"One thing I’ll say about DC not only canceling Red Hood, but recalling the first issue and refunding stores for buying it, is that you can still get Neil Gaiman’s work through them. They still work with Otto Schmidt. Eddie Berganza worked there for years AFTER the formation of a policy that no women were to be around him at any time for any reason due to his habitual sexual harassment and assaults.
“Frank Miller released one of the most savagely Islamophobic comics of all time, HOLY TERROR, and still works with DC. There are pedophiles, war criminals, confessed sexual predators on staff.
“You can still buy all their work.
For those unaware of the specific cases involving the creators named by Felker-Martin:
Gaiman was recently accused of grooming and sexual assault by a number of women, and is currently facing a related lawsuit from one of them. DC still publishes his Batman and The Sandman work.
Schmidt drew a graphic propaganda comics on behalf of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. DC continues to commission him for cover work, his most recent gracing the front of this month’s Batgirl Vol. 6 #9
Berganza was fired from DC in 2017 following numerous accusations of inter-office sexual harassment, prior to which the aforementioned ‘No women around’ rule was confirmed by Sensational Comics Vol. 2 writer Alex DeCampi. His run as an editor on a number of Superman-related titles, including Action Comics Vol. 1, Advenutres of Superman Vol. 1, and Worlds’ Finest Vol. 1, are still widely available in various trade collections.
Miller, as noted by Felker-Martin, wrote and drew Holy Terror!, a post-9/11 anti-terrorism that presents both the War on Terror and the Islamic faith as cartoonishly evil. From The Dark Knight Returns to its third-sequel, 2019’s The Dark Knight Returns: The Golden Child, Miller’s collected work remains a mainstay of comic book retailers.
While Felker-Martin did not provide any specifics as to the supposed “pedophiles” and “confessed sexual predators on staff”, it’s currently presumed that the “war criminals” include not just Schmit, labeled as such for his Putin propaganda piece, but also current DC golden boy Tom King, himself an ex-CIA agent who helped plan and facilitate America’s 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Automation replaced hand knitters, and people in that career suffered for a generation, but most people now value mass produced socks more than they value paying a premium for hand knit. Automation replaced telephone operators, and people in that career suffered for a generation, but no one now wants their phone call to be manually switched by a person.
The pain of automation is real and lasts the length of the career of everyone impacted, but the societal benefit lasts many generations. More support is needed for people who are displaced, but I don't see fighting the technology as the effective way to achieve that.
If you don't say anything, they assume you agree with them. It's a fine line between letting them know you (maybe respectfully) disagree, vs. actively debating, but in some cases I think it's worthwhile to try to let them know you aren't inside their bubble. Agree outright dickishness is unhelpful, but so much depends on the specifics of the relationship and circumstances of delivery.
There are shades of gray. I consider burying it in well managed landfills (what is done with the very large majority of plastic in developed countries) significantly more environmentally responsible than dumping it into the local river (what is done with most plastic in many developing countries) or ocean (fishing nets, cruise ships).
A comedian on a major broadcast network was recently fired for, after calling a recent assassination in America a senseless killing, sharing mild criticism of the political advocacy done by the dead guy.
So here, the Universal broadcast network is joked to be firing the comedian Martok.
It's a longer term play. If 40% of the populace is committed against MAGA, and 40% is irredeemably invested in MAGA, that leaves 20% so out of touch with current events they haven't formed any strong opinion. Yes, the MAGA administration is going to do the bullshit anyway. But feeding into the "both sides are the same" narrative might tip the balance of voters into re-voting in the bullshit doers.
Is this a "learning how to secure oneself for sleep" owlet thing? If that was an adult bird, my first thought would be that it was sick, but I'm not familiar with normal owl stances.
There was an engraving on a shell casing referencing a combo in the video game Helldivers 2. It included a series of arrows indicating the controller movements to trigger the combo (in the game, a large explosion). The investigators originally thought arrows indicated trans.
Hand engravers (sharp tip with a vibrator attached) are pretty effective and easy to use on soft materials, and also on harder materials if you're patient (on harder materials you have to go over the marking multiple times to get it deep enough for legibility).
But latest word is in this instance the engraving thing was a misunderstanding
An early bulletin circulated widely among law enforcement officials said investigators found ammunition engraved with expressions of "transgender and anti-fascist ideology" inside the rifle that authorities believe was used in the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk. But some officials later Thursday cautioned against reaching conclusions based on the internal report.
The bulletin said an older-model .30 caliber hunting rifle was discovered in the woods near the scene of Wednesday’s shooting at Utah Valley University, wrapped in a towel with a spent cartridge still in the chamber. There were also three unspent rounds in the magazine, all with wording on them, it said.
No rebounding is going to happen for many presidential terms. It's much easier, and faster, to destroy than to build up. The damage to investment and trade relationships being done, and the dismantling of worker protections and support for industry and job development, is going to take decades to reclaim.
A European survey conducted in 2014 examined the use of homeopathy and other popular forms of “alternative/complementary” medicine... This survey covered 21 European countries and Israel and provided data from structured interviews with 40,185 individuals.
...the use of homeopathy is highly prevalent (≥10%) in France, Switzerland, Germany and Austria.
The principles of homeopathy were first introduced in 1796 by Samuel Hahnemann... One core tenet is “similia similibus curentur” (like cures like), i.e. the principle of similarity: compounds, which can produce symptoms (at high doses), can cure a disease with similar symptoms (when administered at low doses).
By what metric? Recycling gives a new use to discarded materials, so the material might be 100% not-discarded, but new energy is still consumed in the recycling process. This is why reducing and re-using are more powerful levers than recycling.
There is also the detail of whether a material is truly "re" cycled back to the original use, or is "down" cycled to a use with less rigorous technical requirements.
I hope the AI-chat companies really get a handle on this. They are making helpful sounding noises, but it's hard to know how much they are prioritizing it.
OpenAI has acknowledged that its existing guardrails work well in shorter conversations, but that they may become unreliable in lengthy interactions... The company also announced on Tuesday that it will try to improve the way ChatGPT responds to users exhibiting signs of “acute distress” by routing conversations showing such moments to its reasoning models, which the company says follow and apply safety guidelines more consistently.
I hadn't previously come across the printing press as an influence on witch hunts, interesting. It is pretty far down the Wikipedia article, though, and a different book printed almost two hundred years later is also cited as highly influential. I devoutly hope we are not in for two hundred years of unchecked social media and AI driven misinformation.
...in 1487, Kramer published the notorious Malleus Maleficarum (lit., 'Hammer against the Evildoers') which, because of the newly invented printing presses, enjoyed a wide readership. It was reprinted in 14 editions by 1520 and became unduly influential in the secular courts.
The 1647 book, The Discovery of Witches, soon became an influential legal text. The book was used in the American colonies as early as May 1647, when Margaret Jones was executed for witchcraft in Massachusetts, the first of 17 people executed for witchcraft in the Colonies from 1647 to 1663.