Project REDMAP is a secret policy plan from a republican dark money group to maintain permanent state control over states thru aggressive and targeted gerrymandering
It only came to light after the main redistricting strategist behind the plan died and his daughter took some of his old files
His daughter made a website for everything she was able to get but it’s long gone from the internet now. But stories about it are still up, the strategist’s wiki is still up, and you can still find different documents floating around loose.
A lot of it’s been scrubbed by the RNC and the scummy corporation this strategist started for all this which is another crazy story.
Checkout a rabbit hole that’s an actual conspiracy and actually did happen!

I am specifically referring to National Bolshevism as the term was originally coined, rather than any group of people who may have labelled themselves "National Boshelviks" since. The term predates even the establishment of the Soviet Union in 1922, let alone any other 20th century regime. The term was originally used by Karl Radek to describe two member he was expelling as "National Boshelviks". What these people wanted to do was align the revolutionary movement in Germany with that in Russia in mutual opposition to both the treaty of Versailles and the treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
I am specifically defending the prospect of this strategy in particular rather than specifically any person who might have been or could have been advocating for it and any ideas they might have had otherwise, not because it is national, or even bolshevik, but rather because I think it conforms with the idea in the Communist Manifesto of the role of Communists in relation to Proletarians where the Communists do not form separate political programs of their own and instead are supposed to align various proletarians movements together across nationality with respect to the current stage than any of those movements may find themselves in.

In what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians as a whole?
The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other working-class parties.
They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole.
They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement.
The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties by this only: 1. In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. 2. In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.

Therefore the irony of this position I am defending is that it was the one advocated for by people labelled National, which would clearly seem to be contrary to being independent of nationality, and Bolshevik who would seem to be sectarians seeking to mold to proletarian movement. The other irony is that for it to have been possible it would have required overcoming proletarian movements in different nationalities operating independent of one another, in addition to overcoming the sectarianism emerging between all the differing "Communist" movements. In other words this is another call in an endless stream of "stop infighting!" coupled with "everyone except for me is wrong" which just contributes to the infighting by creating a new sectarian divergence but there is very little that can be done about that. Mostly this is just an excuse to discuss a particular moment I find interesting and inner contrarian in me just wants to make the seemingly most insane position seem the most reasonable as a challenge.
Lenin was not in favour of this so it was a bit of a non-starter. In "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder he criticizes people who refuse to recognize the treaties, but in addition to the tendencies of so-called National Bolsheviks, he also criticized the Left-Communists that Karl Radek and the other German Revolutionaries were often members. Here we can start to see a problem emerging as you clearly have two different revolutionary movements in two different countries who are having difficulty working with each other (with the problem of the treaties between these countries not even being the main issue they were squabbling over). Indeed while not around long enough to have become officially a Left-Communist herself, Luxembourg is associated with them as her writings are cited as a major influence on the tendency, and she is notable for criticizing Lenin's Bolshevism.
There was a lot of confusion in this period and numerous tendencies diverging from one another, the reason being is that in the wake of the Russian Revolution and the end of the First World War there was a period of revolutionary activity across the entire world. While Russia and Germany are often the most focused upon due to the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany being our core 20th century players and many seeing these revolutions as the origin points of these things with a compare and contrast analysis being done to understand while one failed and the other succeeded, in the light of understanding the world revolution as a wave, looking at just these two revolutions becomes parochial, as there was clearly one singular revolution going on across the world in the same way as during the Revolutions of 1848 where the Communist Manifesto was published.
Indeed Marx and Engels viewed that as a singular revolution and would have viewed the similar wave of revolutions that peaked in 1919 but spanned from 1917-1923 as a singular revolution. While differing in severity there was revolutionary activity in numerous countries ranging from the Two Red Years in Italy to the much less impressive sounding Red Week) in the Netherlands. Even as far away as Canada, Australia, and South Africa there were labour revolts in this period. The case of Canada is a bit emblematic of the obscurity of the scale of these events, as while the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 is well known, much like with only Russia and Germany beings discussed, the strike wave nature of the events in Canada just as in the world tends to fall out of discussion, as for instance this wave actually started with a general strike in Vancouver that was crushed by the military.
In the Preface to the 1882 Russian Edition of the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels even suggested in the wake of the assassination of the Tsar Liberator that the impending Russian (bourgeois) Revolution would serve as a signal for the Western proletariat to have their Revolution, and that the Russian Revolution could end up being communist alongside the West.

And now Russia! During the Revolution of 1848-9, not only the European princes, but the European bourgeois as well, found their only salvation from the proletariat just beginning to awaken in Russian intervention. The Tsar was proclaimed the chief of European reaction. Today, he is a prisoner of war of the revolution in Gatchina, and Russia forms the vanguard of revolutionary action in Europe.
The Communist Manifesto had, as its object, the proclamation of the inevitable impending dissolution of modern bourgeois property. But in Russia we find, face-to-face with the rapidly flowering capitalist swindle and bourgeois property, just beginning to develop, more than half the land owned in common by the peasants. Now the question is: can the Russian obshchina, though greatly undermined, yet a form of primeval common ownership of land, pass directly to the higher form of Communist common ownership? Or, on the contrary, must it first pass through the same process of dissolution such as constitutes the historical evolution of the West?
The only answer to that possible today is this: If the Russian Revolution becomes the signal for a proletarian revolution in the West, so that both complement each other, the present Russian common ownership of land may serve as the starting point for a communist development.

Now 1882 didn't turn into a revolution in Russia and there were several false starts like in 1905, but eventually it did finally happen. However seemingly with Lenin's New Economic Policy, both scenarios discussed ended up needing to happen. The Russian Revolution was both Communist and they felt it impossible to transition straight into Communism and thus had to allow some kind of bourgeois property relation to develop, and then later on had to eliminate this thing they created themselves in a rather unfortunate series of events. Additionally while the Russian Revolution did prove to be a signal for the Western proletariat to have their revolution, the proletariat revolution failed. In the spirit of this discussion I'm going to be argue that these were not separate incidents but rather the failure of the western proletariat's revolution is why Lenin implemented the NEP in 1922, in part because of internal rebellions calling for these things and because the international revolution seemingly failed resulting in a loss of hope that the western proletariat would in some way save them, which had to result in some kind of proletarian vanguard party lead bourgeois state emerging on the fly. Stalin would later have to undo this both these consequences in the events he is most criticized for, as in addition to reversing the NEP with collectivization, he undid the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk when as Molotov said "One kick from the German army and another from the Soviet Army put an end to this ugly product of Versailles" in regards to Poland. Polish independence being quite the unfortunate sacrifice here considering how supportive of it Engels was in the 1892 Polish Preface the the Communist Manifesto.

But the rapid development of Polish industry, outstripping that of Russia, is in its turn a new proof of the inexhaustible vitality of the Polish people and a new guarantee of its impending national restoration. And the restoration of an independent and strong Poland is a matter which concerns not only the Poles but all of us. A sincere international collaboration of the European nations is possible only if each of these nations is fully autonomous in its own house. The Revolution of 1848, which under the banner of the proletariat, after all, merely let the proletarian fighters do the work of the bourgeoisie, also secured the independence of Italy, Germany and Hungary through its testamentary executors, Louis Bonaparte and Bismarck; but Poland, which since 1792 had done more for the Revolution than all these three together, was left to its own resources when it succumbed in 1863 to a tenfold greater Russian force. The nobility could neither maintain nor regain Polish independence; today, to the bourgeoisie, this independence is, to say the last, immaterial. Nevertheless, it is a necessity for the harmonious collaboration of the European nations. It can be gained only by the young Polish proletariat, and in its hands it is secure. For the workers of all the rest of Europe need the independence of Poland just as much as the Polish workers themselves.

