In a quiet, forgotten village nestled deep within a dense forest, tales of an ancient witch named Elara had been passed down through generations. They spoke of her ethereal beauty, her ageless face, and her dark, malevolent powers. Most believed she was just a story to scare children into behaving, but others knew the truth.
It began with a simple dare. Lucy, a rebellious teenager, scoffed at the old legends. "Witches aren't real," she declared to her friends one night around a bonfire. Determined to prove her bravery, she decided to venture into the forest alone and find the witch's cabin. Her friends tried to dissuade her, but Lucy was headstrong.
Armed with only a flashlight and her skepticism, Lucy trekked through the woods. The deeper she went, the quieter the forest became, as if the trees themselves were holding their breath. After what felt like hours, she stumbled upon a clearing. In the center stood a decrepit cabin, exactly as described in the village's lore.
Despite a shiver running down her spine, Lucy pressed on. The door creaked ominously as she pushed it open, revealing a room filled with ancient artifacts, jars of strange substances, and books written in an indecipherable script. In the corner, a cauldron bubbled with a thick, green liquid, emitting a foul odor.
A sense of unease began to creep over Lucy, but she forced herself to stay. "It's just an old house," she muttered. She stepped closer to a bookshelf, her fingers brushing over the spines of the books, when she heard it – a soft, melodic humming.
Turning around slowly, she saw her. Elara, the witch, appeared as if from thin air. Her beauty was otherworldly, her eyes glowing with an eerie light. "You've come to visit me," Elara said, her voice like velvet. "How delightful."
Lucy couldn't move, couldn't speak. The witch approached her slowly, her smile never reaching her eyes. "So brave, so curious," Elara murmured. "But bravery has its price."
With a wave of her hand, the cabin transformed. The walls pulsed as if alive, and the artifacts seemed to watch Lucy with intent. Elara's face twisted into a malicious grin. "You wanted to see if the stories were true, and now you will be part of them."
Lucy felt a cold grip around her heart as darkness enveloped her. Her screams were swallowed by the night, leaving the forest silent once more.
The next morning, Lucy's friends, worried and guilty, ventured into the forest to find her. They discovered the clearing, the cabin... but no sign of Lucy. Inside, they found an old, dusty book open on the table. Flipping through its pages, they saw illustrations and descriptions of those who had visited Elara's cabin over the centuries. Each page bore a name and a fate.
They gasped when they reached the latest entry. There, sketched in excruciating detail, was Lucy, her eyes wide with terror. Beneath her portrait were the words: "Curiosity and defiance – a soul taken."
As they fled the forest, they could swear they heard Elara's melodic humming echoing through the trees, a reminder that the witch was very real, and her legend lived on.

Hello!
I am trying to track down my paternal side that came from Ireland over to the US. I’ve gotten back to the first full generation here (1868) and on his death certificate, his (my great great grandfather) parents first names are listed. Problem is, they have the incredibly unique names, Thomas and Mary (Thomas is abbreviated Thos. on the cert). Other than that, it’s been a complete dead end for me. I assume they were traveling during the famine time because if GGGrandpa was born in 1868, they’re probably somewhere in the 1830 region. Just tough to say where the traveled, if they came straight from Ireland, went to England first, etc. but they ended up in NY. I also can’t find a record of them in NY other than that death certificate that I can definitely say “that’s them!” Great Great grandpa sadly passed away at 34 years old so unfortunately there aren’t a ton of census records of him either.

Hello we are 2TMC a 21+ community server much like Hermitcraft. We are a SMP with emphasis on being friendly (with a little bit of chaos) with other players, and trying to be a welcoming community to everyone. We are running a Semi-Vanilla server with a few terrain generation mods and additional mods that enhance the vanilla experience (see list below).
We are looking for players who will be active in game on chat and on our Discord voice channels. The server is in NA but we accept players from all around the world. Discord and a mic are required! We love to chat on voice in game but it's definitely not required! We are also youtubestreamer friendly. So if you love to play minecraft and are looking for a friendly environment where you can prank others and do community projects then send us a message! We'd love to chat with you.
Data packs on the server

• afkdisplay
• anti enderman grief
• armored elytra
• better item frames
• blackstone cobblestone
• blaze and cave's advancements pack
• coal to black dye
• charcoal to black dye
• confetti creepers
• coordinates hud
• craftable notch apples
• craftable coral blocks 3x3
• craftable gravel
• craftable bundles rabbit hide
• custom nether portals
• double shulker shells
• dragon drops
• durability ping
• fast leaf decay
• graves
• larger phantoms
• more mob heads
• mountain angels
• name formatting station
• player head drops
• real time clock
• silence mobs
• straight to shapeless
• unlock all recipes
• universal dyeing
• unpackable nether wart
• villager workstation highlights
• wandering trades hermit edition

​
Fabric mods on the server

• armor poser
• audioplayer
• cloth config api
• clumps
• enhanced groups
• fabric per player spawns
• geophilic
• head index
• just an end anchor
• keep head names
• more mob variants
• no chat reports
• player pronouns
• radio
• regrowth
• shulker+
• shulkerboxtooltip
• simple voicechat
• slimyfloor
• status
• stitched snow
• terralith
• towns and towers
• william wythers' overhauled overworld

​
Fabric mods required to join the server

• armor poser
• cloth config api
• just an end anchor
• more mob variants
• no chat reports
• shulker+
• simple voicechat
• status
• xareos minimap
• xareos worldmap

​
Server Rules

1. Be Respectful
2. No griefing, stealing, or cheating
3. Chat is English only
4. Non-Destructive Pranks are allowed (so Hermitcraft style pranks)
5. Spawn area is for a spawn town
6. Bases must be built 250 blocks away from Spawn.
7. No duping except for carpet, rail and tnt.
8. No combat logging, this means mobs as well.
9. Taking items/griefing from active and maintained ruin sites is prohibited.
10. No hacking or hacked clients
11. No using others builds, items, villagers, etc without their permission.

