Amid the escalating border standoff between Texas and the White House over illegal immigration, misinformation has spread in China that the Lone Star state has officially declared war to secede from the US.
Popular Chinese outlets have been suggesting that events in Texas have led to deep divisions in the US widening to a point where unrest has become a stark reality.
More than 6.3m migrants have crossed into the US illegally since the beginning of 2021 - record highs that have intensified a standoff between President Joe Biden and Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
As part of his Operation Lone Star, Mr Abbott has sought to block or deter entry into his state, including by installing about 30 miles (48km) of razor wire barriers along the city of Eagle Pass.
A Voice of America journalist Wenhao, who specialises in Chinese online disinformation, posted on X that the “biggest US related news on China’s internet for the past few days is Texas governor declaring war with the federal government, which did not happen in reality”.
Social media users in China on Friday, for example, were able to read reports that Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis is sending up to 1,000 members of the National Guard to Texas.
The original article contains 678 words, the summary contains 206 words. Saved 70%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I tried it. It did seem to work. I will try a few more times and record whether I detect bitterness or not. Ideally I would conduct a blind taste test but I don't want to change my ritual too much.
Pretty sure sexual pleasure is the result of friction, nerve endings, a bunch of neuro-chemicals, and a whole lot of fetishes. If anyone is letting us enjoy sexual pleasure, it’s the other department.
Under half of women orgasm from penetration alone, and for about one in ten it’s outright painful. For me it does pretty much nothing. I guess we could move to whether air and vibrations on clit count as friction, but I’m pretty sure that’s not what anyone had in mind. Nor whether kisses and general intimate closeness count as “sexual pleasure”.
I guess we could move to whether air and vibrations on clit count as friction, but I’m pretty sure that’s not what anyone had in mind.
At the risk of mansplaining, I suspect that actually was what they had in mind, though not exclusively. Friction doesn’t inherently mean PIV. Clitoral stimulation is still down to (the proper amount and application of) friction and (fuckloads of) nerve endings to sense it.
But more importantly, I also think that’s an overly simplistic way of seeing sexual gratification. Sex with a partner is sometimes less directly pleasurable, since the owner of the equipment often (though not always, thanks repression) knows best how to make it feel good, but sex with a partner is still usually better because of the intimacy that comes into play. And sex with a long-term partner can be exceptionally good, because you learn better and better what the other person needs.
(Obviously everyone is different though, and there are always going to be individuals with different experiences and preferences. The world is full of spectrums, not well-defined lines.)
Without having seen the specific kind of “hatred and harassment” they’re talking about, I can’t form a valid opinion. I wonder, though, if people are interpreting fair criticism of the Israeli government as “antisemitism”. Fair criticism and antisemitism are two very different things, but I often see them confused.
Similarly, I wonder if people are trying to disguise hateful antisemitism as “fair criticism” when there’s nothing fair or reasonable about it.
As always, it will be difficult to protect freedom of speech while preventing and punishing hate speech.
A big advantage of repurposing existing lampposts is that cities don’t have to dig in order to lay new cables, says Artis Markots, the chief executive of the Latvian start-up SimpleCharge, which is focusing on Central and Eastern Europe.
Trojan Energy is a Scottish company whose chargers sit flush with the pavement, resembling miniature manhole covers from the outside.
The UK company Nyobolt recently created Bolt-ee, a compact, ultra-rapid charger that can provide up to 300kW of DC power to charge a car within minutes.
Fully mobile charging could be useful for people with disabilities, says Liana Cipcigan, a professor of transport electrification and smart grids at Cardiff University’s School of Engineering.
In terms of fire risks, Mr Shivareddy says that Nyobolt has carefully designed Bolt-ee to be ultra-efficient, and thus to generate very little waste heat.
As Prof Cipcigan says, there is much space for innovation in the EV charging market, and younger and smaller companies “could make an interesting impact on this very complex landscape”.
