SubstantialNothingness
I hope everyone gets the chance to take a deep breath today and maybe step out to touch grass for a bit.
Nasrallah's death is heavy news whether you're an optimist or a pessimist. It doesn't do the Resistance any favors, but it's also not going to kill the will to fight.
It is going to get people like us emotional and heated though. Conflicts are rarely smooth affairs and while this is a big hit, it's also not the first setback. That's how it goes, whether the path leads to victory or defeat. Sacrifice is inevitable. Be sure to take care of yourself if the situation is getting you stressed out. And if you have the energy, don't forget to support any comrades who may be taking this extra hard for whatever reason.
Sounds like they lost the highlight of the festival. They've got some ghost-writer DJs, pastiche producers, radio wash-ups, and a random chud remaining from the look of it.
(I say this as someone who has listened to a lot more 7 Lions and Alison Wonderland than Macklemore. They just don't have the same panache as he does imo.)
If it's a sustainable practice that is in balance with nature, I keep my mouth shut. It's incredibly rare and only practiced by small groups who are almost always disadvantaged afaik.
If the "family traditions" are simply exploitative and unsustainable modern animal agriculture, then I tend to feel fine speaking up.
I've seen attacks on indigenous practices that I don't agree with - I figure, why not go pick on mass ag instead where the suffering is unfathomable. (edit: but I won't tone police others.) On the other hand, I've also seen people claim the modern WASP diet of farmed steaks 5 nights a week is their ancestor's typical diet.
I don't want to play judge so I just focus on the immorality and unsustainability of exploitative mass animal agriculture and leave it at that. I figure it's hard to be insensitive to long-standing traditions when I'm only criticizing a development that occurred in the past 100 years.
Central & West Africa have received terrible amounts of rain this year.
UNICEF responding to severe flooding in West and Central Africa affecting 4 million people
quotes
Severe flooding across West and Central Africa has hit an estimated 4 million people so far this year, many of them children, displacing at least 500,000 people and destroying more than 300,000 homes.
The flooding ranges from Liberia to Nigeria and across Mali, Niger and Chad, with central Africa also affected. In Northeast Nigeria, a burst dam this week has added further to displacement with an estimated 40 per cent of the town of Maiduguri flooded, affecting up to 200,000 people. Other dams in the sub-region are also under pressure with the heavy rainfall, with fears that any similar dam breaks would lead to even greater displacement.
Floods in the region have already damaged at least 61 schools and 13 health centres. Last year’s flooding, which was also severe, had affected 692,000 people in the region by this point in the year, and eventually affected 4.5 million.
In Chad, one of the worst-hit countries, torrential rains have caused flooding throughout the country since late July, with nearly 1.5 million people affected already, 145 deaths and the destruction of 70,000 houses, according to the government. The flooding has also destroyed bridges and roads. Wadi river valleys are full and difficult to cross, adding to the complexity of delivering aid into Sudan’s Darfur region.
16 out of 24 countries in West and Central Africa are among the 30 countries with the biggest climate change risk for children, according to UNICEF’s Children’s Climate Risk Index.
It's riding on the back of Lue Elizondo, the former US Torture Czar and a CI operative who is urging immunity for those who broke the law for the sake of "national security."
All of the big names in the past few years have had a connection to the US military and/or intelligence, and none of them have suffered any consequences. Most all of them are closely tied to Lue and each other.
Lue got caught trying to fake a UFO sighting in his backyard, and after years on the podcast circuit he just released a book a few weeks ago - a book which is ghost-written and which basically rehashes decades of UFO rumors in a new package. Since the release his appearances have been on overdrive which is partly why so many people are talking about it right now. Mellon (an operative from the banking family who is also interested in UFOs) is close to him and wrote the forward which calls on Great Man Theory to describe Lue lmao
US Congress was split on legislation that was supposed to shine a light on what is going on behind their backs, and it had proposed amendments: The Dems wanted to give it teeth, while the Reps wanted to declaw it (while claiming the opposite). iirc it just failed for the second year in a row, but I might be getting my bills confused. Anyway, Lue is a chud who is very comfortable in right-wing spaces - he's been on JRE multiple times for example. I don't recall him speaking out against the legislative shenanigans.
I think there actually is something behind all of this - alien or not - but the public is clearly getting a drip feed to steer them toward a particular narrative and interpretation. Most of which is probably bullshit. Lue and friends have made it pretty clear that there's a limited hangout going on, but insist that it's for our own good. They are very US-centric and fear-monger about adversaries frequently.
I'm still interested in UFOs - they have a long and strange history across the globe - but I don't trust any of the recent names in the space whatsoever. Any truth they might speak is going to be diluted with propaganda. They could actually be ushering in some sort of disclosure or recognition but it won't make me think any more highly of them. I worry about how successful they've been at leading a growing discussion on the topic even though I've wanted more awareness on it for many years.
There's lots of good answers in here: Note it with detached acceptance and then return to the focus, use a mantra as a verbal focus, adding a physical element like walking or yoga, let the thoughts be and observe them as a focus.
Have you tried meditating after exercise? That's one of the few times my mind is particularly calm.
Falling asleep sometimes just happens to some beginners, or it could be an ADHD thing from understimulation. However sloth/torpor is one of the five hindrances so it can also be a real long-term concern for your practice. If this is the case, then it could mean you are either fighting too hard against stimuli like thoughts, or else that you are too complacent and are not exerting enough effort on concentration. Anything anyone has recommended here could potentially help. Generally speaking, you want to make an effort to concentrate but not an effort to dismiss thoughts. If you have a thought that seems important like a task, trust yourself that you'll remember it or that it will come back up if it's important.
And when you find yourself latched onto a thought, don't punish yourself. There's nothing wrong with it - it's part of the process. Recognize it and that you've attached to it, accept that this happens and it's not bad, and let the thought go back on its way down the stream of thoughts.
But here’s what you may not realize: the parents are winning, and we have entered the death spiral of the education dictatorship.
Sounds like it's another example of the "tell people what they want to hear" grift.
As I understand it, it's more about consumption not reaching estimates in 2024 which resulted in excess stockpiles. This has pushed the price down to the point that OPEC hasn't been able to remove production cuts established earlier, as they had anticipated on doing. The cuts are intended to exert upward price pressure by limiting supply but consumption was just too low to justify releasing more oil onto the markets.
Investors had been growing bearish almost all year, the OPEC postponement was just another push in that direction (against the long-term trend which has been consistently bullish because no one believes in the green transition [to which this glut is unrelated]). The investors follow OPEC production (and Chinese consumption) very closely. It's also not a very large short balance, but it could be a sign that investors expect a little more "pain" before consumption and prices recover. The next big shift in supply/demand may not come until N hemisphere winter, when heating increases consumption.
I doubt this will turn into anything big, or predict anything big. However I think it could contribute to a short-term environment of instability, from which more important events might occur.
Speaking of unusual economies, I recently saw that money managers are net short on oil for the first time in over 10 years of data. I'm not sure what if any impact that will have but it definitely caught my eye.
Well then, I've never been so glad to be out of touch!