If you are interested in joining please fill out this application

I've just installed the Text-Gen-WebUI-ST , and it seems to be working fine, the problem is the interaction between it and AllTalk.
Here is an example response I received: Chiharu's eyes widen in surprise at your response, but she quickly recovers and smiles reassuringly Don't worry, I won't bite! She chuckles Let's start with the basics. What got you interested in computers? [image_correclty_generated]
AllTalk correctly generates the .wav file, but it doesnt send it alongside the text response and the image. And as seem in the example above, the text is ouputting the .wav file path, and not the "play button". The correct text would be: [PLAY BUTTOM] Chiharu's eyes widen in surprise at your response, but she quickly recovers and smiles reassuringly Don't worry, I won't bite! She chuckles Let's start with the basics. What got you interested in computers? [image_correclty_generated]
I'm running AllTalk as a Text-Gen-WebUI extension, and it's entire ouput into the command windows is:

Llama.generate: prefix-match hit Output generated in 6.15 seconds (10.09 tokens/s, 62 tokens, context 384, seed 1337) [AllTalk TTSGen] Chiharu's eyes widen in surprise at your response, but she quickly recovers and smiles reassuringly Don't worry, I won't bite! She chuckles Let's start with the basics. What got you interested in computers? [AllTalk TTSGen] 4.09 seconds. LowVRAM: False DeepSpeed: True 18:46:26-837540 INFO [SD WebUI Integration] Using stable-diffusion-webui to generate images. Prompt: She chuckles Let's start with the basics. What got you interested in computers, but she quickly recovers and smiles reassuringly Don't worry, Chiharu's eyes widen in surprise at your response, I won't bite, sscore_9, score_8_up, score_7_up, score_6_up, realistic, realism, source_anime, High-Res, High Quality, (masterpiece, best quality, highly detailed, realistic, beautiful eyes, detailed face), BREAK red eyes, red glasses, brown hair, pony tails, long hair, bangs, smiling, lab coat, black boots, ankle boots, blue nails, blue lipstick, cowboy shot, upper body shot Negative Prompt: score_4_up, score_5_up,low detailed, ugly face, bad hands, bad fingers, mutated hands, low res, blurry face, monochrome, words, artist signature, close up 

And here is Stable-Difussion ouput:

Begin to load 1 model [Memory Management] Current Free GPU Memory (MB) = 10816.615869522095 [Memory Management] Model Memory (MB) = 2144.3546981811523 [Memory Management] Minimal Inference Memory (MB) = 1024.0 [Memory Management] Estimated Remaining GPU Memory (MB) = 7648.261171340942 Moving model(s) has taken 1.81 seconds To load target model SDXL Begin to load 1 model [Memory Management] Current Free GPU Memory (MB) = 9031.173444747925 [Memory Management] Model Memory (MB) = 4897.086494445801 [Memory Management] Minimal Inference Memory (MB) = 1024.0 [Memory Management] Estimated Remaining GPU Memory (MB) = 3110.086950302124 Moving model(s) has taken 3.24 seconds 100%██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 15/15 [00:05<00:00, 2.93it/s] Memory cleanup has taken 3.36 seconds██████████████████████████████████████████████████ 15/15 [00:04<00:00, 2.97it/s] Total progress: 100%██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 15/15 [00:08<00:00, 1.77it/s] Total progress: 100%██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 15/15 [00:08<00:00, 2.97it/s] 

And this is my "settings.yaml" file:

preset: Debug-deterministic seed: 1337 truncation_length: 32768 stream: false character: Chiharu Yamada default_extensions: - openai - send_pictures - sd_api_pictures - gallery - long_replies - whisper_stt - alltalk_tts - stable_diffusion alltalk_tts-voice: '#Scarlett_voice_preview (enhanced).wav' stable_diffusion-api_username: '' stable_diffusion-api_password: '' stable_diffusion-base_prompt: sscore_9, score_8_up, score_7_up, score_6_up, realistic, realism, source_anime, High-Res, High Quality, (masterpiece, best quality, highly detailed, realistic, beautiful eyes, detailed face), BREAK red eyes, red glasses, brown hair, pony tails, long hair, bangs, smiling, lab coat, black boots, ankle boots, blue nails, blue lipstick, cowboy shot, upper body shot stable_diffusion-base_negative_prompt: score_4_up, score_5_up,low detailed, ugly face, bad hands, bad fingers, mutated hands, low res, blurry face, monochrome, words, artist signature, close up, stable_diffusion-sampler_name: Euler a stable_diffusion-sampling_steps: 15 stable_diffusion-width: 1024 stable_diffusion-height: 1024 stable_diffusion-cfg_scale: 4 stable_diffusion-clip_skip: 2 stable_diffusion-debug_mode_enabled: true stable_diffusion-trigger_mode: continuous stable_diffusion-tool_mode_force_json_output_enabled: false stable_diffusion-tool_mode_force_json_output_schema: "{\n \"type\": \"array\", \n \"items\": {\n \"type\": \"object\",\n \"properties\": {\n \"tool_name\": {\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"required\": true\n },\n \"parameters\": {\n \"type\": \"object\",\n \"required\": true\n } \n },\n \"additionalProperties\": false\n },\n \"minItems\": 1\n}" stable_diffusion-interactive_mode_input_trigger_regex: .*(drawpaintcreatesenduploadaddshowattachgenerate)\b.+?\b(imagepic(ture)?photosnap(shot)?selfiememe)(s?) stable_diffusion-interactive_mode_output_trigger_regex: .*[*([]?(drawspaintscreatessendsuploadsaddsshowsattachesgenerateshere (isare))\b.+?\b(imagepic(ture)?photosnap(shot)?selfiememe)(s?) stable_diffusion-interactive_mode_description_prompt: You are now a text generator for the Stable Diffusion AI image generator. You will generate a text prompt for it. Describe [subject] using comma-separated tags only. Do not use sentences. Include many tags such as tags for the environment, gender, clothes, age, location, light, daytime, angle, pose, etc. Very important: only write the comma-separated tags. Do not write anything else. Do not ask any questions. Do not talk. stable_diffusion-dont_stream_when_generating_images: false stable_diffusion-generation_rules: - regex: .*\b(detailed)\b match: - input - output actions: - name: prompt_append args: '(high resolution, detailed, realistic, vivid: 1.2), hdr, 8k, ' - regex: ^Assistant$ match: - character_name actions: - name: prompt_append args: - name: negative_prompt_append args: - regex: ^Example$ match: - character_name actions: - name: faceswaplab_enable - name: faceswaplab_set_source_face args: file:///{STABLE_DIFFUSION_EXTENSION_DIRECTORY}/assets/example_face.jpg stable_diffusion-hires_sampling_steps: 10 stable_diffusion-faceswaplab_source_face: file:///{STABLE_DIFFUSION_EXTENSION_DIRECTORY}/assets/example_face.jpg stable_diffusion-reactor_source_face: file:///{STABLE_DIFFUSION_EXTENSION_DIRECTORY}/assets/example_face.jpg stable_diffusion-reactor_source_gender: none stable_diffusion-reactor_target_gender: none stable_diffusion-faceid_source_face: file:///{STABLE_DIFFUSION_EXTENSION_DIRECTORY}/assets/example_face.jpg stable_diffusion-ipadapter_reference_image: file:///{STABLE_DIFFUSION_EXTENSION_DIRECTORY}/assets/example_face.jpg 