(The call for "full autonomy in a nations own house" is probably worth explaining. Nations that should be autonomous are nations which can be autonomous all on their own without international meddling. Engels was notoriously against all the south slavs for their pan-slavism because their independence was necessitated by interference from Imperial Russia, in part because he was still mad about the revolutions of 1848 not working out. He was even still mad at them 34 years later when he reaffirmed Polish independence alongside Irish independence as the most crucial national struggles to support. The reason being that Poland rejected pan-Slavism and was instead independently nationalist. That Poland could stand alone (and more importantly that Polish agitation threatened three reactionary imperial monarchies in Germany, Austria, and Russia at the same time. Ireland being important to screw around with the bourgeois British Empire as Marx and Engels increasingly saw the absentee revenues the British ruling class generated for themselves in Ireland as being the key to their parliamentary political dominance in England against both lower class and anti-imperialist challenges which were often the same thing) is why Polish independence was so supported. Standing alone is important because autonomous nations can switch between the rule of various classes without the risk of foreign interference on the part of imperialist reactionaries putting things back the way they were to protect their sphere of influence. The issue is that Polish independence ended up being a thorn in the side of the revolution when Polish independence was granted through Wilsonian liberal internationalism and during the Russian Civil War the Red Army tried and failed to retaliate against Poland when they joined forces with the Entente Liberal Imperialists in the Soviet-Poland War.
For NATO fans the opposition to NATO comes from this concept of being against spheres of influence, with a preference for complete independence. The Soviets or even Russia joining NATO however transform the institution from an American sphere of influence into just some vague "nobody invade anybody else okay guys thanks" treaty which is what it is sold as. So long as Russia is not included in NATO it fails to fulfill its stated purpose, and it must be opposed because it does not protect the independence of the nations within it, rather it makes them subservient to the United States, and the counter-balance of Russia inside the block is sufficient that the nations within it could seamlessly transfer between spheres of influence, or more importantly, not be in anyone's sphere of influence by successfully playing the US and Russia off each other, which puts each nation in a position to pursue development with little risk of the alliance being used to punish them. In fact if say Luxembourg decided to go rogue it could even use the NATO treaty to argue that anyone infringing upon them should be subjected to retaliation by all the other members, and now they have a socialist Luxembourg in the middle of Europe and they can't do anything about it because the treaty guarantees their independence with multiple dozen moving parts so long as Luxembourg doesn't militarily invade anybody. However if the organization is nothing more that an American political block with US bases every where, clearly the US would be able to pressure people into recognizing the socialist Luxembourg as illegitimate in some way and argue it can be invaded without requiring everyone come to its defense. So NATO good if Russia included and US bases removed, an in NATO Russia still isn't a threat to even Estonia if dozens of European countries are required to defend it, and that isn't even considering a late arrival of the US and Canada when they finally cross the Atlantic. The problem with NATO is that it is clearly an unofficial loosely held US empire, it stops being a problem when it is no longer this)
This whole confused mess could have been avoided had the world revolution not failed. This circles back to the Russian and German revolutions and how they were not united. Therefore the position of those labelled Nazbol is attractive merely for the sake that it would have united these two disparate revolutions. The success of either was reliant on the success of the other. The prior Bolshevik position of Peace Without Annexations or Indemnities would permanently lock in the Russian and German revolutions together in a mutual opposition to the bourgeois treaties, a pact of blood to oppose the pacts signed in ink.
Additionally opposition to the indemnity aspect of the treaty of Versailles would have been in fidelity to the revolutionary history of the Paris Commune which inspired the notion of the dictatorship of the proletariat in 1871, which was prompted in part by opposition to the burden of the reparation payments imposed on France by Bismark in response to Napolean III's failed invasion being placed on the people of France by the bourgeois government that signed that treaty. On a global scale while the opportunity for revolution by the proletariat refusing to enter World War One was squandered by the Social Democrats granting their permission, the proletariat could instead refuse to exit World War One by not granting their permission for acceptance of the bourgeois treaties just as the Paris Commune refused to accept Bismark's treaty.
Indeed opposition to the bourgeois Treaty of Trianon served as the basis for cooperation between the Nationalists and the Communists in Hungary, who unlike the Luxembourgists in Germany, were internationally aligned with the Boshelviks in Russia with the establishment of the Hungarian Soviet Republic. The alliance however broke down with the establishment of the Slovak Soviet Republic as the Hungarian nationalists questioned why they were participating in the Hungarian Red Army if they were just going to be liberating other countries, this ended up not even being that relevant of a dispute seeing as Slovakia was never fully captured and the Czechoslovak army ended up recapturing it in a month and so the issue only lasted from June 1919 to July 1919. However it exposed the core obvious problem with the alliance between nationalists and communists, as the full Petrograd formula was "peace without annexations or indemnities, on the basis of self-determination of the peoples" so the nationalists opposed to treaties were not going to like it when the second part got implemented later.
Lenin and Stalin ran into a similar issue when Stalin opposed Georgian self-determination in 1922 and wanted them to instead join Russia, with the comical situation of Stalin calling the Georgian Mensheviks "nationalist-socialists" and the Russian Lenin accusing the Georgian Stalin of being a Russian nationalist-socialist in response. We can clearly see that there are vastly differing views on the questions of nationality all over the place and there was no one line being taken, with Hungary and Germany taking vastly different views in regards to the treaties and cooperation with nationalists, to their own unique sets of problems later on with them.
The vastly different ways everyone was handling these issues is why I argue that the best principle would have been to have no principles at all. The only communist principle in regards to nationality is international cooperation. Indeed while you had Communist revolutions in German, Hungary, and Russia, the common thread uniting them of opposition to the bourgeois treaties would have also united them with the liberal Kemalist revolution in Turkey, thus completing the alignment of all revolutionaries in the central powers and Imperial Russia against the rest of the entente attempting to impose the bourgeois treaties, in effect adding Russia to the central powers after the imperialist war had turned into a civil war in all four imperial monarchies. That Turkey was in a vastly different stage of revolution than the other three would be irrelevant as these revolutions would still be mutually supporting of each other, and the Communists could rest assured safely knowing that while differing countries might be in different stages of revolution, they had the advantage over all others in knowing the ultimate end result of all their revolutions even if the people operating in them might not know it themselves.

The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement.

