2025 Is A Good Number, It’s A Quarter Of The Way Through The 20 Hundreds And It’s Got That Nice Set

Genius.

:-)

It's almost as if removing regulations will result in consumer health and safety suffering. Who would have guessed?!

Quick reminder that it's always morally correct to punch nazis.

English class is excellent, but it needs to be more than just English class.

We need open ended research questions to teach folk how to formulate questions, interrogate data, state assumptions and test those assumptions. For example, using a data set of Senate votes, you can teach how voting works and how votes are counted (Civics), how two party preferred is calculated (Civics and Maths) and get students to write code (Tech) to process the data in various ways. Then use their findings (English) to support an argument (for example living a side on FPTP versus PV).

Science classes often cover pseudo science, but they should also cover how to analyse your test results, and what to do when your test results don't match the results you anticipated.

Religious education classes (where they exist) often cover cults, but everyone needs to be taught about how to identify cult-like indoctrination. It should be part of Health (or equivalent).

We need classes on relationships (not just sex ed), such as the importance of self respect, respecting the others, what healthy relationships look like (including friendships), what red flags to watch out for, what to do when you don't feel safe.

"they should teach media literacy in schools" english class "they should teach students how to spot misinformation" it's english class "they should teach kids critical thinking" it's called english class

The Polk County Sheriff's Office deliberately misled people into believing that Briana Boston had been released without charges. They shouldn't be allowed to get away with it.

I can imagine that the Mintari might come to regret that treaty.

Humans are weird: The Monster Inside

( Please come see me on my new patreon and support me for early access to stories and personal story requests :D https://www.patreon.com/NiqhtLord Every bit helps)

I was an observer at the time sent by the Mintari command to coordinate the war effort alongside humanity against the Tempari Regime. A temperate people, the Tempari were roused into conflict with my people over the destruction of a religious comet that was projected to impact one of our colony worlds. Diplomatic talks were waylaid by feverous religious zealotry and so war was declared not long after.

Humanity interestingly enough had not been drawn into the conflict at first as they were not labeled as a belligerent by the Tempari. They would have remained out of the war entirely were it not for a defensive treaty they had signed some six of their months earlier. A notion they no doubt regretted but they still came and now found themselves facing down a Tempari fleet three times their number.

Admiral Horner was unusually calm about the entire situation; or at least that is how he presented himself. Humans are notoriously difficult to read when they wish to be and the Admiral was showing nothing beyond a calm calculating nature as his ships spread out.

I was wondering what rash move he would take to engage the Tempari. It was another well-known habitual that when humans came up against impossible odds they would always do the unexpected and somehow emerge victorious.

The Admiral opened a direct line of communication to the Tempari flagship. For the first time in recorded history a human admiral spoke directly to a Tempari fleet commander. Their name was Gilyan and they opened dialogue by asking the humans to abandon my people; that this war was not theirs to fight and if the humans departed now they would not be harmed.

It was a tempting offer and I must admit that I felt my hearts beat faster as Horner failed to rebuff the offer. I worried that they would indeed leave us to our fate and when the Admiral finally stood up and straighten their uniform I had all but stopped breathing.

“Did you say goodbye to your son?”

Whatever I had been expecting this certainly was not it, and the Tempari appeared just as caught off-guard as I.

“Excuse me?” Gilyan asked.

“Your son,” Admiral Horner continued as he took out a small wooden pipe and lit the end of it, “did you say goodbye to them before you deployed here?”

“I did not.” Gilyan replied cautiously.

“A pity.” Horner remarked as he took several puffs from his pipe and then looked at the Tempari commander. I watched as quietly a series of targeting vectors began appearing over on ship amongst the Tempari lines. It wasn’t the flagship and as far as I could see it was just another Tempari light cruiser, but every gun in the human fleet was now locked on to it as the Admiral gave his final words before the storm.

“No parent should outlive their child.”

The communication went dead as the entire fleet opened fire as one on the light cruiser. Shields of bright purple flared for a moment, straining to hold off the torrent of firepower before bursting like a popped bubble.

Countless warheads, rail gun rounds, plasma lances, and all other manner of ordinance peppered the hull of the cruiser causing it to buckle and break like a twig in a raging stream before finally the inevitable happened.