If someone could give me a help on this, I'll appreciate a lot. Thank you.

Hello we are 2TMC a 21+ community server much like Hermitcraft. We are a SMP with emphasis on being friendly (with a little bit of chaos) with other players, and trying to be a welcoming community to everyone. We are running a Semi-Vanilla server with a few terrain generation mods and additional mods that enhance the vanilla experience (see list below).
We are looking for players who will be active in game on chat and on our Discord voice channels. The server is in NA but we accept players from all around the world. Discord and a mic are required! We love to chat on voice in game but it's definitely not required! We are also youtubestreamer friendly. So if you love to play minecraft and are looking for a friendly environment where you can prank others and do community projects then send us a message! We'd love to chat with you.
Data packs on the server

• afkdisplay
• anti enderman grief
• armored elytra
• better item frames
• blackstone cobblestone
• blaze and cave's advancements pack
• coal to black dye
• charcoal to black dye
• confetti creepers
• coordinates hud
• craftable notch apples
• craftable coral blocks 3x3
• craftable gravel
• craftable bundles rabbit hide
• custom nether portals
• double shulker shells
• dragon drops
• durability ping
• fast leaf decay
• graves
• larger phantoms
• more mob heads
• mountain angels
• name formatting station
• player head drops
• real time clock
• silence mobs
• straight to shapeless
• unlock all recipes
• universal dyeing
• unpackable nether wart
• villager workstation highlights
• wandering trades hermit edition

​
Fabric mods on the server

• armor poser
• audioplayer
• cloth config api
• clumps
• enhanced groups
• fabric per player spawns
• geophilic
• head index
• just an end anchor
• keep head names
• more mob variants
• no chat reports
• player pronouns
• radio
• regrowth
• shulker+
• shulkerboxtooltip
• simple voicechat
• slimyfloor
• status
• stitched snow
• terralith
• towns and towers
• william wythers' overhauled overworld

​
Fabric mods required to join the server

• armor poser
• cloth config api
• just an end anchor
• more mob variants
• no chat reports
• shulker+
• simple voicechat
• status
• xareos minimap
• xareos worldmap

​
Server Rules

1. Be Respectful
2. No griefing, stealing, or cheating
3. Chat is English only
4. Non-Destructive Pranks are allowed (so Hermitcraft style pranks)
5. Spawn area is for a spawn town
6. Bases must be built 250 blocks away from Spawn.
7. No duping except for carpet, rail and tnt.
8. No combat logging, this means mobs as well.
9. Taking items/griefing from active and maintained ruin sites is prohibited.
10. No hacking or hacked clients
11. No using others builds, items, villagers, etc without their permission.

If you are interested in joining please fill out this application

Hello! I'm trying to find a mod/plug-in I remember seeing on a server several years ago and was hoping somebody could help me rediscover it. Its main feature was that any mob killed would have a chance to drop a procedurally generated weapon or armor with custom stats. It followed a basic tier system (common, uncommon, rare, etc.), and the gear would have randomized names, damage, protection, etc. I think it followed a system where dropped items would need to be identified, but that memory is hazier, and I might be remembering wrong. My main memory is that players would set up Enderman XP grinders to farm legendary loot because they had the highest loot table.

