https://edition.cnn.com/2019/06/20/polit...index.html

"Send bachelors and come heavily armed. I'm not going to be a political prisoner in the state of Oregon. It's just that simple."

... Whelp.

A Trump admin says migrant children don't need toothbrushes or soap.

No.  I'm not kidding here.

https://www.newsweek.com/migrant-childre...on-1445090

You oughta read it just for the reactions from the judges.

This, I think, should be considered a crack fic.  The actions of at least two of the characters are so very much out of character.  And yet I like the thought of it happening....

Girls und Panzer — die Rache

   The opening formalities had — finally! — concluded, now with thirty armored combat vehicles on each side.  Notwithstanding his rage at the high school girls who’d so insolently come to reinforce Ōarai Girls Academy against the decree of MEXT, Tsuji Renta couldn’t altogether restrain his malevolent smirk when he thought about one particular vehicle, newly added to the University Team, that couldn’t be called a tank by any reasonable definition.

   Now, at last, the two sides would be sent to their respective start positions, and the crushing of Ōarai’s hopes would begin.  Tsuji frowned as he noticed that Shimada Arisu, the University Team’s thirteen-year-old leader, had drawn the chief referee, Sasagawa, aside, speaking to her in an urgent manner.  He couldn’t hear the distant conversation, but saw Sasagawa nod.  With a bow, Shimada-kun turned and walked toward Tsuji. 

   She came to a halt in front of him, at about three meters distance.  He felt a trace of unease at the direct way the child eyed him for nearly ten full seconds before bowing … bowing with a crisp exactitude almost as borderline-rude as that measuring stare.  

   “Tsuji-san,” the girl said, voice flat.  Her chilly tone was just barely deferential enough not to be outright ill-mannered.  “My officers and I have taken the time to examine in detail the conditions you set for this match.  The dishonorable conditions.”  That shook him.  That was a categorical rebuke, and grossly insulting.  

   “In spite of our displeasure at being used as your agents in this improper way, the University Team will carry out the mission … because we have come to the suspicion that if we didn’t, you would be even more ignoble and declare Ōarai Girls Academy to have forfeited.  We have, however, one further message for you, Tsuji-san.  One which we feel appropriate to the shame you have brought upon all Sensha-dō.”  

   All of a sudden, he became aware that while the girl quietly berated him, the three Chaffee scout tanks had approached to within fifty meters.  Their 75mm guns, the bureaucrat saw with dawning horror that hadn’t quite reached the point of being fear, were aimed directly at him.  They couldn’t possibly intend killing him, Tsuji assured himself.  Not so publicly….

   The Shimada’s disrespectful child turned and stepped several paces to one side, giving Tsuji a still clearer view into the three cannon muzzles.  For almost five seconds he stared at them, wondering if the obstreperous young females were trying to bluff him into humiliating himself by publicly showing fear.  Then the guns fired in unison.  

   The sound was oddly more muffled than normal; although he’d long privately disdained the practitioners of Sensha-dō, Tsuji Renta had adequate close-quarters familiarity with their mechanisms to know how three cannon firing at once should sound.  It was understandable, however.  Rather than shells, a spray of yellow paint jetted from each muzzle.  

   The propelling charge must have been reduced with careful precision, he thought much later, when he had time to consider the matter in stomach-churning detail.  Even at such pointblank range, getting hit squarely by all three guns’ worth of paint didn’t even knock Tsuji from his chair.  It was very smelly paint, too.   Sick with the desire to take vengeance, yet knowing he couldn’t — he dared not — he wondered whether the defiant youngsters had mixed something into the paint specifically to make it smell so filthy.  

   And the bureaucrat couldn’t do anything about it.  Taking any action against Shimada Arisu, or the University Team as a whole, would bring out all the details.  At best he’d become a laughingstock.  At worst, MEXT would have no place for an administrator who couldn’t even make a proper job of weighting the scales against victims of his grudges.

   The aim of the Chaffee gunners, too, was most precise.  Kodama-san, sitting within a meter of Tsuji, had not so much as a drop of paint on him.  The old man had raised his fan to cover his mouth.  Tsuji had dire suspicions as to what expression that fan hid.

   One other thing struck Tsuji Renta in that moment.  A sound he’d heard distinctly, even with the paint all over him and dripping.  Slowly, unable to believe his ears but not willing to leave the question unexplored, he turned his head.

   Shimada Chiyo was gazing at her vile daughter with approval, pride, infuriating Tsuji even more than the impudent teen’s words of reprimand, but she didn’t stand near enough to him to be the source of the improbable sound he’d heard.  

