October 17, 2022

the Mona Lisa of space cats

https://twitter.com/70sscifi/status/1276962755174518784
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1470926.Breed_To_Come

When desperate measures failed to control what men had begun and could not stop, they fled their polluted planet, leaving behind an epidemic virus born of experimentation. Yet unlike men, whom the disease could destroy, the animals of the planet thrived. Each generation was more forceful and intelligent than the last.

In the ruins of what was once a university complex, a vast band of The People, more highly evolved than those on the outside, sought to master the works of men. And they learned that the demons (as men were called) were not legendary but real. Then one day a spaceship landed...

October 17, 2022

Ṣọpẹ́ Dirisu: "Nobody would be talking about me for Bond if 'Gangs Of London' was terrible"

Meet Britain's bloody brilliant new action hero, star of the most violent show on TV

https://www.nme.com/features/tv-interviews/sope-dirisu-gangs-of-london-season-2-james-bond-constantine-3327414



“‘We’re going to set you on fire! We’re going to throw you down the stairs! We’ve got to find the worst things we can do to you!’” Typically, when you’re the lead in a successful TV show people are nice to you. You get a bigger trailer. You get more assistants. You can be a bit demanding about your on-set snacks. Not so for Ṣọpẹ Dìrísù. After one series of Gangs Of London, the brutally violent drama in which he plays undercover copper Elliot, Dìrísù says everybody just wanted to hurt him more than last time.

“There was this thing in the stunt team of ‘How do we make it worse?’” he says. “Why?!” Because it’s fun, as the opening scenes of season two illustrates. We find Elliot battling his way through a laundrette full of people trying to kill him, culminating in a fight with an enormous bad guy, played by Žydrūnas ‘Big Z’ Savickas, four-time winner of World’s Strongest Man. “They threw the strongest man in the world at me!” laughs Dìrísù. “Literally. Several times.” At least he didn’t actually get set on fire.

Dìrísù partly brought this on himself. He’s a large part of why Gangs Of London was such a surprise success. Launching in April 2020, the show became Sky Atlantic’s second biggest original drama launch, with 2.23 million viewers (for comparison, the vastly more hyped House of the Dragon debuted with 3.78 million, so more than two million is a lot). Created by Gareth Evans, the director behind astonishing action movie The Raid, Gangs Of London tells the story of a war for power after Finn Wallace, the biggest gang boss in London, is murdered. Dìrísù’s Elliot is supposed to bring the Wallace family down, but a series of ill-advised decisions see him ensnared by the criminal world. At the end of season one, he’s off the force and being blackmailed by very shady crooks.

Gangs Of London is fun, fast-moving and a little silly, but it’s the fight scenes that set it apart. Evans brought the same imagination, impeccable choreography and gore he gave The Raid, producing stunt sequences better than you’ll find in most Hollywood movies. Dìrísù showed he was both a formidable dramatic actor and very handy in a brawl, loudly announcing himself as a leading man. It only makes sense to test the limits of what he can do.



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October 17, 2022

Boris Brejcha - Tale Of Us - Hozho - Paul Kalkbrenner - Other Artists - [Space Mix]

October 17, 2022

Art Department Presents: Martina Topley-Bird Feat. Mark Lanegan & Warpaint - Crystalised

(Agoria Remix - Dixon Vocal Retouch)



Video single version



Label: No.19 Music – NO19040
Format:
6 x File, MP3, Single, 320 kbps
Country: UK
Released: 7 Oct 2013
Genre: Electronic
Style: Electro, Downtempo, Techno

October 17, 2022

Dead Malls Season 4 Episode 9 - Forest Fair Village (Cincinnati, OH)

This mall needs no explanation.. Everyone knows about Forest Fair, it’s the dead mall king. A 1.5 million square foot nightmare of dreamy liminal aesthetic. But what you might not know is just how far this mall fell.. The horrible mismanagement over the years and the many, many, many failed attempts to make this 500 million dollar disaster work. Join me today as we explore Forest Fair Village in its final days and tell its story, and what happened to this giant..

October 17, 2022

Empty G Gets LIVID at Debate When Opponent Attacks Her Over Jan. 6, Says She Was 'Victim' Too

fuck this POS

video at the link

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/watch-marjorie-taylor-greene-gets-livid-at-debate-when-opponent-attacks-her-over-jan-6-says-she-was-victim-too/ar-AA1326kl?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=3ee0a487d8f24a73a3acf0f9c667053b

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) accused her opponent for her seat in Congress, Marcus Flowers, of “defaming [her] character” when he pushed back on her claims that she was “a victim” of the Capitol riots on January 6.

The exchange between Greene and Flowers took place at a debate as part of the Atlanta Press Club’s 2022 Loudermilk-Young Debate Series, a run of debates featuring candidates for several federal and statewide offices on the ballot in November.

In a response to a question from a moderator, Flowers brought up Greene’s promotion of election conspiracy claims made by former President Donald Trump and his allies and stated that every person he has met on the campaign trail does not want Greene representing them.

Greene jumped in and demanded the opportunity to offer a rebuttal, although a moderator tried to move on so Greene could be asked a separate question.

