This is the result of China’s “nine dash line.” If the countries impacted, Vietnam, Philippines, Mtaylasia, Singapore, Indonesia, etc., started a discussion at the UN, it would immediately implicate Taiwan, and nobody wants to touch that. So, local scuffles will continue, as China flexes her muscle.

Aza 'Merican maseff,… um, maybe try for mid-Atlantic.

That’s understandable, but every complex situation requires a good deal of nuance. In this case, for example, not all Israelis are Zionists (anymore than all Palestinians are Hamas), and not even all Zionists (or Hamas) are “bad guys.” There are clearly some fucked up political agendas at work, and could well be more bad actors on one side than the other, and if you look close even “sides” become blurred. But there are definitely agents working to accentuate that distinction, and I don’t trust any of them. Which is different from saying all sides are the same. All I know is that war, greed, and power are all bad, and that good people are suffering, but beyond that I don’t know enough to take a public stand (though I’m working on some opinions).

Edit: let me clarify. I’m not trying to be neutral either. When I see something happening in my immediate world, in front of me, I will say/act for the common good. But I’m not going to read something online, about a place I’ve never been, and take a public opinion about it. I trust that there are people there, in that place, that are doing what I would do, and I hope they succeed.

In October and November 2019, Dubinsky and Derkach gave several press conferences in Kyiv at which they claimed that based on an investigation by Kulyk, they had uncovered corruption and money-laundering schemes related to Burisma, a gas company which had future U.S. President Joe Biden’s son Hunter on its board of directors.

Wait a minute. Are they saying that these people were paid by Russian agents? To Lie? For political purposes!? — why, I’ve never heard of such a thing.

His lawyer said:

“It is a very dangerous proposition to hold someone criminally culpable and send them to prison without a finding that he or she ever acted in any way that he or she believed was against the law or wrong.” (emphasis on “believed” is mine)

So, if I genuinely believe that banks have so much money it’s fine if I take a tiny bit, then it’s not illegal? Yeah, right.

“Iceland is green, Greenland is icy.” Oh, shit, it’s also the biggest island that’s not a continent.

Oh, come on now. “Uniparty” really… Let’s not forget how many different options the republicans give their voters: we have the outright amoral pathological liars, like Trump, and Santos, and maybe even the new speaker; and then we have the freedom clowns who want to “deconstruct the administrative state” and shut everything down. And if those don’t appeal, there’s the laws and order religious fanatics who want to ban books, and abortions, and gays, and stuff. And let’s not forget the traditional establishment, who want to get themselves and their overloads obscenely rich before the walls come down. Did I forget anyone?

(or)… but you can’t wipe your friends off on your saddle.

If they practiced trying to cut some random cable in the East China Sea it might raise suspicions, right? Maybe better to practice somewhere else.

Wow, must be some rogue pirate vessel, because any formal government ship, especially one flying a bright red flag, would be too easy to identify. It’s a mystery. /s

Whadaya bet he was in his bathroom, maybe with boxes of documents but never mind that, practicing different faces late into the night. Oh joy.

His booking record also states his disposition as “Transfer to Another Agency with Pending Charges.” I wonder if they plan on moving them all to somewhere nicer, lol

Cathedral Rocks, A Yosemite View — c. 1872. Oil on paper mounted on canvas. Size 48.3 x 34.9 cms (19 x 13 1/2 ins)

Hiroshige, along with Hokusai, Sharaku, and a few others, is one of the great masters of Japanese ukiyo-e traditional woodblock printing. Ukiyo-e means “pictures of the floating world.” I love how Japanese, and Chinese, landscape art usually show the human presence as almost insignificant. This is a wonderful example.

It always amuses me how politicians and community “faith based” leaders can blithely condemn what scientists have been warning about for decades, as if they know better (with no training or experience). Anti-intellectualism is the Dunning-Kruger effect applied to politics, known as Populism, aka the idiots revenge.

I know that Jack Smith, and Fanni Willis, are too professional to be bothered by such inflammatory remarks, but it can’t be a smart move to attack the people who are writing indictments. Not all the donations in the world can make up for what he will face in prison.

These children cough syrups are sweetened using ethylene glycol and/or diethylene glycol, which are extremely toxic, especially to small children and cause acute kidney failure. Why? Because the non-poisonous propylene glycol usually used costs twice as much. Greed is killing our planet.

They mention high mercury levels as a trap or from wine that the emperor drank, but neither is likely (they often used to add lead to wine as a sweetener, but not mercury AFAIK). But, mercury contamination in tombs, especially in Asia, is very common from the heavy use of the deep red pigment cinnabar, also called vermillion, which is mercury sulfide.

I’m always interested to know the scaled of these 19th C works, because some can be quite enormous. Turns out this is a small oil on canvas, on exhibit at the Santa Barbara Art museum, which lists the size as: 14 1/8 x 20 1/4 in. (35.9 x 51.4 cm).

After 10 years on reddit, it wasn’t easy at first (at first being just the threat of apps not working). And I wasn’t sure where to go: Mastodon, Discord, Lemmy, etc. But as the communities grew, content increased, and I even found similar groups in the fediverse, I’ve been spending more and more time on Lemmy, and much more certain this the right direction.