After nearly thirty years of research, field work, digging, and sometimes living off the land, Ana had finally found what her family had sought since her great-grandfather. The door was so well hidden that she hadn’t realized it was there until she attempted to break a bit of the surface rock off with her geologist’s hammer. The hollow behind the door resonated with the sound of the hammer on stone.
She tapped along the door to find the edges. With the chisel end of her hammer, she chipped away the encrustations that had built up along the edges. After hours of hammering, chiseling, and digging at the base, the outline of the door was visible. Made of the same rock as the surrounding gneiss, it had gone unnoticed for untold millennia.
Ana pushed the door from the sides, the middle, the top, the bottom, looking for the smallest movement. The door didn’t budge. She sat, leaning against the door on the flat bit of ground she’d dug out. She ate some of the year-old jerky she had in her pack while the sun set.
It was a clear, moonless night, and Ana focused her attention on the whirl of the Milky Way overhead. The sight wasn’t enough to keep her mind off the stubborn door behind her and the aching of her joints from sitting on the rocky ground.
She stood and turned to take a last look at the door for the day. Even in the faint light of the stars, she thought she could make out the edges. At one corner, a flash caught her eye. She moved her head back and forth, trying to find the position that had, she thought, reflected light.
Not finding it, she pulled out her flashlight and shone it on the corner of the door where the flash was. She expected to see a reflection but saw none. She turned out the light, and there it was, except it was two flashes this time.
There was no doubt it was coming from inside, shining out a pinhole in the door seam at the upper left corner. “Monkey see, monkey do?” she asked herself. She pointed the flashlight at the corner and flashed it twice. When nothing happened, she flashed it again.
The response was five flashes. “Oh, fibbi-whatever,” she muttered. “Three and five is eight.” She flashed the light eight times. There was no immediate response. She began to worry that she’d been wrong in her counting or in what pattern they were looking for.
A loud hiss sounded as the whole door slid out away from the wall. Bright light shone around the edges of the door that continued to slide out, far thicker than she’d expected. Where she’d stopped digging in front of it, the door bulldozed its own path.
It stopped with a little less than a meter clearance between the back of the door and front of the rock wall. Beyond lay a downward-sloping walkway. It was shaped like an oval with a flattened floor. A voice echoed from within, “Enter, Anastasia.”
She didn’t know how they knew who she was, but she wasn’t going to turn back after having come so far. She stepped around the door, held by a single, flat piece of metal that disappeared into a groove in the ceiling. The metal that held the massive slab of stone looked far too flimsy for purpose, but pushing against the edges of the open door did nothing to sway the door or distort the metal support.
With a deep breath, Ana threw her pack over her shoulder and stepped into the hallway. As she continued down the hall, more would illuminate ahead of her while behind her, the lights shut off. Where the light came from was a mystery to her, but she was more interested in what lay ahead at that point.
She felt a slight, sudden increase in air pressure in the tunnel, followed by the echoing sound of the door as it closed. She pushed down the edges of panic that wanted to take hold. “I’m on my way,” she said to the tunnel.
The deeper she went, the more the temperature seemed to settle at close to fifteen or sixteen degrees Celsius. Her lips felt dry in the still air, and she applied lip balm while she continued apace ever deeper. Somewhere far underground, the tunnel curved back on itself and kept descending. After two more switchbacks, and what felt like hours of walking, she found herself in a chamber.
It was monumental in scale. The walls curved to meet at least twenty meters overhead. As the lights in the chamber came up, the far side looked a hundred or more meters away, while the doorway she was in was situated about twenty meters from the walls on either side. Covering the bottom two-thirds of the walls were row upon row of plastic-like boxes with lights blinking inside them.
In the center of the chamber was a dais with a holographic glyph floating in the air above it. Standing next to the dais was the owner of the voice she’d heard on entering. The shape was semi-translucent, the lights from the boxes behind it seeming to light it from within. “Welcome,” it said, although it had no mouth with which to speak. Its form shifted and changed, from an amorphous blob to an array of wings and eyes, then through creatures both real and mythical, until it finally settled into the shape of a large woman with wings.
“Who are you?” Ana asked.
“I am the keeper,” it said. “You are Anastasia, the seeker, yes?”
“I’m Anastasia Kell, but I go by Ana.” Ana moved closer to the center of the chamber and the shape-shifting entity at its center. “What is your name?”
“I am the keeper. I have no name.”
“Fine, I’ll call you Odette, then. You look like an Odette.”
The keeper flapped its wings twice, then shrunk its body by adding a long tail. “That is acceptable, seeker Anastasia.”
“Please, just call me Ana.”
“Of course, Ana. Please, come to the dais for your reward. Your dedication has won through.” The keeper moved away from the dais and extended an arm toward Ana. The arm kept extending, reaching Ana’s hand twenty meters away from the keeper.
Ana was surprised that the hand felt warm and dry. She’d expected some sort of slimy, cold thing, but it wasn’t. She let herself be led to the dais. “What are you?”
“I am the keeper.”
“Are you a biological creature or a construct of some sort? Some sort of soft-body robot, maybe.”
“I am a biological construct, designed to keep a record of all intelligent life on this world. I have been keeping these records for 72,363,412 years.”
“Since what…the dinosaurs?”
“Yes. The first were theropods. Traveling in hunter groups, they had a limited language. If they had been more adaptable, they might have not been already dying out by the time of the asteroid.” The keeper changed its shape to a theropod that Ana didn’t recognize. It was about the same height as her, with three-toed feet, three-fingered hand on medium-length arms, and a slightly domed head.
“That’s what they looked like?” she asked.
“Yes.” The keeper shifted into the shape of a porpoise. “There were and are the cetaceans, of course. They have language and culture but are not in a position to leave their cradle.”
“Is that what you’ve been waiting for? An intelligence capable of space travel?”
“Yes. My creators have placed other keepers like me on millions of worlds.” The keeper changed into a sphere. “This is where I am keeper.”
“So now, humans, I guess, are what you’ve been looking for.”
The keeper changed into a primate that resembled a chimpanzee and then morphed through several hominin species shapes, pausing on Neanderthal before finishing up with modern human. “I’ve watched entire civilizations come and go without so much as a scratch to mark them in the geologic record, and yet your kind has made an indelible mark on the planet. Whether that is for better or worse remains to be seen.”
“My guess would be worse, but I’m a pessimist.”
“So you say, but you never stopped searching for the library at the heart of the world.”
“True.” Ana took a deep breath and put a hand on the dais. The holographic glyph hovering above it disappeared, and an eight-limbed creature appeared in its place.
The creature spoke in English, even though its squishy mouthparts made movements that were often in total contradiction to the sounds it made. “Welcome, seeker Anastasia. Updating. Welcome, Ana. What would you like to learn today?”
“What are my limits here? This place was hard enough to find, what kind of things won’t you tell me?”
“The records will answer any questions you have that can be answered. Nonsensical and paradoxical queries will be ignored. The library is hidden to ensure that only those ready to take the next steps beyond their cradle can find it. As such, all our knowledge is yours for the asking.”
“So, I blinked a light in a simple sequence. How does that mean we’re ready to take the next steps – whatever those are?”
“You are the fourth generation of your family that has searched for the library, correct?” the holograph asked.
“I am.”
“And you have spent the majority of your adult life in the same search, have you not?”
“I have,” she said, “but how does that–”
“Multi-generational planning and execution, combined with drive and determination, and the knowledge of basic mathematical concepts. This is enough to start with.”
“Are you just another aspect of Odette?”
“No, I am the avatar of Krshnlgik-mlOgnk, the current head of remote planetary studies on our home world of MFkst.” The pronunciation of the non-translated names sounded more like someone choking in a bowl of oatmeal than a language.
“Is faster-than-light communication possible?”
“It is. I am currently speaking with you from a distance of thirty-one thousand light years.”
“How?”
A series of formulae appeared in the space above the dais. “You may use your phone to photograph these, since memorization might be difficult.”
Ana did. “And faster-than-light travel?”
The formulae were replaced with more, some of which looked similar to the first. She photographed those as well.
“Do you have any other questions?”
“How can you claim to keep track of everything happening all over the world?”
“The keeper, or Odette as you call it, has a connection through quintillions of microscopic wormholes to points all over the planet.”
“So, would you have the contents of the Library of Alexandria as they were just before it burned?”
“We do.” Thousands upon thousands of titles scrolled by, many in languages Ana couldn’t even guess at, but with an English translation next to them.
“That might be something for another day,” she said. “Are there others out there in the galaxy or just your people?”
“There are many others,” the avatar said, as images of dozens of strange body plans showed. “We are a small part of a wider galactic community.
“You seem to be pondering something,” the keeper said. “Do not be afraid to ask your question.”
“How do we get off this rock and join the galactic community?”
The keeper morphed into the shape of a cozy chair and said, “Get comfortable.”
“Huh? Why?”
“Because,” the avatar answered, “this is going to take a long time to explain.”
prompt: Dream up a secret library. Write a story about an adventurer who discovers it. What’s in the library? Why was it kept secret?
originally posted at Reedsy