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October 16, 2022

COVID Variant That Beats Our Immunity Is Finally Here (good news-bivalent vax helps more than plain)

The XBB subvariant of Omicron appears to be the fastest spreading COVID virus yet, and most of our treatments don’t touch it.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-nightmare-xbb-covid-variant-that-beats-our-immunity-is-finally-here



A new subvariant of the novel-coronavirus called XBB dramatically announced itself earlier this week, in Singapore. New COVID-19 cases more than doubled in a day, from 4,700 on Monday to 11,700 on Tuesday—and XBB is almost certainly why. The same subvariant just appeared in Hong Kong, too.

A highly mutated descendant of the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that drove a record wave of infections starting around a year ago, XBB is in many ways the worst form of the virus so far. It’s more contagious than any previous variant or subvariant. It also evades the antibodies from monoclonal therapies, potentially rendering a whole category of drugs ineffective as COVID treatments.

“It is likely the most immune-evasive and poses problems for current monoclonal antibody-based treatments and prevention strategy,” Amesh Adalja, a public-health expert at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told The Daily Beast.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that the new “bivalent” vaccine boosters from Pfizer and Moderna seem to work just fine against XBB, even though the original vaccines are less effective against XBB. They won’t prevent all infections and reinfections, but they should significantly reduce the chance of severe infection potentially leading to hospitalization or death. “Even with immune-evasive variants, vaccine protection against what matters most—severe disease—remains intact,” Adalja said.

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October 15, 2022

Blake Masters Is Already Claiming His Election Will Be Stolen

Blake Masters isn’t shy about claiming the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. Now he’s claiming Arizona’s Senate seat will be stolen from him—before a vote is cast.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/blake-masters-is-already-claiming-his-election-will-be-stolen-arizona-mark-kelly



In his campaign to unseat Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Republican Blake Masters has consistently amplified skepticism and conspiracy theories surrounding the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. But during the final stretch of his own 2022 race, Masters is starting to cast doubt on the outcome of this election—before the votes are even counted.

At a campaign stop on Tuesday in a small town north of Phoenix, Masters was confronted with one voter’s concern that he could win by a “landslide” but that voting machines would “flip the vote” in Kelly’s favor, according to audio of the event obtained by The Daily Beast.

“Unfortunately, we still have the machines in this election,” Masters replied. The “machines” refer to Dominion Voting Systems’ machines, which were used in Arizona and have been the subject of countless unfounded conspiracies. Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, used paper ballots in the 2020 election; audits found no evidence of fraud.

Masters expanded on the voter’s concern by recounting a conversation he had with his father before launching his campaign. In Masters’ telling, his father said he didn’t want him to run because he couldn’t beat Kelly, because of voter fraud. “But say you beat Mark Kelly by 30,000 votes,” Masters said. To which his father responded: “I’m worried they’ll just find 40,000 for Mark Kelly.”

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October 15, 2022

Mason Greenwood charged with attempted rape and assault

Manchester United footballer Mason Greenwood has been charged with attempted rape, engaging in controlling behaviour and assault.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-63272019



The forward was arrested in January following allegations that emerged in images and videos posted online. He was arrested again on Saturday for allegedly breaching his bail.

Prosecutors said the charges all related to the same female complainant. Mr Greenwood is due at Manchester and Salford Magistrates' Court on Monday.

The 21-year-old, who has made one appearance for the senior England men's team, has not played or trained with Manchester United since his arrest.

Nike also ended its sponsorship deal with him and Electronic Arts removed him from active squads on its Fifa 22 game.

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October 14, 2022

The Kremlin's suicidal imperialism

The more apparent it is that Russia is losing, the more forcefully Vladimir Putin declares that it is not.

https://socialeurope.eu/the-kremlins-suicidal-imperialism



Not since the Soviet Union collapsed have I listened to a speech as Orwellian as the one the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, delivered to declare that four Ukrainian regions were now part of Russia. Just as Communism was once supposed to save humanity from imperialist exploitation, Russia is now apparently responsible for defending countries’ right not to be subjected to a ‘new colonialism’ which would turn them into Western vassals. In Putin’s Russia, war is peace, slavery is freedom, ignorance is strength and illegally annexing a sovereign country’s territory is fighting colonialism.

In Putin’s mind, he is righting a historic injustice, as the annexed regions—Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia—were once part of Novorossiya (new Russia), brought into the Russian empire by Catherine the Great. He is also standing up to the west—especially the United States, which has bled it of resources and dictated its actions since the cold war—on behalf of the rest of the world.

I love a good propaganda speech—I’ve taught the subject for years. But, coming from the leader of a country which has established itself at the centre of two empires, with other states as its satellites, Putin’s rhetoric is too rich to be satisfying. Just like Soviet leaders’ cold-war speeches, Putin’s address did not contain a single whiff of compromise. But Putin’s assertiveness in some ways surpasses that of his Soviet predecessors. It is instead inspired by his intellectual hero, the Russian philosopher Ivan Ilyin.

To be sure, Ilyin hated Communism. In fact, he praised Adolf Hitler for saving Europe from the Red Menace and when he emigrated to Switzerland before World War II he was thought to be an agent of the Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels. But it is pointless to seek logic in the dystopian kasha (porridge) of Russian heroes and symbols Putin serves up. So, while he echoes Ilyin’s belief in Russia’s superiority, he compares western leaders who ‘lie’ about Russia to Goebbels and justifies his ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine as necessary to ‘denazify’ the country (with its part-Jewish president).

String of defeats.....

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