unusual_whales on X - "🚨BREAKING🚨 I have just released the full report on politicians trading in 2023. Like every year since 2020, US politicians beat the market. And many in Congress made unusually timed trades resulting in huge gains. Here are the top performers of 2023. This year, Democrats absolutely dominated their Republican counterparts. Dems were up 31%, and Republicans 18%. Meanwhile, the S&P500 itself was up 24%. Many traded despite conflicts in their committees in record numbers."
Damn corrupt Republicans! Vote Blue!
Meme - "Never give up on your dreams *woman sleeping on subway with ad of burger in a thought bubble above her*"
Meme - *The Shire*
"forgive me. I mistook you for England"
"I am England. Rather England as it should be"
Berkeley council bans new fireplaces, wood-burning pizza ovens / Law intended to control smoke pollution
Clean air advocates want bylaw to phase out polluting wood-fired ovens | Montreal Gazette
First they came for the shark's fin. Then they came for the foie gras. Then they came for the wood fire ovens
Passenger Threw Coins Into Engine, Delayed Flight 4 Hours - "China Southern Airlines posted a five-minute video on Weibo explaining how actions like "throwing coins at the plane" can delay flights and threaten safety. "If they pose a threat to aviation safety, they will also face varying degrees of penalties," it said in a post on the social network... This isn't the first time a passenger has thrown coins into a plane's engine. CNN reported that it happened on another Chinese Southern Airlines flight in 2017, when an elderly passenger said it was "a prayer for a safe flight." In 2019, Chinese airline Lucky Air sued a passenger for $21,000 for throwing two coins into a plane's engine, which he said was for good luck, per Simple Flying."
Nude Cruise Worker Explains Rules, Job - "We'd answer questions and help with small things, like making sure guests keep a towel between themselves and their seats... To us, being nude is not sexual or anything to be ashamed of. Nudism is about leaving judgment behind. When you're not wearing clothes, you can't immediately tell someone's economic status or how they vote; you have to talk to them to find out who they are. Our guests form deep friendships that I don't think form as readily on a textile cruise. We're not a swingers' cruise. This is not lifestyle travel. There are plenty of those travel opportunities out there, but that's not what we do. We have rules aboard the ship. The most important one is that you have to ask permission before taking a photo with someone else in it. Men can't be overly excited. We say that if they start to feel things around moving down there, jump in cold water, or think about baseball. Dinner in the formal dining room has a dress code, largely because the waitstaff carries trays of hot food. "No nips, no bits, and no butts" is what I always say to remind people of our dinner-dress code. Dinner is the only time guests must wear real clothes — no mesh, nothing see-through, and nothing made of string. The captain and the crew aren't nude. Our first day aboard is always a little bit of a shock for the crew, but after that it's fun for everyone. We also aren't nude at the ports except for designated nude excursions or if we've arranged to have exclusive use of the port... my favorite of the nearly 50 sailings I've done was in Alaska. It was a hard sell at the time because nudists and the cold don't always mix, but it worked well. The ship extended the roof over the pool deck so we could stay warm and enjoy swimming in the buff. In port, we explored some sulfur hot springs... We've repeated some theme nights that have been wildly popular. Nudists, surprisingly, love costumes. On our Big Nude Boat, we have several theme nights and one massive costume party. My favorite costume ever was a man who dressed as a tequila bottle. He had a cork on his head. His body was the bottle. You just have to imagine what the worm was. I never laughed so hard in my life."
Meme - ">be recruiter for mid-sized company
>have to review applicants' resumes whenever we have an opening
>company has an opening for an entry level software developer position
>this type of position always seems to bring in the absolute worst resumes for some reason
>one guy's resume has the entire job history portion empty, except for listing his current job as "cryptocurrency trading expert (self employed)"
>one guy who dropped out of high school, and who's sole job experience is 2 months of burger king in 2019, wrote "proficient internet user" in the skills & qualifications section
>one guy's job history is filled with nothing but the discord servers he moderated. he listed each one individually as if they were separate jobs
>some old guy with a decade of experience as a welder says he is a qualified software developer because he "knows a thing or two about computers"
>one guy listed his 3700 hours in team fortress 2 as a certification
>there was a resume that was only a single line of text that said "i am a good person"
>one resume was just a printed out picture of patrick bateman"
Meme - "Plans to take over #MGTOW
Announcement: In a recent discussion, we decided to hijack the MGTOW hashtag on Twitter by posting self-sucking gifs under #MGTOW. How does this help you ask? I'll explain.