Name: Loam Loam Fruit
Type: Logia
Description: The Loam Loam Fruit is a Logia-type Devil Fruit that grants its user the ability to transform into, manipulate, and generate soil at will, effectively making them a Soil Human.
Abilities and Powers: - Soil Transformation: Transform the user's body into soil, allowing them to become intangible and impervious to physical attacks while in this form. - Soil Manipulation: Control and shape soil with precision, altering its composition, density, and structure to create various forms such as barriers, constructs, or projectiles. - Soil Generation: Generate soil from their surroundings or create it from nothing, replenishing depleted earth and expanding their arsenal of soil-based abilities. - Earthquake Generation: Manipulate soil to create seismic disturbances or earthquakes, causing tremors and upheavals in the ground to disrupt opponents or reshape the battlefield. - Plant Growth Manipulation: Influence the growth and development of plants by manipulating the soil composition and nutrient content, fostering rapid growth or inducing withering and decay as desired.
Usage Examples: - Terrain Control: Manipulate soil to alter the terrain of the battlefield, creating obstacles, trenches, or fortifications to impede enemy movement or provide strategic advantages for allies. - Earth Manipulation: Utilize soil manipulation to hurl boulders, launch projectiles, or construct defensive barriers, wielding the earth as a versatile and formidable weapon in combat. - Subterranean Movement: Traverse underground by transforming into soil and moving through the ground with ease, infiltrating enemy territory or evading detection with stealth and agility. - Natural Disaster Induction: Channel soil manipulation abilities to trigger landslides, mudslides, or sinkholes, causing widespread destruction and chaos to overwhelm adversaries or disrupt their plans. - Plant Growth Enhancement: Enhance agricultural productivity or facilitate reforestation efforts by enriching soil nutrients and promoting plant growth in barren or depleted areas.
Weaknesses: - Water Susceptibility: Soil-based abilities may be weakened or nullified in the presence of large bodies of water or heavy rainfall, limiting the user's effectiveness in aquatic environments or during wet weather conditions. - Limited Range: Manipulating soil requires proximity to earth or soil-based materials, restricting the user's capabilities in barren or urban environments where soil may be scarce or nonexistent. - Physical Exhaustion: Extensive or prolonged use of soil manipulation abilities may lead to physical fatigue or exhaustion, draining the user's energy reserves and impairing their combat performance over time. - Standard Devil Fruit Weaknesses: The user is affected by the standard weaknesses that apply to all Devil Fruit users, including the inability to swim and the loss of their abilities when in contact with Seastone or similar substances.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has been the standard measure of economic growth since World War II. It is widely believed that accelerating economic growth as measured by the GDP will translate into improved living standards. However, this view is being challenged with the argument that it is better to focus on measures of wellbeing than GDP because, despite robust economic growth over the past several decades, there are still millions of citizens living in poverty.Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has been the standard measure of economic growth since World War II. It is widely believed that accelerating economic growth as measured by the GDP will translate into improved living standards. However, this view is being challenged with the argument that it is better to focus on measures of wellbeing than GDP because, despite robust economic growth over the past several decades, there are still millions of citizens living in poverty.

Besides, GDP measures perpetual growth, which is unattainable. Because GDP is an outdated proxy measure of economic growth, wellbeing, which is a multidimensional approach of measuring the most important aspects of people’s life, is gaining popularity.

