That pier in Gaza built by the U.S. military is done. Apparently it is as worthless as we thought it would be.
Wokeness enters the video game industry.
And California is still a shithole.
Just Sad
Reality
According to the New York Post:
Over 569 metric tons of humanitarian aid have made it across the US-built floating pier and into Gaza, but none of it has been delivered to Palestinian civilians, the Pentagon said Tuesday.
The structure, erected by the US Army in an effort to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in the war-torn region, was completed last Thursday.
But several trucks hauling food and other goods to warehouses have been “intercepted” on the Gazan mainland.
“We do anticipate that assistance will be distributed in the coming days here, of course conditions permitting,” Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters Tuesday, maintaining that the aid was “flowing in” but not yet being distributed to Palestinians.
When pressed if any of the aid has actually been delivered as of Tuesday, Ryder responded, “I do not believe so.”
Who would have thunk it? The Hamas terrorists are assholes. Oh, everyone knew it!
The Pentagon spokesman noted that some trucks, operated by nongovernmental organizations tasked with delivering the aid to another staging area, had been ransacked by looters.
“Some of that initial aid that was brought in, as it was being taken along a transportation route, was intercepted by some people who took that aid off those vehicles,” Ryder said.
“Subsequently, there’s been discussions by which to ensure that there’s alternate routes so that it can be delivered to warehouses,” he added.
Let’s build them something else that’s not going to work. Maybe send our troops in to protect the stuff.
By the way, the “looters” are Hamas.
You know how all this could end? We give them nothing and let Israel wipe Hamas off the map. What we are doing right now is sending aid to Hamas. The people aren’t getting any of it.
Good news, though. The people are starving and they are run by a bunch of uncivilized terrorists but Ireland, Spain and Norway acknowledged that there is a Palestinian state.
But They Are Not After Your Kids
According to Pink News:
The re-release of the GameCube classic restores dialogue confirming that ghostly Vivian is transgender, with her saying it took her a while to realise she was trans.
The key line had previously been removed from the 2002 English translation of the game, although it could be found in the Japanese version.
The dialogue also includes Vivian talking to Mario about her siblings. “Truth is, it took me a while to realise I was their sister… not their brother. Now their usual bullying feels heavier,” she now says.
Vivian is first encountered in Paper Mario as one-third of an enemy group known as the Shadow Sirens which, in the original translation, was made up of three sisters.
The original Japanese translation also had the trans character’s fellow Shadow Siren sisters routinely misgender her.
In the new remake, however, much of the dialogue is restored and Vivian’s correct pronouns are used.
Goombella now says: “That’s Vivian. She’s the youngest of the three Shadow Sirens… she doesn’t seem all that noteworthy. Uh… she is kinda cute, I guess… she might even be cuter than I am… what am I thinking?”
According to Mat Park Place:
Assassin’s Creed Shadows developer Ubisoft appeared to confirm that the game’s two main protagonists Yasuke and Naeo are LGBTQ+ characters.
In a blog post on the company’s website published on May 15th, the company declared, “Naoe and Yasuke’s disparate personalities also lead them to have different relationships and rapports with other characters, and they don’t always feel the same way about people, nor do people always feel the same way about them.”
Next, they discussed romance options, “Romantically, they will also attract and be attracted to different types of people. Through the pair, players will get to experience a multitude of relationships.”
This revelation comes amid Ubisoft contracting with Dartmouth Associate Professor Sachi Schmidt-Hori. Sachi Schmidt-Hori is an LGBTQ activist with her biography on Dartmouth’s website reading, “I am interested in investigating how gender, sexuality, corporeality, and power are represented and negotiated in pre-seventeenth-century Japanese narratives and illustrations. My first book, Tales of Idolized Boys: Male-Male Love in Medieval Japanese Narratives (University of Hawai`i Press, 2021) is on medieval chigo monogatari (Buddhist acolyte tales), which often depict romantic relationships between Buddhist priests and adolescent boys. These tales challenge a host of normative and moral standards we (academics, especially) internalize, including such ideas as ‘sexual orientation,’ ‘transgenerational sex,’ and ‘sexual agency.’”
