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| Lodged | From | Messages |
|---|---|---|
 The Taiga Folk of Northern Wood | *blushes* Thank you all for your kind words. I've entered many flag competitions, but this was the first one that I've won... ...I can't tell if you all have better taste, here, or worse :P Effazio, Sacara, Frieden-und Freudenland, Chan island, and 14 othersMount Seymour, Ownzone, Atsvea, Ruinenlust, Lord Dominator, Turbeaux, Outer Bele Levy Epies, Novian Republics, Roless, Paplia, Lura, Newvigen, Middle Barael, and Norginlajicratefe | |
 The Democratic Island Federation of Frieden-und Freudenland | I am just here to say I can't believe it is August already. 0.o P.S. I also basically forgot the 5th anniversary of our nation's foundation on July 30. Oh well... Happy belated anniversary, I guess. If anyone cares to come to The Bar on the corner of every region with me, I'll buy you a beer. Kawastyselir, New Kvenland, Alcantaria, Mount Seymour, and 13 othersOwnzone, Isbjorn Maerenne Bava Paerani, Atsvea, Ruinenlust, Lord Dominator, Palos heights, Turbeaux, Outer Bele Levy Epies, Duckman, Novian Republics, Roless, Newvigen, and Middle Barael | |
 The Rewilding of Ruinenlust | Effazio, Verdant Haven, Kawastyselir, Frieden-und Freudenland, and 11 othersMount Seymour, Ownzone, Atsvea, Lord Dominator, Darths and Droids, Turbeaux, Outer Bele Levy Epies, Northern Wood, Lura, Middle Barael, and Norginlajicratefe | |
 The Pink Holy Lucky Christmas of Atsvea | Why does it suck to be in China? | |
| The Rewilding of Ruinenlust | In a stream-of-consciousness way, since I have to do stuff IRL in a minute: Rule by the communist party; lack of democracy; terrible environmental regulations; Hong Kong is dying; rapidly aging population without having first quite acquired First World wealth to fund such a transition; far too many cities that are far too populous; encroaching Gobi Desert; melting Tibetan glaciers; social and political oppression of Tibetans, Uighurs, and many other minority groups; dictatorial leadership of Xi that is likely for life; lack of open information due to censorship; rapid overdevelopment of the landscape with massive infrastructure projects that have destroyed much of the environment; perennial massive floods along major rivers despite all of the awful dams; rare Earth metal extraction that is terribly polluting; crazy levels of surveillance; etc. At least so I've heard. I've never been there, actually, and I don't intend on going, either. I'll stay in North America, lol. :-) Frieden-und Freudenland, Atsvea, Lord Dominator, Turbeaux, and 4 othersOuter Bele Levy Epies, Northern Wood, Newvigen, and Middle Barael | |
| Newvigen | I can't either. Time... time is weird. | |
| Palos heights | >2 hours ago Uan aa boa ceased to exist Also, congrats Effazio, Kawastyselir, Sacara, Frieden-und Freudenland, and 11 othersMount Seymour, Atsvea, Ruinenlust, Lord Dominator, Turbeaux, Outer Bele Levy Epies, Terrabod, Myordas, Northern Wood, Newvigen, and Middle Barael | |
| Sacara | My gosh... that explosion in Beirut was brutal... Frieden-und Freudenland, Atsvea, Ruinenlust, Lord Dominator, and 6 othersTurbeaux, Canaltia, Outer Bele Levy Epies, Myordas, Northern Wood, and Newvigen | |
 The Most Serene Eco-Republic of Middle Barael | Yes. With the economic crisis in the country and constant protests and riots against the corrupt and inept government, it is really hitting hard there. No doubt Hezbollah is behind the attacks, since in just a few days the verdict of a UN trial on four Hezbollah members will be released, not to mention how Hezbollah attacked northern Israel just a few weeks ago. Sacara, Frieden-und Freudenland, Atsvea, Ruinenlust, and 5 othersLord Dominator, Turbeaux, Canaltia, Outer Bele Levy Epies, and Newvigen | |