1. It turns off users scrolling through #MGTOW because there's a high chance they'll see a man sucking his own dick. So they'll stop going to that hashtag.
2. It confuses newcomers who might think that Going Your Own Way is a euphemism for autofellatio (self-fellatio) so they'll stay away from it and in turn, not get indoctrinated by MGTOWs disgusting, misogynistic beliefs.
Join me in destroying #MGTOW!"
Meme - Magneto: "HAHAHA! IT'S OVER, CHARLES! I HAVE THE HIGH GROUND!"
Charles Xavier: "THAT'S WHAT YOu THOUGHT, MAGNETOS! HOLOBUNGA BEAM!"
Magneto: "FOOL! I'VE PREPARED FoR THAT!" *holds girl out in front of him*
Girl: "AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"
Charles Xavier: "The Hell?!"
Would You Have a Baby If You Won the Lottery? - The Atlantic - "Improving work-life balance is probably worthwhile and good for plenty of reasons. But very little evidence shows that it would have much effect on fertility. For example, when men help more at home, fertility doesn’t rise, one 2018 study found. And although policies to support work and family do boost fertility, their cost is pretty high for fairly modest effects (though they may have other valuable benefits: Child allowances, for example, reduce child poverty). The ideal way to test the connection would be to randomly give some people a much better set of work-life arrangements and then see whether their family behaviors change. This would be hard to do, but as it happens, something like this random improvement in work-life balance actually occurs—when people win the lottery... A team of economists studying a large pool of lottery players in Sweden found that when men win the lottery, they become a lot likelier than demographically similar lottery losers to get married (if they were lower-income and unmarried before their win), and they have more children. On its face, that supports the work-life-balance idea. But when women win the lottery, the only big change in their behavior is divorce: Divorce rates for women almost double in the first couple of years after winning the lottery. The authors offer some straightforward explanations. When the men became wealthier, they became more desirable partners; their marriage rate increased by a third. Their increased fertility (an increase of about 13 percent) was itself largely attributable to the effect of being married, because being married tends to cause higher fertility, especially for men. The extra wealth apparently had no major effect on women’s desirability as partners, but—because Swedish law allows lottery winners to hold on to most of the winnings—had perhaps a big effect on their expectations for a postdivorce standard of living, enabling them to feel more confident about exiting a marriage. Helpfully, the study authors showed that their conclusions matched the findings of another study of lotteries in the United States. It found that winning made both men and women more likely to marry, but that the effect was stronger for men, and that while it decreased divorce rates for men, it increased them for women. Men seem to use their newfound resources to build families, while women use them to exit families... it suggests that a core part of low fertility is how people (especially women) value potential partners. In surveys, women continue to report desiring much-higher-earning partners, and when men suddenly have more money, they do in fact get married more... policy makers should avoid thinking about family policy as an issue uniquely related to women. Arguments that fertility can be increased by pushing for a maximally gender-egalitarian society or by delivering family subsidies disproportionately to mothers should be reconsidered. You can’t get higher fertility without men on board. Only policies that make space for men and women to choose to prioritize parenting can support higher fertility in industrialized societies... marriage itself matters, and marriage responds to material incentives. Boosting fertility by directly targeting fertility is difficult and expensive. One reason is that marriage continues to be a gatekeeping institution for larger families. Only by removing obstacles to marriage and helping young people wed earlier and stick together can birth rates be sustainably increased. This is a challenging task, and “pro-nuptialism” has even less high-quality research on it than “pro-natalism.” However, policy makers could offer “marriage bonuses” or at least eliminate marriage penalties, like the fact that low-income people can lose their housing or SNAP benefits if they choose to combine their incomes"
Feminists hate marriage (and men), so their claim is that the women who leave were in bad marriages and should've left them anyway
We served our wedding guests McDonald's - trolls say we're cheap, but our guests loved it and we saved loads of money - "Thomas Billaudeau, 27, and his wife, Ophélie, 25, from Paris, France, opted to serve the unconventional meal instead of forking out thousands on the traditional three course dinner for guests... The happy couple ordered more than 300 burgers, wraps, and nuggets from the popular fast food chain for their wedding guests... the couple have since defended their decision to local media. They told reporters that they did it because 'it was cheaper' and wanted food everyone liked... One person said: 'I'd rather eat McDonald's at my wedding than go into debt for 25 years for a wedding.' Another said: 'Finally, people who have the wedding they want to have without going into debt to show off. Be happy!'"