Perpetual Growth

Stagflation is simultaneous economic stagnation combined with high inflation. In the long run, economic growth is dependent on two drivers; productivity and labor (Dolar). Productivity is affected by multiple factors. Improvements in many facets of productivity growth have decreased or reversed since the global financial crisis. The foremost factor is the demographic crisis of western countries that threatens the growth of GDP. Developed countries have experienced deceleration of working-age population, stabilization of educational attainment, and expansion into various forms of production. Furthermore, labor reallocation from less productive to more productive sectors has decelerated since the global financial crisis. Besides, radical disruptions to education and income losses are likely to affect human capital negatively. The waning demographics of western countries imply that acceleration of productivity growth is needed. The McKinsey Global Institute projected that 80% productivity growth is required to mitigate the effects of changing demographics (49). This projection is unlikely to be achieved given the dwindling working-age population in western countries. On the contrary, productivity growth is likely to continue decreasing because of the significant changes in the demographics unless the working-age population begins to grow again.

Perpetual Growth

GDP as a measurement is very outdated because it does not measure wellbeing. It is a statistical tool used to measure how well the economy is performing. However, it neglects important factors that determine the wellbeing, such as inequality and environmental services (Gallup). GDP as a proxy measure of economic growth ignores certain aspects that do not involve monetary transactions, does not assess changes in human capital, does not discriminate activities that enhance welfare from activities that reduce welfare, does not account for cultural difference, and omits the environmental costs and rates of depletion of resources (Giannetti et al. 14). The Measure of Economic Welfare is one of the alternatives for a gross domestic product as it measures consumption in the economy as a proxy for economic welfare. It adds up the benefits of goods and services consumption and subtracts the costs associated with the consumption, such as environmental pollution, providing a picture of economic welfare. Other economic welfare measures were developed after the Measure of Economic Welfare, such as the Index of the Economic Aspects of Welfare which incorporates environmental costs in estimating economic welfare (Giannetti et al. 15). Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare is an index developed to account for the current environmental issues while addressing the long-term ecosystem and natural resource sustainable use. More indices were developed with recent ones such as the State of Global Well-Being, the Better Life Index, and the Global Well-Being Index measuring a myriad of aspects of wellbeing. The Gallup Global Well-Being measures the behavioral economics of gross domestic product growth. It estimates the percentage “thriving,” “struggling,” and “suffering” of individuals in different countries and regions (Gallup). The indexes focus on the percent thriving in at least elements of wellbeing such as purpose (liking what they do), social (supportive relationships), physical (good health), community (liking the surrounding community), and financial (managing economic life well) aspects.
One in six adults worldwide are considered thriving – or strong and consistent — in at least three of the five elements of well-being, as measured by the Gallup-Healthways Global Well-Being Index. For example residents of the Singapore score quite low at the 19%, while New Zealand leads in Asia – Pacific with 67%.
The Gallup Global Well-Being measures have opened up new opportunities to study issues that affect people in different communities around the world in ways that GDP would not. For example, life satisfaction aspects of the Gallup World Poll data have been exploited to measure inequality in the distribution of subjective wellbeing (Gluzmann & Gasparini 2). Measuring inequality in subjective wellbeing might be complementary to the various approaches aimed at computing unfairness in a society because it may in some way have benefits over the usual income inequality measurements. Some perceived income inequalities may arise due to personal choices if all constraints are observed thus cannot be considered unfair. A case in point is when two individuals facing similar opportunities make different choices. One choice might lead to a better, healthier lifestyle while the other subjects the individual to poverty. Free choices resulting in socially acceptable income inequality should not be regarded as unfair. The assessment of subjective wellbeing is less likely to be susceptible to such differences. Under evaluation of subjective wellbeing, differences in perceived happiness may better estimate social unfairness rather than income unfairness (Gluzmann & Gasparini 4). Gallup World Poll provides data that can be used to compare wellbeing in different countries. It cures one of the most significant problems associated with compering inequality across countries and regions, namely, the generation of homogenous information. The poll poses the same question across all countries in all areas, which significantly reduces spurious differences in estimating comparisons. This reduces sources of measurement error significantly. It is noteworthy that people may not interpret and answer the standardized questions the same in different countries, leading to additional errors. However, the advantages of estimating subjective wellbeing and its rising popularity imply that improvements in the measurements will yield better results.

Technological Revolution

Usually, information and communication technologies are considered a key driver of economic growth and productivity. Different reviews indicate that technological effects tend to be positive at the organizational level (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development [UNCTAD 34]). However, it has been reported that productivity tends to drop as economies entrench technologies in every sector. In other words, the rapid digitization of economies has not translated into strong productivity. On the contrary, productivity growth appears to have stunted over the past few decades, with the slowdown more pronounced in developed countries and also in developing countries (UNCTAD 34). This is a productivity paradox because as technological advancement and use have increased, productivity growth has decreased, which is contrary to popular expectations (Remes et al.). The digitization of economies into digital economies has thus far not translated into increased productivity. The paradox in the digital economy is attributed to different reasons. A more pessimistic perspective considers the technological effects on productivity as having fewer impacts on productivity growth than the revolutionary technological advances of the past (UNCTAD 34). A more optimistic view links the slow growth of productivity to the time lags between the time the technologies are introduced and the time actual effects are felt (European CEO). As a result, more visible impacts on productivity will occur when technologies are adopted widely within the economy. An additional contributing factor to the productivity paradox is the difficulties associated with measuring the digital economy. The slow growth in productivity might be explained by the lack of proper recording of technological activities in that in overall GDP estimation. Consequently, the proper measurement would be reflected in increased productivity. In developed countries, demographic factors associated with the aging population are also linked to the slow growth in productivity (UNCTAD 34). Therefore, the productivity paradox related to the technological revolution arises from multiple factors.