 The Sarcasm Tag of Canaltia | Yeah, just saw some videos of that. Crazy stuff. No cause stated yet, but a death toll of 25 and 2,500 injured minimum. At this point, I'm just hoping it was an innocent accident that set it off, because we really don't want, or need, terrorist attacks or wars breaking out. On a much lighter tone, yesterday I found out that jalapeno peppers are actually not that expensive. You can get a kilogram of them for less than $9.00 Canadian. And you can do so much with a kilogram of jalapeno peppers. So my recommendation is to support your local economy by buying freshly grown jalapeno peppers, because they're far too cheap to justify not having a lot of them. Sacara, Frieden-und Freudenland, Atsvea, Ruinenlust, and 5 othersLord Dominator, Turbeaux, Outer Bele Levy Epies, Newvigen, and Middle Barael | |
| The Most Serene Eco-Republic of Middle Barael | As if 2020 could get any worse. Sacara, Frieden-und Freudenland, Atsvea, Ruinenlust, and 6 othersLord Dominator, Turbeaux, Canaltia, Outer Bele Levy Epies, Myordas, and Newvigen | |
 The Republic of Effazio | From what I'm reading, it was likely gross negligence. Two reports say either ammonium nitrate or sodium nitrate was left in the port for over a year after being confiscated, and that a fire caused it to explode. Even if it was an accident though, it doesn't lessen the devastation and human loss. Mount Seymour, Atsvea, Ruinenlust, Lord Dominator, and 3 othersTurbeaux, Northern Wood, and Newvigen | |
| The Most Serene Eco-Republic of Middle Barael | Yeah, I've been seeing the same thing. Now it seems really anyone is behind it, or that it was intentional. Hezbollah, Iran, and Israel have all denied involvement, and Israel and Iran have both offered humanitarian aid. | |
 The Federated Bailiwicks of Verdant Haven | That's what it's looking like currently, from the news. If it was an NH4NO3 blast triggered by a fire, that brings to mind the devastation of the Texas City blasts in 1947. If what President Aoun mentioned as a possibility proves true - that a warehouse containing 2,750 tonnes (3031 tons) of NH4NO3 is what blew up, we sadly need to be ready for the death toll to climb even higher than the 70 it's at right now. An industrial accident is in some ways "better" than a deliberate terrorist act, from a geopolitical stability perspective, but for the victims and their families the devastation and suffering are the same. In this disaster, let's hope that everybody can put aside their differences for a bit and help those who were affected to recover, to mourn, and to rebuild. | |
| The Democratic Island Federation of Frieden-und Freudenland | Yes, I am heartbroken. It was such a devastating explosion. Even holidaymakers in Cyprus heard the blast (around 190 km away, according to my Google Earth ruler measurement 0.o) and seismographs recorded it as an earthquake of magnitude 3.3. Let that sink in. I cannot imagine the impact that the explosion had in Beirut. I just hope it wasn't some terrorist organization that executed a planned attack like this. Not that it would change the death toll, but as you said, I don't wanna think about its political implications. I have been looking around on Google Earth, trying to match the port area (as seen in October 2019) to the rubble we see today. It is so sad. It seems the ammonium nitrate was in what is called Beirut Port Silos, and that is the white building that exploded :( https://earth.google.com/web/@33.90132511,35.51842498,1.64204304a,1626.57369948d,15y,-8.55813285h,8.45150525t,0r Mount Seymour, Atsvea, Ruinenlust, Lord Dominator, and 4 othersTurbeaux, Northern Wood, Newvigen, and Middle Barael | |
 The Intensive Care Unit of Candlewhisper Archive | China's actually been pretty good, environmentally speaking, in recent years. However the nature of non-accountable government is that while they can instigate environmental measures on a whim they can also wreck the environment on a whim. In the long term, its not the most sustainable system for environmentalism. I'd agree though that lack of government transparency is a problem. In fact, it's also the thing which hides all the problems we don't know about, and it'd be naive to think that the horrifying human rights abuses and corrupt actions of the powerful are anything more than the tip of a huge and hidden iceberg of state malfeasance. For its wrongdoings, it is accountability in the USA that allows the government to have made progress. While Western democracies have got a long way to go, they've also come a long way, and that's because of accountability. | |