As such the notion that one needs to be politically Communist to participate in the revolution is false. So long as a state of revolution remained the stages of the revolution could continue moving forward. If Turkey was not materially ready for it, that need not matter so long as the Kemalists were willing to join in an anti-imperialist block in the mean time, which they were willing to do until the Soviets later started looking at the straights with desire which eventually pushed Turkey into the arms of NATO where it remains to this day. However at the time the Soviets and Turkey were quite friendly despite their obvious ideological differences merely based on this mutual geopolitical interest in so-called anti-imperialism. This anti-imperialism was selective however, with the "Mountain Turks" and "Mountain Russians" being sacrificed for it, but the benefits of not having principles means you don't exactly have to care about that. Ataturk can make poutine out of the Kurds all he wants if he remains staunchly anti-imperialist on an international level. This gross cynical realism while obviously questionable is still consistent with Revolutionary History as all prior revolutions do not stand up to moral scrutiny when they are viewed in this way. In fact at the twilight of the 1848 revolutions Engels himself called for the Hungarians to wipeout the "counter-revolutionary" Slavs, while this is obviously not something we should want to have happened, and we definitely should not ever do this if we ever find ourselves in a position to make those decisions, it is important to understand the reasoning behind why he was saying those things, that it is the continuance of the revolution itself is both the most important thing, and something that is largely out of anyone's control in the Hegelian sense of Historicism.

The Magyar cause is not in such a bad way as mercenary black-and-yellow [colours of the Austrian flag] enthusiasm would have us believe. The Magyars are not yet defeated. But if they fall, they will fall gloriously, as the last heroes of the 1848 revolution, and only for a short time. Then for a time the Slav counter-revolution will sweep down on the Austrian monarchy with all its barbarity, and the camarilla will see what sort of allies it has. But at the first victorious uprising of the French proletariat, which Louis Napoleon is striving with all his might to conjure up, the Austrian Germans and Magyars will be set free and wreak a bloody revenge on the Slav barbarians. The general war which will then break out will smash this Slav Sonderbund and wipe out all these petty hidebound nations, down to their very names.
The next world war will result in the disappearance from the face of the earth not only of reactionary classes and dynasties, but also of entire reactionary peoples. And that, too, is a step forward.

A key fact you will observe is that they are often quite over eager in announcing the impending revolution. For instance The Magyar Struggle was published in January of 1849 in Marx's Newspaper, and Louis Napoleon was elected President of France in December of 1848. It seems as if they might have thought that this would have been more significant than it actually turned out to be. This kind of made sense though because Louis Napoleon's main opponent in the election was Louis-Eugene Cavagnac who lead the army to suppress a worker's uprising in Paris back in the "June Days" of 1848. Additionally the Hungarians did not do this, instead they adopted cultural assimilation policies called Magyarization, and late in the revolution into 1849 while the Russian and Austria Imperial armies were barring down on them they adopted minority right protections to try to win them back. However they were ultimately unsuccessful in repelling the Russian invasion regardless of any attempts at outreach.
What I find notable about this is that Engels essentially predicted the sides of the "next world war" (albeit there was a world war in between) that would wipeout entire peoples, but somehow ended up reversing the reactionary and revolutionary sides, as an Austrian German and the Hungarians did engage in a war against the Slavs, but because somehow the "poles of revolution" did somehow invert and head outwards from Russia like Engels said the Slavs supposedly wanted, that war was against the revolution instead of for it.

There is no country in Europe which does not have in some corner or other one or several ruined fragments of peoples, the remnant of a former population that was suppressed and held in bondage by the nation which later became the main vehicle of historical development. These relics of a nation mercilessly trampled under foot in the course of history, as Hegel says, these residual fragments of peoples always become fanatical standard-bearers of counter-revolution and remain so until their complete extirpation or loss of their national character, just as their whole existence in general is itself a protest against a great historical revolution.
Such, in Scotland, are the Gaels, the supporters of the Stuarts from 1640 to 1745.
Such, in France, are the Bretons, the supporters of the Bourbons from 1792 to 1800.
Such, in Spain, are the Basques, the supporters of Don Carlos.
Such, in Austria, are the pan-Slavist Southern Slavs, who are nothing but the residual fragment of peoples, resulting from an extremely confused thousand years of development. That this residual fragment, which is likewise extremely confused, sees its salvation only in a reversal of the whole European movement, which in its view ought to go not from west to east, but from east to west, and that for it the instrument of liberation and the bond of unity is the Russian knout — that is the most natural thing in the world.

However a lot can apparently change in almost 100 years. Russia was once seen as the bastion of reaction celebrated by the reactionaries everywhere for having invaded Hungary to put down the 1848-9 revolution, but then became the center of revolution, taking that spot from France which didn't really participate in the Revolutions despite the 1917 mutinies defused in June by Philip Petain by reassuring the soldiers by calling off the offensives that were intended to try to reassure the Provision Russian Government from the February Revolution to stay in the war and who launched the "Kerensky Offensive" in July which prompted the unsuccessful "July Days" Bolshevik uprising before the later successful October Revolution.
The absence of French participation beyond this is remarkable given how much they played a role in other revolutions and also remarkable how it was later Vichy leader Petain himself who basically defused the situation by giving the soldiers what they wanted and ending the suicidal offensives. The difference between Petain and Kerensky here and that the Russian revolution had not yet gone proletariat at this point while France was dealing with its own situation coming up from the soldiers and that the Russian version of this happened only a month afterwards should probably be focused on more here, in addition to how the differing approaches countries took on simultaneous and similar events from 1917-1923 should be analyzed like how I am suggesting (Comprehensive Revolutionary History of World War One when? Honestly I might write it at this point, issue is wikipedia as sources is probably not the greatest, and wikipedia article bouncing is how I'm formulating these connections as it requires an extremely shallow understanding of a lot of things that people with deep understandings of those things would all reject because I'm ignoring intricacies, despite ignoring intricacies being the entire point as intricacies are caused by random eddies and chaotic currents, and so must be ignored if you want to get a sense of the overall direction things are going, although admittedly I feel myself getting a bit schizo when I assert random concepts whole cloth that nobody has ever used by anyone besides me as you will see with the term "global political magnetic field collapse")
Since the Russian Revolution the apparent "pole of reaction" where global reactionaries collect as their refuge that Russia represented seemingly shifted to the United States for the Cold War after the pole reversal and global political magnetic field collapse manifesting in the out of place auroral borealis of the inter-war period and world war 2. It would be reasonable to assume that it would be just as possible for the United States to become a new center of revolution in the way Russia took that position from France despite Russia being the most reactionary power of anyone before that happened.

807: My New Role
On this week's episode, Dr. Cox struggles to adapt to his new role as Chief of Medicine. In the real world, we're luke warm on this episode, but we're all about the hot goss coming out of Laverne's above ground pool party.

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Both her supporters and detractors have quoted her as saying this, but I've never been able to find the source of it, despite having done a fair bit of searching. For instance, Gregory Mitchell, writing in the book Panics without Borders, attributes it to her article "Not a Moral Issue," which I've searched but couldn't find.
Most interestingly, while this quote is popular among anti-porn feminists, who have in mind pornography made for heterosexual male consumption, according to the German Wikipedia, she was actually talking about lesbian S&M pornography. In other words, she was telling a category of lesbians that they had "no right to [their] sexuality." I find that possibility fascinating, illustrative of just how bitterly divisive the feminist sex war was, and a tad ironic seeing people today using it as an anti-heterosexual male pornography slogan. However, having taken a look through the book that it cites, Leatherfolk: Radical Sex, People, Politics, and Practice, I couldn't find the quote either. Even if I just missed it, or if it's in another edition not on the Internet Archive, it would still be a secondhand quote, probably without a source. Given the subject matter of the book, it goes without saying that MacKinnon was not a contributor.
Anyhow, I'd appreciate it if anyone could shed some light on this one, whether it confirms or refutes this claim by German Wikipedia. Many thanks for your time.