   The person who was close enough looked back at him, as stern as ever, except … that might be, on her lips, the tiny not-quite-smile he’d seen in his office when the Kadotani miscreant demanded — demanded! — he sign the agreement to give Ōarai another chance.  

   That noise could have come from no one else, he thought.  No one else was in the right spot.  But it was so unbelievable; so out-of-character.  Had his ears in fact deceived the bureaucrat — or had the fearsome Nishizumi Shiho actually giggled when the paint hit him?

-----
I'm a very forgiving person ... on Lord Vader's terms.  "Apology accepted, Captain."

Author's Note: Mentioned this SG in the open house thread, figured I'd finally get around to posting the hook for it publicly, as the redside counterpart to Acyl's Exemplar Foundation.

***

Are you tired of fighting the law and the law winning?

Does the Rogue Isles' survival of the fittest make you feel like you could stand to cut a little dead weight?

Are you tired of being unable to tell a competent henchman who's profit motivated from a cheap thug who doesn't realize trying to shake down his boss for pocket change isn't a credible long term career strategy?

Malefactor LLC is here to help.

Malefactor LLC surveys a wide variety of extralegal resources for your profit-oriented career trajectory. Bank vault owned by a sorcerer with arcane wards? Malefactor can put you in touch with some of the top demonic code crackers in just minutes. Need to beat the heat because of a job that got too hot? Malefactor knows the best in the business in cosmetic surgery and identification procurement for whether you're hiding from over-enthusiastic legal sanction or just your ex-wife while on a date with a new flame. 

Malefactor also services the lower rung of the extralegal ladder by providing a variety of surveys regarding your skills as a henchman, preferences for compensation, and even throws in identification of mortality rates of employees that have worked under the consumer whose job offer you're considering!

Regular contact with a variety of buyers means that no matter what you just pulled out of the safe, Malefactor can find a buyer and a competitive price to keep you in food, exotic chemical formulae, or just the Olympic sized swimming pool full of gold coins you've always wanted.

Here at Malefactor, we think that any extralegal consumer on the street should be able to afford beneficial organization for their day to day work, a bonus limited to organized law and crime alone for too long. 

Malefactor LLC. We're here to help you help yourselves... to anything you want.

Always, always a WIP, a proper base is. But here's a listing of passcodes to get into some various bases.

Riot Force 6 (Blueside): RIOT6-1057
Scimitar Securities (Redside):  BGC-4604
Malefactor LLC (Redside): PARTNER-4455

Riot's mostly Spud's work, while he's consulted a bit on Scimitar and Malefactor was something I knocked out in a night so people in the SG wouldn't have to use coalitions to teleport to the Rogue Isles zones at least.

Have you been following BeaconHill's fic Nemesis on SB and/or SV? If not, you're missing out, but the short version is that when Emma buys powers from Cauldron and becomes the hot new Ward, Taylor takes up the role of a joke villain in order to trash her in the court of public opinion. This is a filk omake I made following some of the discussion on SV.

(with apologies to Gilbert and Sullivan)


(Gallant)
Hold, Emma!
Ere your irate vendetta proceed
against our wills to escalate
just bear in mind that we are Wards in Brockton Bay,
And Bumblebee is a humour criminal!

(Shadow Stalker)
We'd better pass,
or Piggy will have our ass.
Bumblebee is a humour criminal!

(Wards)
Yes, yes, she is a humour criminal!

(Bumblebee)
Yes, yes, I am a humour criminal!

(Bees begin buzzing in tune)
I am the very model of a Brockton humour criminal,
I've stolen ice cream, petty cash, and things that are less physical
My nemesis Crystalia's dignity is now minimal
The way she blows her top in public is hardly well spinnable;

I've gotten more acquainted, too, with other Wards more reasonable
Who stop to toss a frisbee when the summer weather's seasonable
My reputation's comical and clips are always on the news (on the news... on the news...)
And I know how to tumble if I trip running in high heel shoes!

My fuzzy minion bumblebees are cute and very cuddlesome
Although their poor coordination often is quite troublesome:
In short, in matters ideologolical and visual,
I am the very model of a Brockton humour criminal.

I've vandalized and tried to steal our founder Brock's statuary
By lifting it with a net and more bees than an apiary
And though I had to cheese it when Crystalia came running in
I still escaped with ease and got some awful insect punning in;

I can't tell you what twisted thoughts have led her to obsess on me
All I can say is it doesn't seem likely she'll be and let bee
Still with every appearance I do seem to be making quite a buzz (hm, quite a buzz... Ah! I have it!)
With villainy and slapstick in the grandest game there ever was!