| Glaciosia | Hello from the UDS: Embassy update for July is | |
| The Federated Bailiwicks of Verdant Haven | That definitely is the building :-/ The BBC article has a clip with a couple of videos of the explosion (since the building was on fire first, people were filming from multiple perspectives at long distance). It looks like the detonation occurred initially in the 7th and 8th columns of the silo, with the building acting to provide the containment that makes turns an ammonium nitrate fire into an explosive. The explosion blew out the top, followed a split second later by the north end, and a split second after that, the sound end. We can only hope that since the initial direction of the blast was to the north (towards the water), that more of the effects were directed harmlessly out to see. Had it been the other way around, I'm guessing it would even worse. To provide a more recent connection than the 1947 Texas City explosions... for those who remember the Oklahoma City bombing, that blast was the equivalent of around 5000lbs of TNT. If the quantity given by President Aoun is correct, and it all detonated, this one was the equivalent of 2,546,040lbs of TNT, or 1.27 kilotons - more than 500 times larger, and on the scale of some tactical nuclear weapons that are still in service to this day. The videos are really horridly visceral. They're in the distance, you don't see any injuries or anything like that, but the raw power behind it is bigger than even the detonations of refineries that are perhaps the closest non-military equivalent I've seen. -edit- | |
 The Sylvan Hivə of Turbeaux | I finally finished putting together my August environmental agenda. It is here: The Problem:
Forty million tons of electronic waste (electronics/electronic accessories that are thrown away) is generated every year and only about twelve and a half percent of it is recycled. It is often full of toxic materials (examples include lead, mercury, dioxins, and cadmium). Much of it ends up in poor regions of Asia and Africa where these toxins inevitably leach into water supplies, killing aquatic life as well as severely impacting the health of land animals (including humans). Additionally, plastics involved are photodegraded into microplastics which proliferate globally at an alarming rate. (Microplastics severely impact animal health. No animal life has evolved any mechanisms to combat them.) Some simple steps can be taken to minimize your E-waste footprint: Solutions: 1. (Reduce) Do not purchase new electronic devices unless the justification for doing so outweighs the environmental degradation that the e-waste from it will create (Of course, this is ultimately a personal judgement. However, it is easy enough to find the facts that you need to inform it). 2. (Reuse) If you find yourself with unneeded electronic hardware, try to reuse it (I have a single cable that I use to charge my shaver and water flosser.). If you cannot reuse it with other technology that you own, consider using it for other purposes. For example, I am using a broken wireless phone charging stand as a camera mount. If you cannot do any of these things, please consider selling/trading in or donating these items. 3) (Recycle) There is some E-waste that cannot be reused for one reason or another (when a cable is cut, no amount of handiness is going to restore it into a functional and safe one. Such items can be recycled easily enough. In the US, every Best Buy location accepts E-waste for recycling (I will include a link with details in my references). If you are handy and have the necessary equipment, you can recover some metals on your own. 4) (Responsible disposal. That’s right, I added a fourth R!) Unfortunately, some items like damaged batteries cannot be addressed with Rs number two and three. These should be taken to local hazardous waste collection.