Quality of the GDP

Measuring economic growth in purely quantitative categories diminishes the significance of “high-quality growth.” High-quality growth encompasses increased technological self-reliance, significant production and welfare transformation, the establishment of a comprehensive safety net for the citizens, enhancement of quality healthcare, education, and employment, and reduction of inequality across regions and various demographic characteristics (Wärtsilä). It reflects a policy change that focuses on investment areas that guarantee increased productivity, such as production, consumption, healthcare, and education (Pfeffer). The concept of high-quality growth is being advanced by China to reorganize the economy in a way that focus on increased domestic consumption and investing in productive sectors to drive the overall economic growth. For example, after decades of heavy investments in infrastructural projects and the manufacturing sector, the country realizes that roads and bridges are not productive but rather facilitates productivity. Policy change to shift investment into more productive sectors of the economy might bring sustainable economic growth and wellbeing. At the sectorial level, administrative job control is one of the main factors impacting the health of the employees (Pfeffer). The return of line of sight to the work, workplace flexibility, autonomous fusion teams, fluidity in work practices, and organizational health can elevate the personal wellbeing of the employees. The functional organization provides an environment with less stress caused by micromanagement demands from the employees. Therefore, wellbeing is a product of economic policy at the national level and the contribution of the private sector in nurturing the wellbeing of employees.

Conclusion

The failure of GDP as a measurement proxy of economic growth is less effective in contemporary society. It assumes that an economy will experience perpetual growth, which is a difficult achievement. Even where economies have experienced phenomenal growth over the years, the economic expansion failed to transform the lives of millions of citizens. The technological revolution also has been unable to expand the GDP as it was initially believed despite the fact that the significant impacts technology has had on society. It led to the conclusion that GDP has limitations as a measure of economic growth because it does not account for the non-monetary aspects that matter to people. As a result, new indexes such as the Gallup Global Wellbeing have been developed and are experiencing rising popularity due to their ability to compute wellbeing. In particular, the estimation of subjective wellbeing creates opportunities for improved measurement of social inequality. Furthermore, the realization that wellbeing is important to citizens is supporting new ideas of measuring national economic growth. China’s shift to the assessment of the quality of economic growth indicates a paradigm shift where countries focus on national statistics that reflect their economic realities.

References

Dolar, Veronika. “Why stagflation is an economic nightmare – and could become a real headache for Biden and the Fed if it emerges in the US.” The Conversation (2022). https://theconversation.com/why-stagflation-is-an-economic-nightmare-and-could-become-a-real-headache-for-biden-and-the-fed-if-it-emerges-in-the-us-179036. Accessed 21 Mar. 2022.
European CEO. “Giving a voice to the digital revolution’s silent majority.” (2019). https://www.europeanceo.com/industry-outlook/giving-a-voice-to-the-digital-revolutions-silent-majority/. Accessed 21 Mar. 2022.
Gallup. “2014 Country Well-Being Rankings.”
Giannetti, Biagio F., et al. “A review of limitations of GDP and alternative indices to monitor human wellbeing and to manage ecosystem functionality.” Journal of cleaner production 87 (2015): 11-25.
Gluzmann, Pablo, and Leonardo Gasparini. “International inequality in subjective well‐being: An exploration with the Gallup World Poll.” Review of Development Economics 22.2 (2018): 610-631.
McKinsey Global Institute – “Global growth: Can productivity save the day in an aging world?” page 49
Pfeffer, Jeffrey. “The overlooked essentials of employee wellbeing.” McKinsey Global Institute (2018). https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/the-overlooked-essentials-of-employee-well-being. Accessed 21 Mar. 2022.
Remes, Jaana et al. “Solving the productivity puzzle.” McKinsey Global Institute (2018). https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/regions-in-focus/solving-the-productivity-puzzle. Accessed 21 Mar. 2022.
Wärtsilä. “Going beyond GDP: China targets a new path to growth.” (2021). https://www.wartsila.com/insights/article/going-beyond-gdp-china-targets-a-new-path-to-growth. Accessed 21 Mar. 2022.
Authors