It’s a video game. Do they really need to get this detailed in the lives of the characters or should Ubisoft spend more time making really cool swords to kill the whatever they are killing?
https://www.thepinknews.com/2024/05/22/paper-mario-trans-character-vivian
https://thatparkplace.com/ubisoft-appears-to-confirm-assassins-creed-shadows-protagonists-yasuke-and-naoe-are-lgbtq/
Why Fight It?
According to the Daily Wire:
A coalition of 17 red states are challenging California over regulations that ban sale of new diesel trucks by 2036.
The lawsuit, led by Nebraska, argues that California’s Advanced Clean Fleets regulations on internal-combustion trucks and mandate for “zero emission vehicles” by 2036 violate federal law and will have a nationwide impact. The suit argues the regulations will disrupt supply chains, raise prices on goods, and slow interstate transportation.
“In a stunning gambit that both violates the constitution and threatens our nation’s economic security, an agency of the State of California has attempted to override federal law and arrogate to itself the power to ban internal-combustion engines in medium- and heavy-duty vehicles,” the lawsuit says. “This attempted ban contravenes controlling law while defying real-world reality and burdening American families and businesses, already suffering from high inflation, with even more costs.”
The suit was joined by Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming, as well as the Arizona State Legislature and the Nebraska Trucking Association. The suit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California.
Oh, but they’re not done.
Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers announced an additional suit against the Environmental Protection Agency for its regulations on tailpipe emissions standards for heavy-duty vehicles. Critics argue that these regulations effectively take aim at traditional trucks in favor of pushing companies to manufacture and sell electric vehicles.
The suit against the EPA was joined by Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming. The suit was filed before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
“California and an unaccountable EPA are trying to transform our national trucking industry and supply chain infrastructure. This effort — coming at a time of heightened inflation and with an already-strained electrical grid — will devastate the trucking and logistics industry, raise prices for customers, and impact untold number of jobs across Nebraska and the country,” Hilgers said in a statement.
The Environmental Protection Agency needs to be banished.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/california-challenged-over-ban-on-sale-of-new-diesel-trucks
Always Conforming to the Sleaze
According to Fox News:
A California city removed the traffic lights from a four-way intersection as the city grapples with thefts attributed to a massive homeless encampment nearby.
Oakland has been experiencing high crime and theft, including people stealing copper wires and the city’s infrastructure, according to locals who spoke to CBS News. The city attempted to thwart criminals tampering with its electrical boxes by placing cement barriers over them – to no avail. Now, the city has taken to removing the traffic lights at a busy intersection and replacing them with stop signs.
“It’s just telling us that the city is giving up on us,” said Tam Le, owner of Le’s Auto Body & Engine Repair, nearby the intersection, told CBS News. “If you really want to fix the stop sign, I think you really have to clean up this homeless encampment.”
The lights had been working on and off for months due to criminals tampering with the electricity and stealing the wires, the report said. One local, Mason Young, said it was becoming extremely dangerous to drive through the intersection, and noted an accident that recently occurred there.
Instead of fixing the problem, California has decided to just give up and put tax payers in danger. This is a bad look.
More Bad News
According to KDRV:
With more and more people switching to all-electric or hybrid vehicles, California officials along with Caltrans are looking for a change to the state’s current gas tax system.
According to Caltrans, fewer and fewer people have been paying into the state’s gas tax system over the past several years due to an increase in electric and hybrid vehicles on the road.
Although the change has been great in moving towards the state’s goal of 100% of new cars and light trucks sold in California being zero-emission vehicles, the lack of revenue is hurting funding towards road repairs.
“Approximately 80% of highway and road repairs are funded by a tax on gasoline charged at the pump when you buy gas,” Caltrans said. “The more gas you buy, the more you pay in gas taxes and the more you contribute to highway and road repairs.”
With fewer people buying gas in the state, less funding is going into necessary repairs to the many roadways and highways around California.
“As we look to the future and we shift away towards more fuel efficient and alternative fuel vehicles altogether, that is not really gonna be a system we can rely on,” said Lauren Prehoda, Caltrans Road Charge Program Manager.
Because of this, Caltrans and state officials are considering a new “mile-based” tax system that would replace the state’s current gas tax.
If approved by state lawmakers, Californians would now have to pay taxes back to the state based on the number of miles they drive, either per month or per year–something Prehoda says could potentially balance a major gap within the state.
“The great things about this potential idea is that right now under the gas tax, we’re seeing a lot of growing imbalance in what people are paying to use the road,” Prehoda said.