Needless to say, don't read on if you haven't read Words of Radiance.
SO
I am on my third read of the book and had to let some things out that didn't occur to me before.
​

Honor is dead, but I will see what I can do...

Now putting aside the fact that the magnificence of this scene makes me tear up even thinking about it, there is I think a very deep valuable reminder for our world we can take from it as well.
In that scene, where Dalinar is about to lose both of his sons to a complex treachery, yelling for anyone to help him and the most capable of doing so don't have the courage or honor to step up, the most unseeming fellow decides to act. He understands that even tho he is in a lowly, disadvantaged, unprivileged position and no one would think he has any responsibility in the situation, Kal feels that doing what is right is his duty as a person and even if Honor was dead (metaphor for "everything is fkd!"), the only way good can ever be manifested is if people just try to do something about it.
In our world you can say Honor has always been dead. We are surrounded by unjust, awful things happening every day... but so what? Just see what YOU can do. It is the resignation to the fact that existence is fundamentally a struggle and it is painful and it is awful, and just trying to do something right about it anyway.
​

"The Storm catches everyone, eventually. Does it matter?". "I don't know...". "Gooood."

Wit actually sounds glad when Kal responds like that. Why would Wit be glad about Kal's response? It is kind of an odd reaction. Or is it?
I think Wit throughout that whole scene wanted to see if Kal has gone truly dark and wouldn't be able to go back, the way Moash did. Saying "I don't know" to Wit means there is still a spark in Kal of something wondering, trying to grasp for answers, seeking a way forward. Considering the context, that is a very hopeful thing to hear and that's why Wit was glad, optimistic in that moment. The way someone that has no idea why they are going to therapy, what is the point of it, but still showing up every day or every week.
Kal could've very understandably considering his experience so far and his current situation said "I don't care" or "Nothing matters", which is a very dark and dangerous place to be. There is no fight there, no spark, no seeking, there is just nothing... that nothingness is consuming, not only the person but his surroundings, like a black hole...
I love The Stormlight Archive most of all because I identify with Kal so much. I have been suffering for years with similar thoughts and feelings like Kal himself (although my trauma is a different nature), and reading this chapter I just realized suddenly how immensely better it is to actually have the strength and courage just even to wonder and think about life as a possibility for something rather than complete, utter, empty nothingness. I think this as well is an incredibly important reminder that even something insignificant in comparison to many idyllic scenarios, could very well be a huge step in a positive direction.
​
I hope these thoughts make sense to someone and help them the way they help me.

I know that a lof of stuff from SA is inspired by the Hebrew faith and history, but so much in it reminds me of ancient Sumerian and Akkadian history as well. Does anyone know if this is the case or am I just reading too much into it?

Demokratiet har dessverre mange svakheter og lar seg relativt lett styre av anti-demokratiske krefter.
La oss si du er en partileder som brenner for en veldig upopulær sak. Bare et lite mindretall støtter deg.
Da kan du bruke et enkelt triks: Du holder rett og slett tett om kampsaken din. I stedet kjører du valgkamp på akkurat de tingene vanlige velgere ønsker å høre.
Det er lurt å lage støy om andre sidesaker og bagateller, for at din egentlige kampsak forblir et ikke-tema, helt til valget er vunnet. Først da kan du røpe planen din.
Trikset har vist seg skummelt effektivt.
Her er et av de best dokumenterte tilfellene i nyere tid, fra Ukraina i 2006:
Av totalt 45 partier i parlamentsvalget var det bare ett som åpent støttet Nato-medlemskap:

of the 45 blocs and political parties contesting the parliamentary elections, only the [] Ukrainian People's Bloc of Kostenko and Plyushch [] unequivocally describes NATO membership as a Ukrainian objective

Det var ikke uten grunn, for meningsmålinger gjorde det klart hvor upopulær Nato var:
16% for medlemskap
61.4% mot medlemskap
(fullt resultat: https://np.reddit.com/Nrk/comments/13slx6m/meningsm%C3%A5ling_om_natomedlemskap_i_2005/ )
Derfor styrte partiene heller unna:

the political parties were generally shying away from the issue of NATO membership

https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06KIEV1036_a.html
Det eneste partiet som åpent støttet medlemskap var: "Ukrainian National Bloc of Kostenko and Plyushch"
På valgdagen endte de med 1.92% av stemmene: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Ukrainian_parliamentary_election
Da valget var vel overstått skjedde noe rart: Den ukrainske regjeringen søkte om Nato-medlemskap.
https://web.archive.org/web/20120213011028/http://www.unian.net/eng/news/news-231009.html
De 3 som skrev søknaden hadde vært stille om Nato-medlemskapet under valgkampen:

[Tymoshenko] co-sign[ed] a letter with Yushchenko and Yatsenyuk requesting MAP

Nå var tiden for hemmelighold over og de kastet maskene. Vi kan lese om deres sanne agenda i flere wikileaks-dokumenter:

for the first time [] all three branches of [the ukrainian] government were united on the need to pursue the Euro-Atlantic path.
Ukraine has made a geo-strategic choice regarding [Nato] Alliance membership
Ukraine was willing to do anything to make sure that the first [Nato Membership Access Plan] assessment of Ukraine [] by Allied Foreign Ministers would also be the last

https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08USNATO217_a.html
Dette er sterk kost. Vi ser at statsledelsen jobber målbevisst MOT et klart demokratisk flertall i hjemlandet sitt. Samtidig tjener de interessene til en fremmed makt.
Historien er et skoleeksempel på hvor lett demokratiet lar seg styre mot folkeviljen. Kan det i det hele tatt kalles "demokrati" når kandidatene i hemmelighet tjener en annen makt og ikke sine landsmenn?
Det er et viktig spørsmål, også for nordmenn, som sliter med det samme problemet.
etterspillet:
Regjeringspartiene som søkte om Nato-medlemskap i 2008 tapte valget i 2010. Få år senere tok de makten tilbake med et statskupp. I januar 2014 bestemte noen kjente amerikanere hvem som skulle sitte i det nye kupp-regimet, og de plukket ut: Arseniy Yatseniuk

Yats is the guy who's got the economic experience, the governing experience. [] he needs Klitsch and Tyahnybok on the outside.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957
BBC observerer helt korrekt at EU er sjanseløs i maktkampen:

[The EU] certainly cannot win a short-term battle for Ukraine's affections with Moscow - it just does not have the cash inducements available.