Rapist preyed on at least 20 girls and women in catfishing 'sextortion' scheme - "Lin Rongxin, a 34-year-old married man and father of one, used a photo of another young man and chatted up young teenagers in his catfishing ruse. After getting his hands on the victims' compromising photos or videos, he would either threaten them into giving him money or performing sex acts on him. At times, he tricked victims into having sex with him while under the guise of another persona. He would pose as both "blackmailer" and "saviour", with three victims engaging in a "warped" relationship with him in this manner. The man also threatened three victims into secretly filming other girls and women who were changing and showering, expanding his count of victims... Lin met his victims on the WeChat or TanTan dating applications. He did not use his real identity or face, instead using a photo of a 19-year-old Chinese man. Lin would chat with his victims under a persona before asking them to send him revealing photos or videos. He would also ask them to engage in sex acts on live video. He would sometimes save or record the photos and videos. Lin would later threaten the victims with the nudes he had of them, saying they had to perform sex acts on live video or give him money, or he would leak the footage. In some cases, he demanded that the victims have sex with another man - who was really himself. Lin targeted young girls aged between 14 and 19, who were often from China but who were studying in Singapore. One of the victims was 14 when she met Lin on the TanTan app. Lin used a persona and asked the victim to be his girlfriend. He also created another profile and chatted the same girl up, before using his first profile to accuse her of "infidelity". He persuaded the girl into sending him nudes, but later used that to extort her of money. Out of fear that Lin would distribute her nudes, the girl performed sex acts for him on an almost nightly basis on at least 10 occasions. She borrowed money from her cousin in China and forwarded the sum of 5,200 yuan (S$995) to Lin, but he demanded a much larger sum. When she told him she did not have the cash, Lin asked her to have sex with him, but she refused as he had blackmailed her. Lin then said he could "sell" her virginity to another person in exchange for not leaking her nudes, and she agreed. However, there was no "other person". Lin posed as this "saviour" figure and met the victim at an industrial building, where he raped her in the men's toilet. He then assured the girl that he would settle the threats and debts from her blackmailer. After raping the victim, Lin texted her and showed her concern, causing the girl to feel grateful to him. She felt that the first person she had sex with should be her boyfriend, and began dating Lin. Lin claimed that he had spent 260,000 yuan trying to purchase her nudes from her blackmailer, and she felt indebted to him. They had sex multiple times during their relationship. Despite dating the victim, Lin continued to pose as her blackmailer and sought money from the girl. He scrolled through the girl's friends on WeChat and found a 14-year-old friend of hers attractive. He demanded that the girl film her friend while she was showering and send him the video, and she complied... His crimes were uncovered when the victim accidentally sent a voyeuristic video of her flatmate to the flatmate instead of Lin. The flatmate confronted her and called the police. The victim panicked and told Lin what happened. He told her to take the blame as it would get him into trouble, and she did so. However, her father flew into Singapore after she was arrested and grew suspicious when he listened to her story about her blackmailer and saviour. Lin was arrested in a sting operation when he met the victim to have sex with her... The man's crimes were so numerous and complicated that the court took all morning to have documents read to him, and the prosecution included an infographic and timeline in documents to aid the judge... Lin's lawyers, Mr Peter Ong and Mr Marcus Lim, said their client has shown remorse and even cried when talking to them in prison. According to Mr Ong, Lin said "what else can (I) say" and did not want to mitigate. However, Mr Ong said the defence has to mitigate for him as officers of the court."
How Singapore is accelerating the green transition in south-east Asia
No wonder there's more virtue signalling now, with nonsense like no plastic bags at big supermarkets
Argentina’s Milei bans gender-inclusive language in official documents - "Adornis rejected the argument that gender-inclusive language covers all demographics of society, saying, “the language that covers all sectors is the one we use; it is the Castilian language, it is Spanish,” he said."
According to the left, this makes him "far right". They won't ever get tired of that slur.