The original article contains 1,108 words, the summary contains 167 words. Saved 85%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
On a hot day sitting in a parking lot, my Model 3 loses about 10% of its charge just cooling the battery. I am lucky to have the ability to charge at home so I don’t have to worry about it, but if I was living in an apartment, I’d have constant anxiety about it discharging and not being ready when I need it. It’s doable, but having to plan out an extra 20-30 minutes plus travel time to hit a charger, that’s a fairly significant change to routine.
That said, yes, more EV charging at gas stations please. It’s critical for road trips.
Not clear if this is the cause of the Alaska accident. Those bolts hold on the hinges at the bottom, and the photos appear to show those hinges still attached on the incident aircraft.
The news (I’m watching TV now) is still warning people to evacuate, showing it in big letters and with exclamation points, and in English along with Japanese, so the threat isn’t over yet.
There was literally a Jp magnitude 5 aftershock not 5 minutes ago, and the news is still blasting “evacuate” messages on the screen, so…
I’m lucky, I’m far enough away that it was only about a Jp 4 here, but over 30,000 homes are without power in winter and at least one major cellular phone company is reporting they’re down in Ishikawa. It’s not fine at all.
I was trying to be reassuring but of course this is a difficult situation for you and more so for the people in those 30,000 homes and even worse for the few people who lost a relative in those quakes.
Fortunately, you are amongst the lucky ones and there was no large tsunami as I have hoped so before.
So again, I hope you well and if you can take some rest and distance yourself somewhat from those bad news and bad screens it might help.
Take care and despite everything I wish you a Happy (happier) New year
A resident of Hosa Vantamuri village in Belagavi district in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, she was being punished because her 24-year-old son had eloped with his 18-year-old girlfriend.
Families don’t come forward because it’s a matter of honour and the system does not support the survivors or give them a safe space to report these crimes," says lawyer and rights activist Sukriti Chauhan.
Such cases are dealt with under article 354 of the Indian Penal Code and are punishable by a mere three to seven years in jail - which, Ms Chauhan says, is “grossly inadequate”.
In the Karnataka high court, the justices also noted that the assault in Belagavi was watched by “a crowd of 50-60 villagers”, adding that “only one man tried to intervene and he was also beaten up”.
Highlighting the need for “collective responsibility” to stop such atrocities, the judges cited a case from the 1830s - when India was governed by the British - pointing out that an entire village was made to pay for a crime.
Maumil Mehraj, a research analyst who works with young people on gender equity, says the reason a woman’s body is treated as a battlefield is because it’s connected to her - and by extension her family, caste and community’s - honour.
The original article contains 1,101 words, the summary contains 215 words. Saved 80%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
As the cracked and baking river bank towers up on either side of us, Oliveira Tikuna is starting to have doubts about this journey.
Bom Jesus de Igapo Grande is a community of 40 families in the middle of the forest and has been badly affected by the worst drought recorded in the region.
And the head of the village, Oliveira’s father, warned anyone elderly or unwell to move closer to town, because they are dangerously far from a hospital.
This year the water in the North Atlantic has also been abnormally warm, and hot, dry air has enveloped the Amazon.
says Flávia Costa, a plant ecologist at the National Institute for Amazonian Research, who has been living and working in the rainforest for 26 years.
Dr Flávia Costa’s research indicates that parts of the forest will survive - particularly those with easy access to groundwater, such as valleys.
The original article contains 1,188 words, the summary contains 149 words. Saved 87%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I agree with this in principle, but the way they were allowed to compete as the “Russian Olympic Committee” was bullshit. You can’t have a team called “totally not Russia (wink)” and expect that to be a meaningful punishment for the nations leaders
I think the athletes should only be able to compete as citizens of the world with no reference or acknowledgement of the banned country allowed.
That will never work as long as they’re the only country in that situation. They would need to be mixed with athletes from other unrelated countries for this to make sense.
The point isn’t to disguise them. The point is to call attention to their country’s misdeeds by refusing them the honor of flying their colors. Perhaps the individual athletes should still win medals, but the IOC wouldn’t assign the credit to Russia, who would not be eligible for them.
bbc.co.uk
Top