Ingen tvil om hvem som sitter på verdens største "cash inducements"
Tragisk nok ble ukrainske velgere lurt av det samme trikset enda en gang, i 2019.
Kandidaten som kjørte valgkamp på "fred og forsoning" vant valget med stor margin. Hele landet var lei av krig og mente Donbas-konflikten måtte få en fredelig slutt. Men "freds-kandidaten" hadde i virkeligheten helt andre planer, viste det seg.
Planen hans var "Krig for Nato-medlemskap", som hans nære rådgiver beskriver i detalj her:
https://np.reddit.com/Nrk/comments/udnm6f/ukrainsk_tjenestemann_i_2019_prisen_vi_m%C3%A5_betale/

(Hello PubTips ! This isn't the first version of my query letter, but it's the first one I've posted to this subreddit. I've glanced at other posts on this sub and I already have some idea of what I could change, but I'm putting it out exactly as it currently is so I can get the most accurate feedback.)
--
Hello [publisher],
I’m writing to seek representation for my 179,000-word debut epic fantasy novel, The Golden Kingdom, which has been revised with the aid of a professional editor. It is the first installment in the five-book saga Indigo Arbiter.
In the land of Altinala, the fates of travelling guildsmen, assassins, a national hero, and a princess collide through battles of men and monsters, political warfare, and conflicts that shake the once-eternal kingdom to its very core.
For hundreds of years, Altinala has stood at the heart of the Hetran continent. Founded in the aftermath of a terrible war, it serves as a beacon of strength and prosperity for not only its citizens, but the countless dreamers who seek to live within the kingdom’s walls, where all their wildest ambitions can come true.
Among these hopefuls are a trio of friends: Val, a reclusive but empathetic girl; Elie, a talented dancer seeking fame and fortune; and Arthur, an idealistic boy who admires the heroes of eras past. Though their desires are vastly different in scope, they all place their hopes on Altinala.
But trouble is brewing in the so-called “Golden Kingdom.” The High Chancellor governs the land with an iron fist, while murderous vigilantes prowl the streets at night. And as rumours of rebellion spread, a disgraced princess plots an uprising of her own. When Val, Arthur, and Elie find themselves dragged into the coming storm, they must decide whether to be Altinala’s champions … or agents of its destruction.
I am a Chinese Canadian law student with a lifelong passion for writing. I am particularly drawn to fantasy stories with intricate plots, large casts of complex characters, LGBTQ+ representation, and a willingness to be unique within the genre. My book would likely be enjoyed by fans of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, Brandon Sanderson’s The Stormlight Archive, and James S.A. Corey’s The Expanse, all of which are among my biggest inspirations. In addition, my writing style is influenced by Japanese anime like Fullmetal Alchemist and Attack on Titan, as well as story-rich video games such as Final Fantasy VII and the Trails in the Sky franchise.
Besides The Golden Kingdom, I have completed initial drafts of the second and third books of the Indigo Arbiter saga and am currently working on the fourth book.
Thank you for taking the time to read my query and consider my work. I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
[name]
--
First 300 words:
Val rested under the magnolia tree, all alone in her beautiful world.
She felt a kindred connection to the tree, a brief hike away from the little shack she called home. They were fellow recluses, living isolated from their brethren in Citra Village, which itself stood alone on the southern edge of the Hetran continent.
Val closed her eyes, relishing the hot breeze as it washed over her. Summer had come and gone, but its final vestiges of warmth still lingered. They wouldn’t last much longer, and she didn’t intend to waste the time she had left. She was going to make the most of every moment by doing what she did best — loafing around in her favourite black dress and large pointy hat, just letting the hours pass.
The autumn sun shone brightly, and tiny cloud puffs drifted over the formless blue sky. Enraptured by the tranquility, Val sighed, leaning back against her tree. Another thing she liked about the magnolia tree was that it bore no fruit, meaning that on most days, nobody ever came to bother it — or her.
Unfortunately for Val, today was not one of those days.
“Val? Hey, Val?” That was Elie’s voice. Val heard her fingersnaps. “Helloooo? Did you hear what we just said?”
“No.” Groaning, Val opened her eyes and glanced at her two friends, who stood directly in front of her. “It was … something about a puppy, right?”
“A dirgehound, Val!” Arthur Steelmettle exclaimed, his amber eyes widening even more than usual. He was a tanned young man with a muscular build, ginger hair, and a somewhat rugged face that made him look more intimidating than he really was. “The hunters spotted one lurking near the village. They haven’t been seen anywhere near Citra in years, but now one’s so close! A dirge-hound!” He spoke the word again, as if the word could be split in half if he tried hard enough.
--
Thanks for any feedback! I intend to make the most of this sub's help, for this first book as well as the others I've written and will continue to write.

loading 05.001.SCP.archive@ diarc/mainlist/SCP-001.rtf…Item #: SCP-001 Object Class: Netzach Special Containment Procedures: N/A7 Description: SCP-001 is the designation for the planetary body known as Earth. Given that SCP-001 has existed for the entirety of human memory and written history, the anomalous improbability of Earth's nature as compared to all other planets in the observable universe investigated by the Foundation's TELLUS8 Program is widely regarded as "normal" within public perception. Personnel are to remind themselves daily of the anomalous nature of the planet, especially during times of perceived ennui in regards to their participation within the Foundation or when engaging in dissenting thought patterns. Personnel are to encourage one another to persevere through difficult workplace situations with the knowledge that the planet we inhabit is anomalous in its entirety, and actively resists the order of civilization with chaos and aberration. Doing so has increased both productivity and containment success rates, the latter of which by over 12% in the last five years. SCP-001-E1 is the designation for the remains of a spacecraft recovered during an archeological expedition in the Atacama Desert of Chile in 1946, led by American Paleontologist Dr. Hubert ███████. ███████ immediately reported his findings to the Society for American Archaeology, piquing the interest of a number of different parties.9 The remaining components of the ship's outer hull were excavated and found to be comprised of highly durable exotic polymers that appeared unaffected by time or exposure to the elements. Various dating methods have analyzed the material and yielded inconsistent results. Despite this, recovered information suggests the vessel was several billion years old. Large areas of SCP-001-E1 appeared to have been converted into makeshift livingspace, implying the vehicle was intact when it landed and did not crash upon its arrival. Additionally, remnants of effects such as clothing, electronics and furniture were recovered as well, all possessing anomalous materials and abilities that resisted normal wear to varying degrees. The full size of the vessel is unknown but considered to be large enough to contain a moderate population of humans, the remains of which presumably decomposed naturally, aside from POI-001, who was recovered from within SCP-001-E2. SCP-001-E2 is a set of 32 36 highly advanced cryogenic stasis pods that were discovered among the wreckage in a partially powered 'hibernation' mode when SCP-001-E2 was excavated. Of all the pods discovered, only one was still functional and contained [DATA PURGED PER O5 REQUEST], whose core tenets and general distrust of anomalous artifacts10 would establish the Foundation's presence on Earth as a force to contain aberrant objects, locations, and phenomena- beginning with those found inside SCP-001-E1. Also found among the rubble were several anomalous data storage devices that appeared effectively destroyed, despite being comprised of similarly resistant exotic materials as other items found inside SCP-001-E1, implying they may have been damaged intentionally. Analysis revealed the only salvageable information, recovered from a 2 cm2 fragment composed of an extremely compressed form of multilayered information medium, presented as a set of thin layers of vertically stacked sets of data. The documents recovered from the interpreted data were then translated from their original language, which was comprised entirely of Class I cognito hazardous glyphs that appear similar to the engravings found on SCP-093.11 These glyphs seem to cause a subjective "Rosetta Stone" effect in readers, allowing for full comprehension of the material regardless of previously known languages and/or reading level. Analysis of the language is ongoing. Recovered excerpts can be found in the attached file SCP-001 Recovered Materials Log.

For the options questions you wanted to ask, but were afraid to. There are no stupid questions.   Fire away. This project succeeds via thoughtful sharing of knowledge. You, too, are invited to respond to these questions. This is a weekly rotation with past threads linked below.

BEFORE POSTING, PLEASE REVIEW THE BELOW LIST OF FREQUENT ANSWERS. .

