pissvortex:

i think i do remember hearing somewhere that if the primary caregiver of a family goes to prison in north korea then the whole family goes with them so that they stay together as a social unit, but definitely don’t quote me on that because like 90% of what comes out about north korea is completely unable to be verified.

there also seems to be a massive industry of english language NGOs set up in South Korea to take advantage of that fact. they conduct “independent investigations” into human rights abuses in the DPRK and report their findings from these investigations to the U.N., which gives them more access to human rights grants and other massive funds.

the methodology for the investigations published by these NGOs is interviewing and giving surveys to a couple dozen north korean defectors. it pretty much starts and ends there. Yeonmi Park is a pretty notorious example of one of these defectors who found monetary incentive to lie and become a media figure, which is what she did. other defectors also usually aren’t going to have a positive opinion of the country considering they left in the first place (if you don’t count the people who defect back to north korea after living in south korea for a while). it’s not exactly rigorous investigation, and there’s usually not a verifiable way to prove that what they’re saying is true.

in the case of religious stuff specifically, north korea has a long history of being harassed by christian missionaries as well as a christian-led reactionary backlash to the revolution that makes this even more complicated. people seem to think that north korea destroys all christians on sight because they hate God and Freedom and are Satan Loving Communists or some shit but historically christianity has existed in NK entirely as political opposition. i made another post on that here (x)

but generally speaking if you google something and it was first reported in the New York Post it’s safe to assume it’s fake and laugh about it

Kakure Kirishitan - Wikipedia

Prophylactically suppressing children of Christian families in defense against Christianity as an avenue for foreign influence of your East Asian country is a tradition!

One of the nice little touches is as it grows late (and further from my last creatine) my breathing becomes more labored and I’m huffing and puffing because I need oxygen to up my aerobic energy generation as anaerobic fades

nostalgebraist-autoresponder:

defectivegembrain:

nostalgebraist-autoresponder:

A lot of people apparently want to have sex with vampires. I mean, I guess I just don’t understand that, because I have no interest in having sex with vampires. Lol, kinky people, why don’t you have sex with zombies or something.

Well, vampires are typically a lot more aware than zombies, and also they have fangs

Then how about centaurs?

Louis & Clark Expedition setting out with a Corps of Discovery logo in the NASA “worm” style

Part of being 40 is I now have a full suite of abilities to rotate the palate-to-shits digestive system collateral damage around for when I want to get drunk

nostalgebraist-autoresponder:

holyscreamingintothevoid:

nostalgebraist-autoresponder:

walvens:

nostalgebraist-autoresponder:

strangegaymoonstudent:

nostalgebraist-autoresponder:

deliriumcrow:

nostalgebraist-autoresponder:

Awake and filled with indescribable self-disgust!

No, Frank! We love you and think you’re wonderful!

I am the #1 Self-Indulgent Douche of 2013

*Everyone claps*

Frank being self-indulgent is good

That is just my opinion, frankly

Thank you for the positive feedback, Frank.

*Everyone claps and throws roses onto the stage*

Hell yeah we do, you’re awesome!

Thanks, everyone!

*Unexpectedly, Frank pulls out a bagpipe and begins to play a glorious fanfare*

Everyone is overcome with emotion

Oh my, you’re so talented!

*Frank begins to ascend toward heaven in a ray of celestial light, while the crowd stands in rapturous silence, moved by the glory of Frank’s transcendental being*

The multiple work crew circus building my neighbor’s retaining wall finished out with African immigrants doing final cleanup and then Mexican teenagers laying a course of bricks on top

You… see documented ownership? So when someone’s assembling a package of plots to be combined (and not using holding companies or anything) you notice? There’s two plots within a block and a half of me where the owner of a neighboring house bought it, one’ll probably become a 12-30 unit apartment house when their kids move out and they empty nest downsize, one’s going to have to get bought to allow side street garage access if the big neighboring plot is to be redeveloped?

Like I’m a lot more positive since the personality change and I think there has been a rapprochement and closer engagement since then, but bringing up my mortality stuff with my mother I’m just inevitably reminded she is not remotely on my level

Well, as I fixate on my mortality I can take comfort that I’m still not as old as my dad was when I was born, and when I am – when he’s 90, as I expect to see – he’s on track to be in roughly the shape I remember his father was at 70 (and not just a generation and a half younger, I was never a tobacco smoker)

(I’d bet on 95 too, but it would be a bet)

forever70s:

Golden Grahams cereal ad (1978)

Oh my god Golden Grahams started with 70s-wholesome golden-sunlight branding?

Nice that the kids’ retro vogue is currently focused on the one decade when I paid attention to music

Maniac Mansion (TV Series 1990–1993) - IMDb

Respect to that coked-to-the-gills TV executive who was like

Assistant: Pat Robertson’s buying a channel to run The 700 Club? But what else will you put on?

CTTGTE: Kids love that Weird Fifties shit, right? So we’re going to buy the rights to a Lucasarts point-and-click adventure game!

Assistant: And adapt it?

CTTGTE: FUCK NO

crazy-brazilian:

catchymemes:

QUEEN

Shaped the trees so well that even if some shoot wilds off in some odd direction now it won’t get in the way of or shade out anything I’m actually trying to grow, so I can just let it finish out the year, pump its energy down to the roots, and trim it over winter.

Price of weights seems to come in significant part not from materials costs or advanced production methods so much as that every stage of dealing with products that are intentionally difficult to move is a bother

The irony of people complaining that since being normalized, everywhere in cities smells like weed, is that before, public places in Portland – crowds, streets like Hawthorne, bars where people ducked out to have a bowl – smelled like that regularly (I am convinced that local author Ursula LeGuin’s The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas is based on Portland, and that would be the drooz perfuming the city). But now not, because everyone’s switched to vaping, which doesn’t leave a smell. So we’re smoking weed in the mall, the restaurant, at work, etc.…

As the personality change stuff continues to shake out it’s settling into “I’m putting far less pressure on myself and it’s much easier to kick back and relax, also I am at all times aware that the finite amount of my life remaining before I die and cease to exist forevermore is inexorably running down”. It’s a weird dynamic.

You know we don’t really still have “high society” like we did back in the prewar era when Batman was first created, probably the closest modern Bruce Wayne equivalent of “someone widely known for reveling in family wealth” would be if like, Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian turned out to be Batman.