British pound crashed from 1.5 to 1.3 in 6 hours, the lowest value in 30 years, which in turn affected the US dollar which affects all other global currencies. I wish I was joking but I’m not: South Africa, Poland, Norway, Mexico. Hungary, Australia, Switzerland all saw their currencies plummet. Countries that don’t rely on exports as their means of production cannot have a devalued currency. IT’s not good. The Japanese Yen which has been strengthening reached an all-time high which is terrible because Japan is trying to reverse its deflationary state. The Bank of Japan is now out of options and Japan literally STOPPED TRADING IN BRITISH STOCKS/INVESTMENTS.

- A devalued GBP means that the Bank of England is going to have to hike interest rates to prevent inflation (domestic prices going up even further) whicH WILL CAUSE A RECESSION. SOUND FAMILIAR ANYONE? YEAH. FINANCIAL CRISES.

- The UK leaving the EU means its market has gone down a LOT in size making them a less attractive destination for trade partners/investors. They’re going to have to draw up new trade agreements with basically the whole world since all their trade was previously tied to the EU. This will be tricky because countries liked having a market with a population of ~500 million compared to the UK’s size of ~50 million.

- GDP will go down. Retirement income will go down. The British economy is in a state of panic. The global economy is basically, fucked. For now at least.

The thing is, given the precarious nature of the economy right now with markets out of control and stagnant growth practically everywhere, it was a really really bad time to have this referendum - a lot of countries have been banking on a “Bremain” before making their next move when it comes to monetary/fiscal policy. The IMF has predicted that 2016/2017 will see the worst years for growth, but we might see upward growth trends from 2018 onwards.

So how does it still get worse?

- Scotland showed an overwhelming majority of votes to remain in the EU. It’s likely that they’re going to call for a referendum (again) to leave the UK so that they can join the EU as an independent country.

- Northern Ireland also wanted to stay in the EU. It’s likely they’re going to join the Republic and join the EU.

- Not sure about Wales. They could go “haha fuck it mate” and potentially leave the UK too.

- David Cameron has just announced that he will be resigning in 3 months which means that extreme conservatives who managed to sway the vote in favour of Leave could come to power. That’s right. We’ll be stuck to suffer with the likes of Farage and Johnson. 

- Brexit triggered a lot of nationalist/extreme right-wing movements in the rest of Europe. Some leaders already calling for “Frexit” (France), “Itexit” (Italy) and..”Dexit” (Netherlands)? We may see more in the next few days.. A disintegration of Europe is risky business because Europe has not been able to remain stable until the EU was formed. This could give way for an aggressive Russia too, who would want to take advantage of weak/vulnerable European states. An aggressive Russia will trigger US skepticism and we all know how that goes. 

SO HOW DID THE GOVERNMENT LET THIS HAPPEN?

Basically David Cameron came up with the idea for the referendum because he was desperate to gain support from anti-EU parties like UKIP during the general elections last year. Except now he’s resigning. So. 

During the campaign, Michael Gove, Boris Johnson (conservatives) and Nigel Farage (UKIP) stressed on immigration laws if the UK leaves the EU because immigration/refugees have been a big problem for the UK as its reducing jobs being given to UK locals/residents and they think the UK is becoming “overcrowded” so the Leave campaign was like WE WILL TIGHTEN OUR BORDERS! YEAH! Except now they’ve displaced millions of UK citizens living/working in the rest of the EU. Let’s see how they figure that one out.

Additionally, they talked about the economic benefits because if the UK were to leave, they would be able to allot the money that goes to the EU to other things like the NHS (national healthcare) etc. The Leave campaign went on about how the UK spends 350 million pounds a week on the EU but actually it spends less than half of that, so really, their campaign was built on scaremongering and lies. 

Article 50, aka the means of exiting will be triggered in 3 months when the new Prime Minister is announced (most likely one of the extreme conservatives/Farage who are riding high on their “Independence Day” fuckery which is even more proof of xenophobic, colonialist bullshit) after which the UK will have 2 years to complete its official withdrawal so hopefully that will provide short-term stability.

But the world is in a dark place right now and everything is terrible. 

I KNOW ITS LONG BUT PLEASE READ THIS IS IMPORTANT THIS IS GOING TO GO IN HISTORY TEXTBOOKS

[therecipe]

What begins as a banking crisis ends with a banking crisis, even it if goes through the states’ accounts. But there is a politics of making it appear to be the states’ fault such that those who made the bust don’t have to pay for it. Austerity is not just the price of saving the banks. It’s the price that the banks want someone else to pay.

Mark Blyth - Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea (2013)

[sixohthree]

Yes. Good. (via)

[qi-tah]

Mitgardia1.3rb_150616 by Gabriel Thomson

So i built a something... first decent build since i got sick at the beginning of the year. It’s going to the MUGS Queenscliffe show this weekend - sadly without me though. Fingers x’ed it doesn’t have too many breakages on the way down! :)

[baglieg]

Ahahaha, Musk just tweeted about one of his rockets undergoing RUD on landing

Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly

It exploded spectacularly

[qi-tah]

I might have to pinch this term the next time i have a MOC disaster :)

[realsesmith-deactivated20190307]

Waking up this morning to the news about the shooting at Pulse in Orlando, and the predictable flowering of ignorance and hatred around it, so let’s be clear: This is the deadliest mass shooting in US history. It took place at a gay club filled with a diverse crowd, including numerous people of colour. It took what should have been a playful sanctuary and turned it into an abattoir.