..
Don't exercise your (long) options for stock! Exercising throws away extrinsic value that selling retrieves. Simply sell your (long) options, to close the position, to harvest value, for a gain or loss. Your break-even is the cost of your option when you are selling. If exercising (a call), your breakeven is the strike price plus the debit cost to enter the position. Further reading: Monday School: Exercise and Expiration are not what you think they are.
Also, generally, do not take an option to expiration, for similar reasons as above.
Key informational links • Options FAQ / Wiki: Frequent Answers to Questions • Options Toolbox Links / Wiki • Options Glossary • List of Recommended Options Books • Introduction to Options (The Options Playbook) • The complete options side-bar informational links (made visible for mobile app users.) • Characteristics and Risks of Standardized Options (Options Clearing Corporation) • Binary options and Fraud (Securities Exchange Commission) .
Getting started in options • Calls and puts, long and short, an introduction (Redtexture) • Options Trading Introduction for Beginners (Investing Fuse) • Options Basics (begals) • Exercise & Assignment - A Guide (ScottishTrader) • Why Options Are Rarely Exercised - Chris Butler - Project Option (18 minutes) • I just made (or lost) $___. Should I close the trade? (Redtexture) • Disclose option position details, for a useful response • OptionAlpha Trading and Options Handbook • Options Trading Concepts -- Mike & His White Board (TastyTrade)(about 120 10-minute episodes) • Am I a Pattern Day Trader? Know the Day-Trading Margin Requirements (FINRA) • How To Avoid Becoming a Pattern Day Trader (Founders Guide)
Introductory Trading Commentary    • Monday School Introductory trade planning advice (PapaCharlie9)   Strike Price    • Options Basics: How to Pick the Right Strike Price (Elvis Picardo - Investopedia)    • High Probability Options Trading Defined (Kirk DuPlessis, Option Alpha)   Breakeven    • Your break-even (at expiration) isn't as important as you think it is (PapaCharlie9)   Expiration    • Options Expiration & Assignment (Option Alpha)    • Expiration times and dates (Investopedia)   Greeks    • Options Pricing & The Greeks (Option Alpha) (30 minutes)    • Options Greeks (captut)   Trading and Strategy    • Fishing for a price: price discovery and orders    • Common mistakes and useful advice for new options traders (wiki)    • Common Intra-Day Stock Market Patterns - (Cory Mitchell - The Balance)
Managing Trades • Managing long calls - a summary (Redtexture) • The diagonal call calendar spread, misnamed as the "poor man's covered call" (Redtexture) • Selected Option Positions and Trade Management (Wiki)
Why did my options lose value when the stock price moved favorably? • Options extrinsic and intrinsic value, an introduction (Redtexture)
Trade planning, risk reduction and trade size • Exit-first trade planning, and a risk-reduction checklist (Redtexture) • Monday School: A trade plan is more important than you think it is (PapaCharlie9) • Applying Expected Value Concepts to Option Investing (Select Options) • Risk Management, or How to Not Lose Your House (boii0708) (March 6 2021) • Trade Checklists and Guides (Option Alpha)
• Planning for trades to fail. (John Carter) (at 90 seconds)
Minimizing Bid-Ask Spreads (high-volume options are best) • Price discovery for wide bid-ask spreads (Redtexture) • List of option activity by underlying (Market Chameleon)
Closing out a trade • Most options positions are closed before expiration (Options Playbook) • Risk to reward ratios change: a reason for early exit (Redtexture) • Guide: When to Exit Various Positions • Close positions before expiration: TSLA decline after market close (PapaCharlie9) (September 11, 2020) • 5 Tips For Exiting Trades (OptionStalker) • Why stop loss option orders are a bad idea
Options exchange operations and processes • Options Adjustments for Mergers, Stock Splits and Special dividends; Options Expiration creation; Strike Price creation; Trading Halts and Market Closings; Options Listing requirements; Collateral Rules; List of Options Exchanges; Market Makers • Options that trade until 4:15 PM (US Eastern) / 3:15 PM (US Central) -- (Tastyworks)
Brokers • USA Options Brokers (wiki) • An incomplete list of international brokers trading USA (and European) options
Miscellaneous: Volatility, Options Option Chains & Data, Economic Calendars, Futures Options • Graph of the VIX: S&P 500 volatility index (StockCharts) • Graph of VX Futures Term Structure (Trading Volatility) • A selected list of option chain & option data websites • Options on Futures (CME Group) • Selected calendars of economic reports and events
Previous weeks' Option Questions Safe Haven threads.
Complete archive: 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023

The 0.29 pages are still up on the Wayback Machine, if you don't mind waiting a generation for them to load. How hard would it be to just transfer them all over to a new site? Hell, if you threw some ads on there you could probably even make some money...

Hey worldhoppers! The time has come for our annual survey!
LINK TO THE 2023 SURVEY
We've posted many surveys over the years, but last year we decided to plan on having a regular, annual survey. We think asking a relatively consistent set of questions will give us better information on your opinions and how they might change over time. It has been about one year since we posted that original survey, so here we are again to take stock of things!
This survey covers BrandonSanderson, Stormlight_Archive, Mistborn, and Cosmere. (Which, if you weren't aware, are all effectively run by the same group of moderators.) This survey is for anyone who participates in any of these subreddits in any capacity--whether you only lurk occasionally on one of them or whether you're posting daily in each of them.
There are a little over thirty primary questions, so it's not short. But please know that ANY feedback you can give is helpful. If you only have 5 minutes to spare just answer as many as you can, skip to the end, and submit whatever you've got! All questions are "optional". (On the other hand, if you've got the time and interest to spare, there are some "extra" questions that you'll have an opportunity to answer which go into a bit more detail on some topics.)
To keep the survey streamlined, there are no free response questions. If you DO have something else to add we would love to hear it though! Feel free to share in the comments of this post. (or if you want to say something privately, you can always message the moderators)
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Like unexpectedly amazing series'. Mine are Stormlight Archives, Legend of the Arch Magus, the Great Book of Amber, and Wheel of Time.

Welcome to our weekly general discussion thread!
Feel free to chat with your fellow forensically-minded redditors about anything! Introduce yourself, show us pictures of your cat, complain about your kids, lament about exams/work, tell us what you're eating today... whatever you want!
Here are a few resources that might answer your questions:
A subreddit wiki with links and resources to education and employment matters, archived discussions on more intermediate topics in education and employment, what kind of major you need, what degree programs are good, etc.

• The subreddit Guide - Consider this an FAQ about our community and our field. Look here for basic education and employment questions/answers you might have. Didn't find what you were looking for? Please post in our weekly scheduled posts or to the subreddit. Note: please do use a desktop browser to view all features.
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Title	Description	Day	Frequency
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Introduction

Welcome to the tuesday book club and Revolutions podcast thread!

