MaoTheLawn

Using an old 'gravity slate train' and an engine, he uses the tracks in the timetabled trains downtime. What a time to be alive. And gravity trains too: https://youtu.be/-A7sZVgct3E

WARNING: PSYCHIC DAMAGE AWAITS. LIBERALISM ON 12 COUNTS. BBC JOURNALISM MOMENTS AHEAD.

BBC's headline: Western ambassadors shun Nagasaki ceremony over Israel snub - BBC News.

Highlights:

• "The mayor of the south-western Japanese city, Shiro Suzuki, said on Thursday that Israel not being invited to attend was not politically motivated but added there would be no change to the decision.

Nothing is political. Repeat. Nothing is political.

• The remarks come a day after it was revealed that the ambassadors of the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the US and the European Union had sent a letter to Nagasaki in mid-July saying "it would become difficult for us to have high-level participation" in the event if Israel was excluded.

The usual culprits.

• "It is unfortunate that they have communicated to us that their ambassadors are not able to attend," he said. British Ambassador Longbottom (who would not be attending) had said that the decision not to invite Israel created an unfortunate and misleading equivalency with Russia and Belarus (the only other countries not invited to this year's ceremony.)

Liberal moment.

• Mr Suzuki said security reasons, including potential demonstrations, were behind his decision not to invite Israel to the commemoration ceremony. But he said he regretted the ambassadors' decision.

This bits interesting. I actually think Suzuki might be trying to cover his tracks and appeal to liberalism/security while truly believing in his decision to boycott Israel. I don't know much about him, but as you'll see later in the article he did call for a ceasefire.

• US Ambassador Rahm Emanuel will also not attend. An embassy statement said the mayor of Nagasaki politicised the event by snubbing Israel.

POLITICIANS. STOP BEING POLITICAL. THE NUKING OF NAGASAKI WAS NOT POLITICAL. ISRAEL IS NOT POLITICAL. STOP BEING POLITICAL, OR I WILL HAVE TO POLITICISE YOU.

• A spokesperson told the BBC the ambassador would instead go to a peace ceremony at a temple in Tokyo. Israel's ambassador to Japan, Gilad Cohen, who was invited to and attended a memorial ceremony in Hiroshima on Tuesday, said Nagasaki’s decision "sends a wrong message to the world".

Does it now, Cohen.

• In June, Mr Suzuki said Nagasaki had sent a letter to the Israeli embassy calling for an "immediate ceasefire" in Gaza.

Gottem. Ish.

• Israel's massive military offensive in Gaza has led to the deaths of almost 40,000 Palestinians, Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry says.

So they say, those Hamas terrorists. By the way, Israel doesn't kill. It leads to the deaths of persons.

• It was triggered by the 7 October Hamas attacks on Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken back to Gaza as hostages.

Had to get that one in. It's like the liberal version of getting the stone island badge in. Definitely no history before that point. Nothing to see here. No politics or history to be had here. Just good and bad. 👍

This one's a picture from the Brighton protest. Similar thing across the whole country. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/riots-uk-today-london-birmingham-protest-immigration-centre-b2592456.html - 'UK riots live: Up to 25,000 counter-protesters march in clear message to far-right after 100 rallies planned - Around 100 far-right rallies failed to materialise as thousands of counter-protesters took to the streets of the UK'

I went to a different one. 2 skinheads skulked around the outside but did nothing, then got bag searched by the police and told to go home. The whole counter protest turned into a celebration, with people marching the streets with slogans, music, singing, dancing, drinking, and so on and on. Just a big left-ish street party of all ages and races.

It was actually very heartwarming. I overheard a lot of great things. In particular, especially from older immigrant men, who expressed grateful surprise at the numbers and mixed demographic of the anti fascists. Many said they felt loved by the city. A very merry time.

How stupid do they think China is

Full on roaming EDL gangs. Pretty insane stuff. This article doesn't do it justice. Most of the footage I've seen has been on Instagram.

The craziest part is they started in response to a misogynist terror attack in Southport. The suspect of the terror attack was Welsh born, with parents from Rwanda, and is most likely Christian. So naturally they started lynching Muslims.

EDIT: This next part is dubious.

Apparently before it all kicked off there was a russian clickfarm that posted a fake article calling the suspect 'Ali Muhammad' or some sort of very stereotypical islamic name, before all the real information had come out.

I mean, not that you can really blame it all on that. It was just a fuse waiting to be lit.

More accurately investigated here: https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2024-08-02/did-russian-disinformation-fuel-the-southport-protests/

She got him

Nature is healing

Come contribute your analysis in the comments, vibes based or otherwise.

I think sometimes it depends on the topic.

Reuters is good at getting some key points and missing full state department spin, but the problem is that they have a reputation as non-biased, and that reputation means they/you do not bother to inspect their own ideology. In other mainstream media, it's easy to spot the political spin and bias if you know what you're looking for, but Reuters is much more clandestine, and possibly unintentionally so.

I imagine it to be ran by 'well meaning' liberals who have a level of journalistic integrity, that is born from 'do the right thing in the name of democracy' rather than from a serious political education.

So they thoroughly explore 'both sides' a lot, while presenting all of their information with a very 'objective' feeling register of language, in the process omitting important facts/framings that they would deem to be inducing a level of political bias.

That said, I will say they're not otherwise too worthy of my ire in comparison to other major media organisations.

Weirdly, I was researching Venezuela recently for a stageplay I'm writing, and Bloomberg gave surprisingly good coverage of events I didn't expect them to bother with. You wouldn't be able to form a meaningful analysis of venezuela based on their coverage alone, but I was still quite shocked that I found bits of their coverage to be pretty OK, and sometimes divergent from the usual state department shit that CNN or even The Guardian would put out. Very curious.