Perhaps one day I'll recruit a bee-tween sidekick and learn the quadrille
So she can translate for my bees with dance on top of Captain's Hill
In short, in matters ideologolical and visual,
I am the very model of a Brockton humour criminal.

In fact, when my lair's filled with loot just like a golden honeycomb
When I've escaped the heroes and have taken all the money home
When I've achieved the highest popular rating on PHO
When my wiki page has been filled out with "this is that" and "such is so,"

When such affairs as burglaries and stick ups I'm an expert of,
Yet hero teams are begging to recruit me for the public's love,
When I have raised awareness for colony collapse and parasites
When my apian crime wave has gone on for at least six dozen nights
In short, when I have brought into clear focus pollinator's rights (oh, that is a tough one... Aha!)
You'll say a better humour criminal has never come to light!

For my criminal ambitions, though I'm plucky and adorable,
Are entirely illegal, immoral, and yes, deplorable;
In short, in matters ideologolical and visual,
I am the very model of a Brockton humour criminal.


--------

Whew, that was easier than expected yet harder than just writing a prose omake. Now, who else is imagining Bumblebee doing the "With cat-like tread" song?

Star Rangers Log.  Confidential
 
Ah, who am I kidding.  The whole reason for this particular log entry is because Mag Flashlight asked.  And it will be tagged so that he can access it whenever he gets around to it.  And give access to whoever else he thinks needs to see it.  Ergo, if your reading this, you have a need to know, for whatever reason.
 
Short form is:  This is not the only Paragon City.  Sure, its semi common knowledge, after all it seems like every hero, and or villain, winds up dealing with the best known of them.  The one where the Family is Dominant.  The Fifth Column world that is the home of the Reichsman.
 
But there is one more.  One that found out what at least one version of the Coming Storm was.  And paid for that knowledge with its very existence.  The dimension I *THINK* was my home.  Wiped from existence by Battalion.  I expect that if your reading this, your very highly ranked either in the Legendary directly, or one of our sister supergroups of the coalition Mags forged.  Which means I probably remember an alternate version of you.  Yes, very Schrodinger’s Cat, or Heisenberg’s principal.  If your uncertain about that… join the club.  I am too.  Still, very much the same as here, though not a complete mirror.  For example, while the titanic Trio of Terrance Knight, Emerald Blast and Emerald Defender were just as much a powerhouse trio, and just as much in love with each other as here…  They were not completely the same.  I know Rhea and Lisa are here, and involved with Terr… and that is the difference.  The Terrance I ‘grew up’ with once I reached Paragon City. The one who mentored a crazy half human half machine blapper into something almost combat effective on his own?  He was a Tank, yes.  Something tells me no matter where one goes in the multiverse Terrance Knight is ALWAYS a tank; just like there is always some sort of force that keeps one’s feet on planets and such.  The Terr I knew, and teased, and found myself face down in the dirt when he zigged and I zagged?  He was not a rad armor tank.  Nope.  Mr. Natural beefcake was Invulnerable.  Or maybe like Staff Sargent Shortimer, so full of willpower he forced the whole damn universe to conform.  A universe where Evangelina was the founding force, not just of the Legendary, but the one who founded our coalition.
 
I think I’ve drifted off topic of what Mags is hoping to learn from this, or having me write down to explain to others.  If I know what that wily old space marine is thinking, he’s hoping for a data dump on everything I know about the Battalion.  I just wish I knew more.  What I do know is that at one point we were tasked by Faathim the Kind, an aspect of Mad Rularuu, to defeat another of Rularuu’s aspects, Lanaruu.  This aspect wasn’t just mad… he was MAD.  Angry, Mad…  As in destroy everything even though its where he keeps his own stuff mad.  And just as we succeeded…  We failed.  The Battalion somehow corrupted what we were doing.  Used it to take control of Lanaruu; and through him ALL the aspects of Rularuu.  Which gave them control of the Shadow Shard’s version of the Well.  And that was endgame, both for the shadow shard I knew and what I believe is my own home Paragon.  The Battalion consumed the Shadow Shard’s well, adding its power to their own.  They took control of Rularuu’s Watchers.  You know, the ones that look like giant floating Eyeballs?  Well, if you don’t yet, you soon will.  Transformed them.  Created…  Well Dark Seraph and I finally settled on Langoliers.  If you are not familiar with them, go Google them.  (link: Langoliers).  All those eyeball shaped beasties with the sharp teeth first ate EVERYTHING in the Shadow Shard.  Then they came for us.  For the world I think of as ‘home’.  The only saving grace?  Their entry point to our world was not Paragon City, but three quarters of the world away from us.  Fortunately, turning a whole world into NOTHING takes time.  Time Dark Seraph and I, along with Tina McIntyre, used to come up with an idea.  One we had no way of knowing would work…  but we were *HEROES.*  Blessed by fate.  By the Well of Souls itself.  The worse the odds against us were, the more likely it was we would succeed.  Defiant to the end.
 
