Some Chinese opera is pretty great. This is from the Long March song cycle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rh63s2jyRXU

That day was honestly so glorious. Still one of my favourite memories of this site. Waking up, seeing that anybody who upvoted transphobic shit got the boot, my goodness what a purge. So beautiful.

Your decisions at the beginning really helped shape this site’s culture into what it is now in the best possible way. Like Stalin, after your departure a pile of rubbish was heaped on your grave, but the wind of History sooner or later swept it away without mercy.

Oh fuck you’re back too??? Welcome! Another legend returns.

The legend returns. We’ve attempted to hold to TC69 Thought, welcome back.

From what I can it’s almost certainly not true. There’s no one central database for Order of Lenin recipients (there were thousands given out throughout the years, scattered about the archives of the Soviet Union), but seems like most of the Western businessmen getting Orders of Lenin were from the 20s when they heavily contributed to technological develop of the newly created state during the NEP. Given that Boiardi would’ve gotten the award during/after WWII, when there’s not really any records of the USSR giving out Orders of Lenin to Western businessmen at that time, I’m pretty confident that this is not real. All that said, Boiardi did contribute heavily to the allied war effort, and many of his factories worked round the clock to produce rations for the USSR during lend/lease starting in 1942, and that is well attested.

Remember when people were like “oh Fujimoto fell off, what is Part 2 even about, this is so boring, etc”. Nobody’s complaining now. Gotta let Fujimoto cook.

Denji definitely does not know about the possession and thinks Asa is like a super bipolar maniac probably. But given Yoru can’t kill Asa in this world ideally she’d just tell him.

Some might remember that Eastern bloc women enjoyed many rights and privileges unknown in liberal democracies at the time, including major state investments in their education and training, their full incorporation into the labor force, generous maternity leave allowances and guaranteed free child care. But there’s one advantage that has received little attention: Women under Communism enjoyed more sexual pleasure. A comparative sociological study of East and West Germans conducted after reunification in 1990 found that Eastern women had twice as many orgasms as Western women.

Per NY Times: https://archive.is/da9fy

Well the other key to remember is that labour isn’t idled; prison labour is very much a thing, and quite productive for the US economy!

Well the Cuba data is probably just made up, but El Salvador is easily the highest because President Bukele (self professed dictator of El Salvador, really a right wing crypto bro who is very popular) imprisoned an insane amount of men with any vague real or purported ties to gangs on bunk charges in an attempt to bring down the crime rate. It “worked,” but at the cost of imprisoning literally 1.6% of the population. Crazy to think that Louisiana is almost the same, but there’s no buzz about how horrible this is etc etc. 1% of all of Louisiana is in prison!

It’s honestly so depressing. I live in a giant apartment block and we do trick or treating amongst all the apartments in the building. Basically you sign up, get a door tag, and kids will show up to your door and you give them candy. Very normal. When I moved here there were dozens of apartments that signed up for this. This year so far there are 3. My apartment building has 230+ units. Literally just over 1% of apartments are now willing to give out candy to kids. Grim.

Thutmose III baby. Under him (and his aunt Hatshepsut, who was the real Pharaoh during his first twenty or so years and he was like a military commander for her) New Kingdom Egypt reached its height of power. Dude was a brilliant strategist whose feints and tactics were so amazing that a British general during WWI in the exact same area as one of Thutmose III’s crushing victories (Battle of Megiddo) just followed the exact same tactics and also achieved a crushing victory at his Battle of Megiddo. 3000 years later and his strategy still worked perfectly. That’s pretty impressive.

Otherwise I actually really like the Hyksos. Avaris seemed like a really bustling Bronze Age trading entrepôt that was open to the Mediterranean and its world system in a way that Egypt, even under the New Kingdom, never quite seemed to manage. Akhenaten is also pretty cool, there’s something always attractive to me about crushing the power of a priestly bureaucracy to declare yourself a god.

I honestly cannot imagine canceling a subscription to a newspaper because it didn’t endorse the candidate you want. Or any candidate at all. Bizarre echo chamber behavior. I’m sure The Economist will endorse Harris like it endorsed Biden. Won’t stop me from reading that garbage because it’s the news.

The Utility Monster, foot binding edition

I love the idea of somebody thinking Tai Chi of all things is illegal in China. Like bruv what the hell do you think is the main activity for grandmas in China?? Go to any public park, you’ll see like five groups of tai chi going on.

Not to like defend the awful practices of Gulf monarchies that literally practice slave labour, but at least in the Gulf once you’re a “citizen” (which at this point in places like the UAE is 10% of the population) you’re good to go. In Israel, even if you’re “Israeli” if you’re not Jewish you are vastly discriminated against, can’t marry people of other faiths, have to have difference license plates, etc. The Gulf is at least more up front about their apartheid type deal.

she’s clearly handling 9/11 herself

it’s sorted now

not sure what the confusion is here

Oh wait I guess my understanding is outdated, apparently you do need to fill out an application to sign up now, that used to not be the case. Regardless I think he should still fill out an application and sign up, as long as he’s not posting reactionary stuff I don’t foresee the mods having an issues, and it’d honestly end up being a positive for him to see so many diverse people supporting Palestine, could help eat away those reactionary brainworms!

I mean just have him make an account here, he doesn’t need permission to make an account! If he starts posting some seriously reactionary shit, he’ll get banned and he can make another account. As long as he avoids saying reactionary shit he’ll be fine, and even if he does he just gets banned until he stops doing that or changes his views, it’s not a big deal. Have him start posting with us!