Upcoming

Week 71: Democracy in America, Vol. 1, Pt1. Ch.8 and Revolutions 3.37-3.38
As follows is the scheduled reading a few weeks out:
Week 72: Democracy in America, Vol. 1, Pt2. Ch.1-3 and Revolutions 3.39-3.40
Week 73: Democracy in America, Vol. 1, Pt2. Ch.4-5 and Revolutions 3.41-3.42
Week 74: Democracy in America, Vol. 1, Pt2. Ch.6-8 and Revolutions 3.43-3.44

More Information

The Full list of books are as follows:

• Classical Liberalism: A Primer
• The Road To Serfdom
• World Order
• Reflections on the Revolution in France
• Capitalism and Freedom
• Slightly To The Right
• Suicide of the West
• Conscience of a Conservative
• The Fractured Republic
• The Constitution of Liberty
• Empire​
• The Coddling of the American Mind
• Revolutions Podcast (the following readings will also have a small selection of episodes from the Revolutions podcast as well)
• The English Constitution
• The US Constitution
• The Federalist Papers
• A selection of The Anti-Federalist Papers
• The American Revolution as a Successful Revolution
• The Australian Constitution
• Democracy in America< - We are here
• The July 4th special: Revisiting the Constitution and reading The Declaration of Independence
• Democracy in America (cont.)
• The Origins of Totalitarianism

As a reminder, we are doing a reading challenge this year and these are just the highly recommended ones on the list! The challenge's full list can be found here.
Participation is open to anyone that would like to do so, the standard automod enforced rules around flair and top level comments have been turned off for threads with the "Book Club" flair.
The previous week's thread can be found here: Democracy in America, Vol. 1, Pt1. Ch.1-3 and Revolutions 3.35-3.36
The full book club discussion archive is located here: Book Club Archive