Success and setbacks: 100 days of Argentina's Milei - "The government has boasted its first budget surplus in over a decade and has won the approval of the International Monetary Fund which has a $44 billion credit program with Argentina. "Stabilization is working, better than one originally imagined, but there are questions about governance," independent economist Marina Dal Poggetto said in a recent television interview. Milei has come under fire for shutting down the state news agency and anti-discrimination agency, and removing funding for scientific research and the cinema industry... The Senate last week rejected a "mega-decree" that seeks to alter or repeal more than 300 existing standards, such as removing rent caps and relaxing labor laws... Milei took office warning things would get much worse for Argentines before they get better, and they have. He started out by devaluating the peso by 54 percent, and removing price controls. These measures, along with the removal of fuel and transport subsidies, have seen Argentines' purchasing power plummet, causing a slowdown in consumption and economic growth. Monthly inflation is starting to cool, but annual inflation stood at 276 percent in February. In the absence of recent official figures, a private thinktank estimated that some 57 percent of the country is now living in poverty. Meanwhile, the government has frozen aid to some 40,000 soup kitchens pending an audit of their operations."
Milei's Economic Policy Leaves Argentines Hungry as Poverty Rate Soars - "recent public opinion surveys show a majority of Argentines continue to support Milei. A poll released at the end of February pegged his approval rating at 52 percent, higher than any other national politician. The president has placed responsibility for households’ mounting economic difficulties on his “inheritance” from Peronist predecessors, and the blame game seems to be working. “He still retains a very robust amount of support,” said Federico Zapata, a political scientist and the director general of the polling firm Escenarios. Menescaldi added, “Argentine society largely agrees that this fiscal adjustment is something that we had to do.”"
China is making it much easier for foreigners to use mobile pay - "Foreign visitors to China can now spend up to $2,000 a year using the mobile app Alipay without having to register their ID... That’s four times more than the previous limit of $500, a move that will impact international tourists the most... The increased transaction limit reflects Beijing’s push this year to make it easier for foreign travelers to pay for daily purchases in a country in which mobile payment has become ubiquitous. However, stringent real-name verification policies have often made it difficult for foreign visitors to China to use mobile pay... Ant also announced Friday that international travelers who register their ID with Alipay can use the app for single transactions as large as $5,000, up from $1,000 previously. The annual transaction limit for those who register their IDs is now $50,000 — five times more than the previous cumulative amount of $10,000, Ant said."
China’s Economic Slowdown Is Costing the Airlines, Travel Industry $130 Billion - "Chinese travelers, once the biggest spenders on overseas trips, have been staying close to home since the country reopened its borders... Outbound airline capacity from China stood at about 60% of 2019 levels during the fourth quarter, based on figures from aviation analytics firm Cirium. That’s a much slower recovery than in the US or UK — something that has disappointed airline executives, tourism officials and luxury store owners alike. Chinese travelers made 170 million trips outside of its borders in 2019, according to the China Outbound Tourism Research Institute. The $248 billion they lavished on items from plane tickets to hotel rooms and designer brands made up 14% of the globe’s foreign-travel spending, based on World Travel and Tourism Council data... Many of the reasons for the drop-off are by now well established: lethargic economic growth has spurred Chinese consumers to choose less-costly domestic vacations. Political friction has stalled the rebuilding of some tourism ties. Conflicts from Ukraine to Gaza have made flying long-distance more complicated, while external destinations look less appealing to a safety-minded Chinese public. But the policy imperatives of President Xi Jinping are also at work. With the economy struggling, Chinese officials have prioritized local tourism over distant trips – adding duty-free shopping on the island of Hainan, for example, and opening new concert venues. The government has also pushed travel to a handful of spots like Saudi Arabia, a key partner in China’s One Belt One Road initiative... Despite lengthy historical ties, a shared border and a growing aviation sector in both countries, there are no longer any direct passenger flights between the world’s two most-populous nations. India’s ascent as an economic power has posed a threat to China’s influence, and a border dispute has dragged on... Prior to the pandemic, 17 Chinese cities were connected to 20 destinations in the US and Canada through direct flights, according to Cirium data. The links have been cut in half on both sides, with Chicago, Montreal and Saipan no longer served... In Europe, the trend is similar: More than a quarter of European cities that had nonstop flights to China now lack direct access, including Prague, Oslo and Nice. The number of Chinese cities with air links to Europe has fallen by a similar proportion... Chinese travelers have, however, flocked back to the Middle East, an important plank in the One Belt One Road initiative... Chinese consumers developed a greater awareness of domestic destinations while the border was closed"
Meme - Gambit: "They should've just let him into art school." *kisses Rogue*
On Hitler
Scientists put Jared Diamond’s continental axis hypothesis to the test — here’s what they found - "Their research, drawing upon a vast array of cultural, environmental, and linguistic databases, challenges the notion that Eurasia’s geographic layout inherently facilitated a quicker spread of critical innovations compared to other regions of the world, such as the Americas and Africa."
