Andrea Gibson, Angels Of The Get Through

A Palestinian girl holds a candle in front of her home during a power cut at the Jabaliya refugee camp, Gaza. Electricity is reported to be cut for 12 hours every day as part of a mains power crisis as a result of political and economic instability on the Gaza Strip.  @Ali Noureldine 

Wonkette and Washingtonsblog.com reported that the Mayor of Oakland acknowledged that the Department of Homeland Security had participated in an 18-city mayor conference call advising mayors on “how to suppress” Occupy protests.

To Europeans, the enormity of this breach may not be obvious at first. Our system of government prohibits the creation of a federalised police force, and forbids federal or militarised involvement in municipal peacekeeping.

I noticed that rightwing pundits and politicians on the TV shows on which I was appearing were all on-message against OWS. Journalist Chris Hayes reported on a leaked memo that revealed lobbyists vying for an $850,000 contract to smear Occupy

Here’s some more from later in the article

The mainstream media was declaring continually “OWS has no message”. Frustrated, I simply asked them. I began soliciting online “What is it you want?” answers from Occupy. In the first 15 minutes, I received 100 answers. These were truly eye-opening.

The No 1 agenda item: get the money out of politics. Most often cited was legislation to blunt the effect of the Citizens United ruling, which lets boundless sums enter the campaign process. No 2: reform the banking system to prevent fraud and manipulation, with the most frequent item being to restore the Glass-Steagall Act – the Depression-era law, done away with by President Clinton, that separates investment banks from commercial banks. This law would correct the conditions for the recent crisis, as investment banks could not take risks for profit that create kale derivatives out of thin air, and wipe out the commercial and savings banks.

No 3 was the most clarifying: draft laws against the little-known loophole that currently allows members of Congress to pass legislation affecting Delaware-based corporations in which they themselves are investors.

sigh

“it’s going to be WW3!!” no bitch it’s going to be vietnam, korea, afghanistan, it’s going to be another war wherein the US commits unspeakable and indefensible acts against a severely weakened people seeking self determination. it’s going to be another war where protesting is criminalized and “freedom of speech” is gutted in the interest of pushing propaganda. it’s going to be another nation of people added to the long list of victims of US imperialism and another demonstration of the strong undercurrent of fascism running through the foundation of america

Aw fuck, why are they talking about TOR?! Stop talking about TOR!

attention all writers! tumblr is rolling out a new feature that allows our work to be used in ai training processes!

be sure to opt out of this in your visibility settings immediately! and remember, you have to opt out for each blog, not just your main!

go to your blogs’ settings (again, you have to do these steps for each blog, not just your main blog)

scroll until you see “visibility” and choose that

in your visibility settings, choose “prevent third-party sharing for (blog name)”

you may opted out already but we don’t take chances with ai around these parts *insert angry cowboy*

tagging some mutuals to get the word out — @multifandomsimagine @pegxcarter @moremaybank @gladerscake @goldenroutledge @thatsthewaythechrissycrumbles @drewstarkeyslut @drudyslut @tangledinlove @rafeandonlyrafe @mvybanks

mothtales:

Perchta:  “Masked figures from the “Wilde Jagd” Christmas folklore festivity in Salzburg, Austria. These festivities originate through the Perchtenlaufen custom, a period when the fearsome witch Perchta, who envies happily married couples, roams the villages. Processions of horribly masked figures armed with sticks and clubs meet throughout the festivity to chase the witch away.”

(via fuckyeahexistentialism, northerndelight)

temenuga:

In 1808, Napoleon, running out of scenic holiday destinations to invade, somehow totally forgot about his neighbor to the south, Spain. So that year he dispatched his troops, kicking off the Peninsular War. Only 20 years old and working as a barmaid in the town of Valdepenas, Juana Galan was not expecting a surge of French soldiers to come storming through her village. But on June 6, that’s exactly what happened. At that time, most of the men were fighting Napoleon’s forces elsewhere in the nation. Juana, unfazed by things like rifles and Frenchmen and French riflemen, began organizing the women in her village to form a trap for the approaching army. When the army arrived, Juana and her friends were ready. They dumped boiling water and oil on the French troops, which by all accounts will instantly take the fight out of pretty much anyone. Then Juana, armed with only a batan, beat back the heavily armed French cavalry with her squad of village women, almost none of whom were armed with guns. The French retreated, giving up on capturing not just Juana’s town but the entire province of La Mancha, leading to ultimate Spanish victory. Today, she is seen in Spain as a national hero, a symbol of resistance, strength, patriotism, feminism and hitting shit with a stick. (x) 

                          It is probably the dirty story of history: that Catherine the Great (1727-1796), the lusty ruler of Russia, was so wild with sexual desire that one day she was screwing a horse when the harness broke and killed her.      It's simply not true. Catherine liked officers of the Imperial Horse Guard, not the horses. Yes, Catherine also liked sex - one of her favorite toasts was "God grant us our desires and grant them quickly." This ruler of a vast empire had a dozen documented lovers (really, male mistresses) over her thirty-four years in power. But she had them one after another. This level of sexual consumption would hardly rate a footnote for most male monarchs; in fact, their virility might have been questioned. What was unusual about Catherine was how organized she was in selecting her lovers. She had a lady-in-waiting sample the man's prowess in bed and then she had a British doctor examine him for diseases. The young officer would soon be given 100,000 rubles and a country estate. No doubt what roiled foreign diplomats was that this woman, who was pretty when young, grew stout and gray, and at age sixty-two was still taking the likes of twenty-one-year-old Platon Zuboff to bed. That bred jealousies and rumormongering, and tales of horses.      Actually, Catherine was one of the greatest and toughest female monarchs of all time: this German-born princess plotted the death of her dotty husband, Czar Peter III, she expanded the borders of Russia, crushed rebellions, built gorgeous palaces, and was a generous patron of the arts, corresponding personally with Voltaire and Diderot.      How did she die? Catherine suffered a stroke on her way to the water closet and died on a straw mat three days later, with eyewitnesses there.

- "Catherine the Great and the Horse" from An Underground Education by Richard Zacks