Please remember that electronic waste is not just a problem impacting the environment. It is also a problem impacting human rights/health! References: | |
| The Rewilding of Ruinenlust | This explosion in Beirut was unbelievably large. It's amazing that that amount of material was stored in the middle of a populated area. Those substances ought to only be stored in secure locations, far away from fragile infrastructure and people, and never in those quantities that would detonate to that extent. ----- Also, new from America: a truly bonkers 37 minute interview between AXIOS media and Donald Trump. This is like a parody of what a government would be. This could have been an involved, in-depth skit in a comedy production from one or two decades ago. It's unreal that this is what is actually going on. It gets hysterically funny (and tragic, but you have to laugh otherwise you'll cry) around 14:00, when he produces these charts and papers. It's just...oh dear. O__O https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaaTZkqsaxY Effazio, Frieden-und Freudenland, Mount Seymour, Atsvea, and 4 othersLord Dominator, Turbeaux, Newvigen, and Middle Barael | |
via Conch Kingdom |  The Puddle of Socialist Platypus | I have sent it to the CK RMB, hope it helps. Mount Seymour, Atsvea, Ruinenlust, Lord Dominator, and 3 othersTurbeaux, Middle Barael, and Norginlajicratefe |
| The Sylvan Hivə of Turbeaux | This proves that Trump's president-program basically comes down to pointing fingers (Democrat cities supposedly encouraging protests as well as governors doing poorly addressing COVID), citing ratings (blah blah blah "highest-ratings in the history of Saturday evening Fox News") ,and using anecdotal references (The part where he mentioned a friend who had received a "ballot" for a dead son as well as people receiving ballots for dogs). I half-expected a copy of the cognitive test where he successfully identified drawings of animals to be in that stack of COVID graphs! Thank you! EDIT: My personal impressions of the New West Indies are that it is a stable region with a stable democratic government that enjoys cerebral RP (it reminds me a little bit of Wintreath, which is a good thing). There is no explicit emphasis on the environment aside from its absorption of Conifer (which was peaceful and received full support from Evergreen Conifer's government). However, it is definitely an egalitarian region! Frieden-und Freudenland, Atsvea, Ruinenlust, Lord Dominator, and 5 othersPaplia, Lura, Newvigen, Middle Barael, and Socialist Platypus | |
 The Pacific Alpine Commonwealth of Mount Seymour | To add one bit to this: I recently reached out to NWI about plans for the upcoming N-Day, specifically because of their history with Conifer, and they are interested in/planning to join us in our Canopy faction. So I absolutely agree it would make sense to open embassies. Frieden-und Freudenland, Atsvea, Ruinenlust, Lord Dominator, and 4 othersTurbeaux, Paplia, Newvigen, and Middle Barael | |
 The Tsardom of Lura | When does N-Day happen? The last Z-Day happened right after I created my nation and I thought it was kinda lame, and I expected N-Day to be further than it apparently is from Z-Day to spread the events more evenly across the year. I hope that N-Day is better than Z-Day was. I had like 12 million in population so taking any action had little effect on literally every nation and I was zombified and then exterminated early on. Atsvea, Ruinenlust, Lord Dominator, Turbeaux, and 2 othersNewvigen, and Middle Barael | |
| The Pacific Alpine Commonwealth of Mount Seymour | N-Day is likely to be September 26, like it was last year. Originally it was an April Fools event, then it moved to the end of August in "celebration" of the International Day against Nuclear Tests on the 29th. Now it's on the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. Once the novelty of Z-Day wore off after my first time experiencing it, I never found it terribly interesting. It's very deterministic. In regions like Forest, the whole region is almost certain to cure itself within the first 12 hours. But if you don't have that, you're almost certain to end up with a rising death number that's virtually unstoppable. By the last 6-12 hours of Z-Day, really very little is happening. In contrast, I've always found N-Day one of the most exciting events of the year. While Z-Day is primarily driven by the hard-coded march of infection, things only happen in N-Day when people make them happen. Plus, it's all about interactions between factions. The result is that (1) there's a lot of real politicking of the kind that just doesn't occur in day-to-day NationStates (alliances and pacts hastily being formed, suspicions of double-crossing, trying to construct a public image so that no one will go after your faction), and (2) things are happening all the time. When we did N-Day last year, we had at least five people online protecting the faction, coordinating against rogues, and choosing targets at all hours of the day. Where success in Z-Day is determined by game-given stats (your population, natural infection) and has a single obvious "correct" choice, success in N-Day is determined by players' actions (how many nations you can work with at once, if you can notice incoming weapons in time, if some other players decide to target you, if you make the right strategic decisions about nukes versus shields) and can encompass many different strategies. Atsvea, Ruinenlust, Lord Dominator, Turbeaux, and 3 othersLura, Newvigen, and Middle Barael |
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