We've been dealing with rage all wrong – here's what to do instead - "A new study published in the Clinical Psychology Review suggests using techniques that address stress have been shown to be more effective at decreasing anger and aggression than venting, as the key is to lower physiological arousal. In other words, calm down... ‘To reduce anger, it is better to engage in activities that decrease arousal levels. Despite what popular wisdom may suggest, even going for a run is not an effective strategy because it increases arousal levels and ends up being counterproductive.’... These include deep breathing, relaxation, mindfulness, meditation, slow flow yoga, progressive muscle relaxation, diaphragmic breathing and taking a timeout... Jogging, in particular, was the most likely to increase anger, but physical education classes and playing ball sports had an arousal-decreasing effect – the researchers suggest having an element of play may counter negative emotions."
Germans thought they were immune to nationalism after confronting their Nazi past. They were wrong - "“I understand that many people are worn out from all these crises — the coronavirus pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the many migrants, inflation — and that they are afraid that things are going to get worse,” Thonke said. “But the solutions the AfD offers won’t solve any of these problems.”... Just like in the winter of 1942, when senior Nazi officials met covertly in a villa by a lake outside Berlin, the recent meeting also took place in secrecy at a villa not far from the German capital.""
Naturally, this article doesn't go into the failure of mainstream parties, mention crime or explain why the AfD won't solve the problems, but spends time on puerile surface-level Nazi comparisons
Disclose.tv on X - "NEW - 16-year-old girl in Germany posted a video on TikTok "comparing the popularity of the AfD party to the Smurfs." 3 police officers visited her in school because of "suspected state security-related content" and held an "educational talk" with her."
"Like a criminal": An Interview with Loretta, Student Cautioned by German Police over Support for AfD - "German police took a 16-year-old schoolgirl out of her class after she was denounced by her headteacher for expressing political sympathies with right-wing party AfD in a harmless Smurf video. The incident has caused a national scandal in Germany. Now Loretta and her mother, Annett B., speak out publicly for the first time in a interview with conservative weekly Junge Freiheit. The girl feels humiliated; her mother fears for political freedom and civil rights in Germany... Mrs. B., the interior minister of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Christian Pegel (SPD), said in the state parliament on Thursday that the police operation against Loretta was “proportionate.“
Annett: You can criticize our conservative political views, you can reject them, find them wrong and reprehensible, we respect that. But to call the police because of a pupil’s opinion—that’s simply unbelievable! And then to take her out of class and escort her through the school like a criminal and, on top of that, to spread the word in the press afterwards that it was necessary to conduct a kind of ‘endangerment talk’ (a preventive police measure) with her and thus portray a completely innocent minor as a potential criminal in front of the whole world—do these people actually realize what they are doing?...
What exactly did the police officers say to you?
Loretta: That what I would have done had no criminal relevance... I didn’t understand that either and said that the AfD is not an anti-constitutional or right-wing extremist party. When I said that, I noticed in the corner of my eye how Mr. Zimmermann just rolled his eyes. One of the police officers also said that I had already shown “too much national pride“ on TikTok...
What did the police officers want?
Loretta: Well, that I shouldn’t do that in future.
To express your political opinion freely?
Loretta: Yes, on the Internet... I stopped making the videos anyway... Because they kept getting deleted months ago, even though I had read up on them and made sure I didn’t accidentally post anything unauthorized. But it didn’t help and it’s no fun when everything you’ve worked hard to create disappears again. While, by the way, AfD criticism and anti-AfD agitation remains on Tiktok, for example: “AfDler töten” (“Kill AfDers“)...
Annett: The “Beutelsbach Consensus“ applies in Germany, according to which it is the duty of schools to educate pupils in a politically neutral way and not to “overwhelm“ them. Above all, they should be enabled to form their own opinions, to express them freely and to accept dissenting opinions...
Loretta: I was really scared at first, but apart from the fact that some politically left-wing classmates don’t like me, fortunately everything is the same as before. Even on the part of the teachers, even though—apart from two or three who are neutral—they all think left-wing and make no secret of their opinion on the AfD in front of us students. In my class, on the other hand, most of them even like the fact that I had the courage to speak my mind openly, at least on TikTok."
We're still told that it's a myth that left wingers hate their countries