But still the end came for us, even as we spat in its face.  Below the Arena of Peregrine Island, there is … a something.  Not a Portal that Tina was familiar with.  But between myself the master of !Science, Dark Seraph, a maven of magic who made any member of the Cabal look like a child playing at spell casting, and Tina McIntyre, the one person who knew more about portals than anyone save Dr Webb himself?  We turned that thing under the PI arena into the ultimate escape route.  Near as I can tell, EVERY Hero on the planet that was not a member of the Legendries’ coalition chose to go out to fight the Langoliers.  And Died.  Some because they did not believe us.  Others, Like Positron and the Freedom Phalanx, choosing to sacrifice themselves to delay things as much as possible, to get as many mundane citizens to whatever safety was on the other side as possible.  Dr Keys, in fact, was the lynchpin of the final defense of his reactor in Terra Volta; And fought till the very end to keep life giving power flowing to us, to keep portals open and get as many people out as we could.  As one by one portal and teleport sites fell silent, devoured.  Until only we were left.  I was in battle mode when that last one, and Positrons reactor in Terra Volta fell off the grid within milliseconds of each other.  So, no tears blurred my optic sensors, but my voice still choked as I told Evangelina.  And she issued the order I had struggled for so long to try and avoid even as Dark Seraph and I crafted the plans for it.
 
Dunkirk.  *Fucking* *Dunkirk.*
 
And we held.  Took no casualties as we evacuated the remaining civilians inside our perimeter.  And then, once the civilians were safe, our perimeter slowly collapsed as we evacuated as well.  The Children and Instructors of the Legendary Academy.  The members of the PPD’s Paragon Special Investigations.  Riot Force, with Sylia Stingray, the Silicon Sabre, choosing to be last, making sure her own were through first.  Rhea and Lisa, Emerald Blast and Emerald Defender, standing Side by side with Terrance as our last line of defense until it was just the six of us.  Evangelina giving them her ‘don’t even think about it’ look to chase them through the portal before falling back herself; leaving just Terrance, Dark Seraph, and myself.  As well as the inevitable argument I’d been dreading since it started.  NONE of us wanted to go first, not out of fear of where the portal would lead, but because each of us felt we were the one best suited to stay behind and make sure the other two got to safety.
 
An argument that Terrance, in his own stubborn way, won, in typical Terrance fashion.  After one last use of high knockback attacks to clear him a bit of breathing room, he frickin cold cocked both Dark Seraph and myself.  I assume he threw us both through the portal before entering himself; but I was unconscious, because, um… Terrance.
 
I woke up here.  Level 1 once again, in the middle of the Outbreak.  With two sets of memories, one from there and one from what I assume my life would have been here if there had never happened.  Some were the same.  Growing up, Serving my country in the navy.  Going to Cal Tech and getting into the study of Ritiki Teleportation.  Being forced to prove my theories, only to teleport myself into someone else’s probe also based on Ritiki tech.  From there, my memories of ‘here’ jumped forward to Outbreak, while a second string covered everything I’d done… well… there.  Kind of like a massive Ouroboros Task Force, with only me remembering.
 
Which brings us back to where we both are, myself the person writing this for Mag Flashlight, and you, the person he had me writing this explanation for.  None of the three of us really know what is next; but as for me, I’ll do whatever it takes to keep that ‘alternate’ life… the one where my whole world dies, to keep from happening here.
 
End Log entry.

CBC Opinion column: If your god discredits the humanity of a group of people there is a problem with your god

Yes, this is a reaction to the document released by the Vatican last week. The author is a Protestant minister.

Quote:As part of the Christian tradition I must fight any expression of Christian faith that deals in oppression.

1 John 4:7-8 Wrote:Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

Michael Palin is now Sir Michael Palin.

For my job, summer is conference season, so I get to do a lot of traveling.  I'm heading off tomorrow for a week for a week in Pittsburgh, which is not terribly exciting.  At least it will be an escape from the June Gloom.

But as an American, the European conferences are more exciting.  In late July and early August, I'll be heading to Amsterdam, Prague, and Riga for various programming related groups.  It helps that half of my coworkers live in Europe, and my boss is part-owner of the company and likes writing off travel to Europe.  Last year I visited Scotland, which was pretty amazing, but I'm a little apprehensive about places where people speak less English (not including NL obviously).

Anyone here going somewhere interesting this summer?  Anyone interested it meeting up somewhere for a drink or something?