What had been a light cruiser just moments before was now a cluster of debris slowly floating amongst the Tempari fleet.

Before I had any time to ponder what had just happened the Admiral began issuing fleet wide orders for a withdrawal. Under a storm of Tempari return fire the allied fleet began turning around and engaging their jump drives to flee out of system. At the head of the fleet was the Tempari flagship recklessly charging ahead of their fleet leaving it dangerously exposed; yet the Admiral refused to turn and engage them. Their cannons claimed three human ships before our own flagship made the jump and left the system. 

“You know they can track our trajectory.” I offhandedly remarked to the Admiral as he reclined into his command throne.

“I am aware.” The Admiral replied dryly. “They will follow us; of that I am sure.”

“And why are you so sure?” I asked.

The human looked at me and with a grin that could make their devil pale they said, “Because we just killed their commander’s son.”

--------------------------- What followed was what came to be known as the “Bloody Quadrant”.

The human fleet led the Tempari fleet on a wild chase throughout the entire Quadrant. Always near but just out of reach of their grasp. A place the humans had carefully crafted them to be in.

Every time the Tempari fleet would exit a jump they would find themselves in a deadly trap.

In the Gameri system the Tempari fleet exited a jump directly into a massive nuclear minefield that took out thirteen of their capital ships.

In the Hulv Nebula they were ambushed by small squadrons of frigates that picked off their supply and repair ships before retreating.

Worse yet was when the human fleet actually appeared to turn and fight above the moon of Y’op only to detonated previously hidden explosives within the orbital body and shatter the moon. They jumped out of system just as the debris field of the former moon showered the Tempari fleet decimating a third of their remaining forces.

I could not help but ponder why the Tempari were so intent for battle even after suffering such terrible losses, but at the same time I had known the answer.

By killing the Tempari commander’s son in the opening battle the humans had driven them into a blind rage. Their thirst for revenge would not allow them the luxury of letting the humans escape, and by remaining so close to them they ensured the blood lust would continue to build and cloud their judgment.

At the end only the Tempari flagship and fifteen escort vessels remained when Admiral Horner had decided the chase had reached its end. They were battered and scoured with the battle damage from a dozen battles and now they faced off against the entire allied navy.

“Will you offer them terms of surrender?” I asked as the Tempari formed up for the final time. The human shook his head.

“I will not insult them anymore than I already have.” He spoke in a stoic voice. “We will let them die well.”

To my surprise I could detect hints of remorse in their voice as the Tempari charged at our ship.

One by one the escorts were picked off until only their flagship remained making a suicidal charge at our ship. I watched as it shrugged off round after round of concentrated rail gun fire as it pressed forward and it looked that it would collide with us and carry out its final revenge.

A thermal warhead struck its rear thrusters at the last moment. The two ships scraped and grinded against each other’s hulls and the entire ship shook with a force I would equate to an earthquake. Countless human crewmen were thrown from their seats and some of the less lucky ones were dashed against the metal terminals of their posts and fell limply to the ground, blood pooling around them from their wounds. The Admiral watched unmoving from his throne as his ship sparked and screamed in pain until finally the nightmare ended.

The Tempari ship drifted behind our ship, now dotting countless holes and trails of smoke from plasma fires raging across multiple decks. Admiral Horner didn’t even bother to watch as his rival finally met their end, and instead relinquished the bridge to his second so he could go to his quarters to rest.

“They’ll call you a monster for this.” I couldn’t help myself from saying as the enemy flagship finally detonated.

With a look of disappointment in their eye the Admiral turned to me. “I should hope so; war makes monsters of us all.”

Neither did I the first few times.

I've only ever seen this in screenshots before..n

me holding a gun to a mushroom: tell me the name of god you fungal piece of shit

mushroom: can you feel your heart burning? can you feel the struggle within? the fear within me is beyond anything your soul can make. you cannot kill me in a way that matters

me cocking the gun, tears streaming down my face: I’M NOT FUCKING SCARED OF YOU

Anyway

It really is wild that some politicians can stand there and say "yeah we're getting rid of a program that keeps quite literally millions of people alive specifically so we can cut taxes for people who are already richer than god" as if it's a normal political stance and not so cartoonishly evil I'm legit shocked perry the platypus doesn't break through the nearest wall the minute the words leave their mouth.