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Show Info

Venue: ASIA WORLD EXPO, Hong Kong

I came across a big similarity when reading up about several ancient unconnected cultures and their mythologies. A general story that seems to be an allegory for an old divination technique known as the geomantic act. It seems as if several of these stories about the creation of the first temples/sacred structures/the world are describing a localized version of the same story. I wanted to know some professional opinions on it because personally it think it has finally made sense of these strange mythologies.
I did not write this it was taken from an article I have been reading on an unrelated subject.
"So if all these distant civilizations shared the same ancient culture or started out from the same sort of mother culture then surely there would be some evidence left of it right? I thought so too so I spent a considerable amount of time looking for connections that would be too specific to ignore or pass off as coincidence. Finally after years of searching I found them.
The main one, and what this section is about is a shared cultural art between ancient China, South America and Ancient Egypt. This art is known as geomancy and in China it is known as Feng Shui, each one of these places I just mentioned contain huge pyramids within their borders and both Egypt and the south American cultures have a very similar story of creation that seems to be an allegory for what they call the "geomantic act". A divination technique used to build temples and buildings in the exact right spot (according to the practitioners of it).
This section from the following book details exactly what that is.
Secret Games of the Gods pages: https://imgur.com/gallery/R3EdoJk
I will summarize it but you should actually take the time to read it as it is only a few pages.
The actual geomantic act is divining a place using the four directions to pick the right location, then once found stabbing a sword, stake or metal wedge into the ground at the exact center of the planned building, usually there is something done to consecrate this center which they call the navel of the structure. Another way to view it (like the above book says) is a hero slaying a dragon or serpent with the aid of four warriors/weapons/deities then building a holy structure on the place the monster was killed. This is how they represent the act in allegorical form in the European version of it.
For the Egyptian mythology I have posted a scan of a very rare book that details the first published translations of the Edfu Temple in Egypt. As the title indicates it details the mythological origin of the first temple that appeared on earth according to the oldest Egyptian records we had found as of 1969 (when the book was published). The very borders of Prehistory.
You can download it here - https://archive.org/details/0_20220129_202201
or read it here.
https://unifyingtheory.blogspot.com/2022/01/the-mythological-origin-of-egyptian.html
The objective story the Aztec/Olmec/Mayan/Inca (I am unsure who originated them, I am not a historian) and Egyptian creation myth (according to the Edfu Texts) begin with a world of darkness with no land, only sky and water and a god who lives there, then the god one way or another creates the first world/land which is an island, and the first people, eventually fighting ensues, then because of the fighting the earth is engulfed by water or the island disappears (same thing when you are the only land). Then from this water the new world rises and is rebuilt in the old worlds image from the "bones" of the old world.
Now that story could be shrugged off as mere coincidence I suppose, However...Later in these stories of creation another identical event happens. In the Egyptian and Aztec myths a hero or creator god and group of 4 gods, protectors or warriors represented by four animals and four directions. Do battle with a serpent type monster that always represents chaos. They win this fight and slay the monster and then on the spot it was slain build a sacred temple.
What I just described to you seems to be another allegory used in other cultures for what they call the geomantic act, a local adaptation of it.
The following are pages from the Edfu translation book I linked:
-Page 35 in the book is the summery of the fight. A fight between a serpent and a hawk and his four protectors who represent the four directions. Just as the book "Secret Games of the Gods" described the geomantic act, using the four directions the "hero" would slay the "dragon" and build on the spot it was slayed.
-Page 196 details it. It should also be noted that Tanen became Ptah-Tatenen who was the god of creation and temple building. The page below also clarifies that the sacred place would be built where the snake enemy was slayed.
-Page 324 is the overall summery of the book and outlines the new world made from the bones of a dead god.
Here is the link to those pages: https://imgur.com/gallery/06dMHH1
-Page 297 states the earth god which is found to actually represent earth said to have a “Ka” (spirit) and the earths “Ka” being present was the perquisite for building these temples. So the earths energy had to be present at these sites for building and then once the temple was made it had to be activated by joining with the earths Ka.
Also of note these 4 animals from the Edfu texts also turn up in the book “The Secret Teachings of All Ages” written in 1923 a few decades before the Edfu texts were even translated.
Page 296 and the pages from "the secret teachings of all ages": https://imgur.com/gallery/Wydaz6m
This fits the geomantic act because it also is using natural energy to pick a location for a sacred building (according to the practitioners of it).
A good summery but I recommend reading the entire book because it has many details not covered in the summery. Now there are several creation myths from the Aztecs but we are only going to go over the relevant one.
You can read more about them here:
https://aztec-religion-ee.weebly.com/creation-myth.html
This story of creations shares many similarities with the story laid out in the Edfu temple and seems to also be an allegory for the geomantic act.
"In the beginning was the void. It was at some ancient time in the Aztec creation story that the dual god, Ometecuhtli/Omecihuatl, created itself. (Looking back, of course, the Aztecs believed that the many opposites that they saw in the world would have to somehow unite in the origin of the world.) This god was good and bad, chaos and order, male and female. Being male and female, it was able to have children. It had four, which came to represent the four directions of north, south, east and west. The gods were Huizilopochtli (south), Quetzalcoatl (east), Tezcatlipoca (west), and Xipe Totec (north).
The directions were very important to the Aztecs, since their great empire was believed to be at the very center of the universe (remember what I mentioned about the Aztec creation story being political?).
These four gods began to create. They created water, and other gods, and the sea monster Cipactli. Cipactli was part fish and part crocodile, a massive creature as big as all things that now are. This was a consuming monster, a jaw at every joint. Cipactli was to become the source of the cosmos in a strange way.
As the gods continued to create, they had a problem — their creations would fall into the water and be eaten by the dreadful Cipactli. So it was time for war — the four gods attacked the sea monster, pulling her in four directions. She fought back, biting Tezcatlipoca and tearing off his foot. But at last Cipactli was destroyed.
From this enormous creature the universe was created (in some traditions this happened between the last two suns). All the 13 heavens stretch into her head. The earth was created in the middle, and her tail reaches down to the underworld (Mictlán) (nine underworlds, to be exact).
You could say that in the Aztec creation story the world is on the back of this sea monster, floating in the water of space (reminiscent of the Iroquois belief that the world rests on the back of a turtle).”
http://www.aztec-history.com/aztec-creation-story.html
So according to the above story of creation the Aztecs thought that their land was on the back of a serpent type dragon monster that was killed by four gods by stretching it in the four directions. It actually had many similarities with the geomantic act and its purpose laid out in Secret Games of the Gods. That book also said the purpose of the act was to control the "serpent" in the earth and stop its chaos from destroying the building.
Now its pretty hard to dismiss those stories as mere coincidence, those stories are seemingly localized versions of what is known as the “serpent slaying myth” in indo-european culture. A story that is told and was told in cultures the world over in various localized versions in a time when they had no communication or even knew each other existed. As we saw in the Edfu temple book even the ancient Egyptians had this myth and practice of geomancy.
The following article covers this myth pretty well but as always do your own research and dig deeper and look for more credible sources.
https://shivnu.blogspot.com/2023/02/the-proto-indo-european-serpent-slaying.html
Later in these stories of creation identical events happen. In the Egyptian and Aztec myths a group of 4 gods or protectors, warriors or gods represented by 4 animals and also the 4 directions. Do battle with a serpent type monster that represents chaos in all the stories. They win this fight and slay the monster and then on the spot it was slain build a sacred temple.
These animals are in the Edfu myth Snake, Lion, Bull and hawk. They are the 4 guardians that protect “The Falcon” in its fight against a great “snake”.
in the Aztec myth this scenario also plays out but they are gods who animal incarnations or representations are “plummed serpent” (implying a feathered or flying snake), Jaguar, hummingbird, and a god that has no definite form and takes many forms and is the god of warfare.
in the Aztec myth the gods also represent directions. The 4 Aztec directional gods have aspects of the 4 guardian animals. Not the exact same animals mind you but the overall same animals (snake, bird, big cat, formless/unsure)
(I should note that I was unable to narrow down if these are the actual directions they represent because I came across several conflicting sources. However its the overall general story that is important and not the specifics as they would be adapted anyway)
-Huitzilopochtli (pron. Huit-zi-lo-pocht-li) or ‘Hummingbird of the South’ or ‘Blue Hummingbird (bird)
https://www.worldhistory.org/Huitzilopochtli/
-Quetzalcóatl (pron. Quet-zal-co-at) or 'Plumed Serpent' (snake or dragon)
https://www.worldhistory.org/Quetzalcoatl/
-Tezcatlipoca’s nagual, or animal disguise, was the jaguar, the spotted skin of which was compared to the starry sky. A creator god, Tezcatlipoca ruled over Ocelotonatiuh (“Jaguar-Sun”), the first of the four worlds that were created and destroyed before the present universe. (Cat)
https://www.worldhistory.org/Tezcatlipoca/
-Xipe Totec has a controversial history, some people think that the god replaced an earlier god from the story, I could find no credible source about his animal form or direction (though only north is left) however, He is the inventor of war according to the Aztec mythology so that lines up with the Chinese feng shui direction (we will get to this in a moment) of north being the tortoise or "black warrior" (Warrior)
https://www.worldhistory.org/Xipe_Totec/
In the Aztec myth the 4 gods do battle with a "serpent/fish", they slay it by ripping it apart in the 4 directions then build from its body on the spot it was slain their world/empire. That is objectively the same story from the book I linked with 3 out of the 4 animal guardians being the same.
Now these animals turn up in one other place with pyramids within its borders. China and Taoism, specifically the 4 animals that represent the 4 directions often associated with the ancient art of Feng Shui which in actuality is the Chinese art of geomancy.
In feng shui the four directions are represented by 3 out of the 4 are the same kind of animals. The entire art of it is about choosing the right location to build things using divination.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Symbols
“The Four Symbols (Chinese: 四象; pinyin: Sì Xiàng, literally meaning “four images”), are four mythological creatures appearing among the Chinese constellations along the ecliptic, and viewed as the guardians of the four cardinal directions. These four creatures are also referred to by a variety of other names, including “Four Guardians”, “Four Gods”, and “Four Auspicious Beasts”. They are the Azure Dragon of the East, the Vermilion Bird of the South, the White Tiger of the West, and the Black Tortoise (also called “Black Warrior”) of the North. Each of the creatures is most closely associated with a cardinal direction and a color, but also additionally represents other aspects, including a season of the year, an emotion, virtue, and one of the Chinese “five elements” (wood, fire, earth, metal, and water). Each has been given its own individual traits, origin story and a reason for being. Symbolically, and as part of spiritual and religious belief and meaning, these creatures have been culturally important across countries in the East Asian cultural sphere.”
Not only that but the directions in Aztec mythology are represented by the same color pallet as the Chinese four guardians Black, white, blue and red. Only north and west line up with being the same color and same direction but all the colors are the same.
“The god could be depicted in different colours depending on which cardinal point he was representing — black for north, blue for south, red for east and white for west.”
3 out of 4 creatures match the Aztec and Egyptian mythology and they are all referred to as guardians or gods. The one odd guardian/direction out is the tortoise replacing the bull but interestingly enough the tortoise is also called the black warrior and Xipe Toltec (formless/many formed god) the Aztec god of the north is also the god of warfare. They are also the only animal/god/directions with unsure names or forms which in itself is a link in common all three versions have. Perhaps it was called a different name in the past.
The “plummed serpent” sounds like a spot on interpretation of a Chinese dragon, depicted as flying snakes often with feathers.
Explanation: https://wallpaperaccess.com/ancient-chinese-dragon
Also worth mentioning is the calendar similarities between some of these cultures. The following is a fantastic outline and demonstration of the similarities.
https://mormonuniversalism.com/11680/the-aztec-mayan-calendar-its-similarities-to-the-hebrew-biblical-calendar-and-book-of-mormon-dates/
There is undoubtedly a connection here. The beginning of the earth from the various cultures being the same objective story could easily be dismissed as coincidence. The same 4 animals representing in some cases the same directions and originating from the same scenario which is then used to pick the spot to build a holy place or building however cannot be dismissed so easily and I think is incredible evidence that a shared or "mother" culture existed between them. That all three cultures would also contain within their territory pyramids is also to hard to dismiss as a coincidence with all of this evidence laid out.

I do NOT speak japanese, this is run through google tl
Link here
https://www.azurlane.jp/news-item.html?i=1310

.- New mini event

Taiho-chan. It follows the same mechanic as Little Eugen

.- New mini event

Golden Performance. Clear a series of missions to obtain Cleveland's Conductor skin

.- New skins

.- Amagi, L2D, rental
.- Laffey, Dynamic
.- Illustrious, rental
.- Ayanami
.- Heinrich
.- Unicorn
.- Chapayev, rental

.- Skin reruns

Last year's. Check here on the July 1 segment

.- Skin archival

The previous years. Check tje above link, the rerun skins instead of the new ones

.- Shop

Added two lucky bags with this years and last years batch of skins

.- Voicelines

Everything new except Taiho-chan.

.- Dock filter

You will now be able to filter maxed out ships

.- Correction 💢💢

Fixed a bug that caused HT6 rewards not to drop
Fixed a bug with META tech
Fixed a bug that caused META fights to freeze
Fixed a bug that caused the game to freeze after ibtaining u556 META

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