This has nothing to do with the race or religion of the perpetrator.

This has everything to do with the systematic homophobia and transphobia built into the very fabric of US society, from state-mandated sexual education curricula telling youth that queerness is a ‘choice’ or ‘abhorrent lifestyle’ to legislation banning transgender women from using the bathroom to outdated and unscientific FDA guidelines barring men who have sex with men from donating blood for at least one year after their last sexual encounter. This is about homophobia spouted left and right from legislators who refuse to crack down on hate crimes, about tolerance for hate at the highest levels of government.

This is about out systemic inaction on gun control, and the tired expression on the president’s face today as he tried to articulate, yet again, that the country needs to do something. It is about the hundreds of hypocritical, vile legislators and candidates who proudly trumpeted their thoughts and prayers while knowing full well that they voted down assault weapons bans and other checks on gun ownership. It is about the presidential candidate who took to Twitter today to congratulate himself on being ‘right on radical Islamic terrorism’ and insisting that the president ‘resign in disgrace.’

You’re killing us, America. The choices that you are making are killing us. And now, you want to pit us against our Muslim brothers and sisters, labeling this an act of 'Islamic terrorism’ because it happened to be committed by a Muslim man. You think that you can distract us from your institutional homophobia and transphobia by evoking a bogeyman, and it’s not going to work. I stand with all my queer and trans siblings today, and I stand with all my Muslim siblings, including those who are queer and trans. I stand against hatred, against this country’s refusal to engage with its gun problem. I stand with the as yet unknown number of people who are waking up this morning facing acquired disabilities and lengthy stays in rehab because a homophobic man decided to come shoot up their safe space.

I stand for a world where I don’t have to write things like this anymore.

[qi-tah]

Cannot be better said.

[gothambeats-blog]

Cosplay Safety: Bows and arrows

Hey guys, idk why I just NOW thought of this but I’m making this post before I forget

We’ve all seen awesome archer cosplayers with bows and arrows and such. It’s cool, much love. I’ve done my share. But lemme give you a safety tip-

Never, ever, fully draw the string of a real bow back with a nocked arrow.

As in, don’t pull the string all the way back when you’ve got an arrow on the bow. Don’t do it. You shouldn’t draw the string ANYWAY, arrow or no because you could slip and accidentally dry shoot which is bad for the bow but that won’t actually hurt anyone.

I’m saying this bc at C2E2 I witnessed a Hawkeye cosplayer fully draw-back with an arrow and point it point-blank at a photographer. DON’T DO THIS. Don’t pose with an arrow drawn pointed directly at another person’s head, either. (he did this too).

Like, this is in the same vein of gun safety of Never ever point a gun at someone, loaded or not. Well, don’t ever draw an arrow without the intention of shooting it. 

Even if you don’t have a tip on the arrow, it can seriously injure someone, especially if you’re pointing it directly at a photographer. DON”T DO IT.

Sorry I have to say this but we talked to the Hawkeye guy at c2e2 and he just shrugged us off like we were crazy and then we told the other cosplayer to never let someone point an arrow at them again and they didn’t understand.

It actually really upset @huntressed and @midnightpupil when they saw, like a whole fucking lot so. 

[when-it-rains-it-snows]

Jesus H DO NOT DO THIS. If you’re gonna pose with an arrow on the string of a real bow, don’t pull it back at ALL.

Look, the draw weight on my bow is 24 pounds. This is generally considered very low. I have buried an arrow a full inch into a hickory tree. When my target at home developed a thin spot, an arrow went clean through it, punched through the drywall behind it, and then hit the brick wall behind THAT hard enough to blunt the tip of the arrow, which is a hunk of solid brass - and I was standing THIRTY FEET AWAY.

If you hit a person at photo-op distance with an arrow from even a ‘light’ bow, it will punch through anything squishy until it hits enough bones to slow it down. It will make holes in smaller bones. It will glance off bigger bones like a rock skipping in a pond. There will be a terrific bloody mess, and Clint Barton will slide from the comic dimension to this one to smack your fool ass upside the head and ask what the fuck you think you’re doing. Better him than Kate, who would take the bow away, unstring it, pop one of the limbs off and then crack you straight across the head with it.

MAKE GOOD DECISIONS

DO NOT POINT A DRAWN BOW AT ANYTHING THAT YOU DON’T WANT TO ACCIDENTALLY DAMAGE INJURE OR KILL

[qi-tah]

Pointing a nocked arrow at someone at full draw on an archery range or club is the quickest way to get yourself banned for life, it’s up there with one of the first things you learn as a beginner. The potential for injury or death is just too high, even at very low (ie. under 20 pounds) bow weight. Heck, you can hurt yourself badly just dry shooting.

I am astounded that this needs to be explained to ppl, tbh.

[mattnathanson]

No writing is wasted. Did you know that sourdough from San Francisco is leavened partly by a bacteria called lactobacillus sanfrancisensis? It is native to the soil there, and does not do well elsewhere. But any kitchen can become an ecosystem. If you bake a lot, your kitchen will become a happy home to wild yeasts, and all your bread will taste better. Even a failed loaf is not wasted. Likewise, cheese makers wash the dairy floor with whey. Tomato gardeners compost with rotten tomatoes. No writing is wasted: the words you can’t put in your book can wash the floor, live in the soil, lurk around in the air. They will make the next words better.

ERIN BOW (via garnetglitter)

Ooh. I like this metaphor.

(via drst)

yep!