Paul Lalovich

Organizational Effectiveness and Strategy Execution Practice

Tesha Teshanovich

Organizational Effectiveness and Strategy Execution Practice

2024.2 2024.05.19

SDK: nand: Adjust/fix Winbond manufacturer ID SDK: small update for Broadcom 53xx RoboSwitch device driver SDK: bcmrobo.c: simplify Switch Register Access Bridge Registers SRAB_ENAB() SDK6: update PCI-Express driver kernel: mtd: nand: add Macronix manufacturer kernel: mtd: nand: Add Winbond manufacturer toolchain: refresh toolchain on Debian 12 with newer version of gmp, m4 and mpfr zlib: update to 1.3.1 libcurl: update to 8.7.1 libpng: update to 1.6.43 libxml2: update to 2.12.6 tinc: update to d9e42fa (2024-04-07) snapshot dnsmasq: update to b8ff4bb (2024-02-22) snapshot expat: update to 2.6.2 busybox: updates from the upstream spawn-fcgi: update to 1.6.5 php: update to 8.3.6 nginx: update to 1.26.0 meson: update to 1.4.0 libffi: update to 3.4.6 openvpn: update to 2.6.10 tor: update to 0.4.7.16 - the last one that actually compiles on our ancient toolset sqlite: update to 3.45.3 irqbalance: update to 1.9.4 gettext-tiny: update to 86d9b99 (2024-01-21) snapshot miniupnpd: update to 2.3.6 dropbear: update to 2024.85 libcap-ng: update to 0.8.5 libsodium: update to latest 1.0.19-stable util-linux: update to 2.39.4 build: add Netgear EX7000 support [WIP] build: Makefile: use libzip for php compilation build: Makefile: tune libcurl recipe (remove not used stuff - smaller size) build: Makefile: tune apcupsd recipe (smaller size) build: Makefile: mysql: at last build it with system zlib; do not waste time for mysql-test, support-files, sql-bench and man subdirs build: Makefile: minidlna: disable NLS support build: Makefile: clean more targets before every compilation build: Makefile: util-linux: disable nls build: switch to php-8.3.1 build: add pcre2-10.37 to the tree build: update glib to 2.74.7 with openwrt patches; add/change recipes; integrate updated/added glib and pcre2 build: add haveged-1.9.18 to the tree build: implement haveged build: add TOR again to the o (Custom) target build: Update Dockerfile to Debian 12 GUI: Administration: Admin Access: exclude ports 80 and 443 for remote GUI access for security reasons GUI: Administration: Admin Access: fix preparing url of redirect page in case of remote connection GUI: admin-access.asp - Add option to enable/disable httpd listening on IPv6 and VLAN interfaces GUI: basic-network.asp - fix saving in case wl radio order is not ascending (ex. normal order wl0, wl1, wl2, ... ) GUI: tools-survey.asp - fix Wireless Site Survey if SSID contains a single quote (fix #323) GUI: VPN: OpenVPN Client: add note about strict Kill Switch GUI: Status: Overview: fix Watchdog status display GUI: USB and NAS: Media Server: fix behaviour of the LAN boxes busybox: always add flock applet DHCPC: optionally prevent classless routes. Since this is used for iptv it cannot be disabled by default; recommended to turn it off when not using iptv, see CVE-2024-3661 getdns: fix for broken trust anchor files are silently ignored openssl-1.1: add patches for CVE-2023-5678 and CVE-2024-0727 php8: use php-fpm instead of spawn-fcgi udpxy: Fixed uninitialized source address DDNS: multiWAN aware (fix #65) ddns: increase the number of errors allowed before entering standby from 3 to 10 discobery.sh: supports for any CIDR (no dependency to /24 any more) - network and broadcast IPs are now always excluded from the polling - works when brX IP address is not the first in the subnet httpd: config.c: do not close temp file created by mkstemp before using it httpd: upgrade.c: use mkstemp instead of dangerous mktemp; check for available memory first; correct argument in waitpid(); fix a few other issues httpd: etherstates - detect port info in one sscanf httpd: httpd.c - fix/add IPv6 listeners for MultiLAN setups (do not try to add IPv4 listeners twice) httpd: devlist.c: Loop through dhcp enabled interfaces using BRIDGE_COUNT httpd: wl.c - Add central channel for future updates to the GUI Wireless Survey httpd: wl.c - Add 802.11N+AC BSS capabilities for future updates to the GUI Wireless Survey mdu: in case of curl, also use a while loop to use more than one IP checker during a failed host check mdu: use getaddrinfo instead of the deprecated gethostbyname when building without libcurl mdu: also test for IP change if "Force next update" is checked mdu: support special case, when ifname is set to 'none' or proto is 'disabled' - use default WAN mdu: remove ieserver.net from the list of available services (down) mdu: remove DyNS from the list of available services (down) nvram: fix behavior of 'convert' option ntpd: try to monitor and restart it when it dies or doesn't start at all others: sysinfo: fix WL adapter name for 3rd wireless others: improve cru locking to prevent concurrent updates others: switch4: fix PIN status recognition on some modems others: switch4g: correct checking of CPIN status others: switch3g: fix PIN checker patches: nginx: fix little endian recognition, solve other issues rc: always enable 3G modem support and remove that option from the GUI rc: arpbind.c: stop_arpbind(): Skip header of /proc/net/arp rc: buttons.c: Limit WLAN button maximum duration to 120 seconds rc: bwlimit.c: refactor code to loop using BRIDGE_COUNT rc: firewall.c: fix remote administration (www/ssh) when DMZ is enabled rc: firewall.c: Use BRIDGE_COUNT to iterate throuh interfaces rc: ftpd.c: close fp before bailing when f fails to open rc: init.c: do not run remove_usb_module() [remove_usb_all_modules() now] on halt/reboot; some changes in order of removed services rc: nfs.c: Also free(buf) when returning on failed fopen rc: nginx.c: always try to kill php-cgi at nginx stop rc: openvpn.c: start_ovpn_client(): Initialize route_mode variable rc: services.c: start_ipv6_tunnel(): Fix undefined behavior in snprintf rc: services.s: use get_wanface() to properly check WAN ifaces in generate_mdns_config() rc: services.c: block Apple private relay rc: tor.c: refactor code to loop using BRIDGE_COUNT rc: usb.c: do not run remove_usb_modem_modules() by default - it may cause kernel panic (at least on MIPS RT-AC), enable it by setting 'remove_modem_modules' nvram variable rc: wan.c: restart DDNS not only on primary WAN rom: update CA bundle to 2024-03-11 www: advanced-vlan.asp: wipe out relevant fields for inactive or just disabled WAN - needed in various places for the proper operation of FW www: advanced-vlan.asp: after editing, just reset mwan_num to 1 to avoid problems www: adminer.php: fix error message "Trying to access array offset on null" on php 8 www: basic-time.asp: Show ntp info www: qos-{ctrate,qos-detailed}: Additional filter options www: tools-survey.asp - v1.01 - 11/05/24 - rs232 Asus RT-AC5300: allow to disable/shut down broken wireless radios 

Full changelog: https://bitbucket.org/pedro311/freshtomato-arm/src/arm-masteCHANGELOG

As we all know that in unite there isn't any type advantage like thing exists here and unite just feels like any other moba because of that just nothing special, so I thought about a new mechanism for unite. I named it "Battle Effects". Here how it goes so based on user's mon type it will apply a effect on the enemy mon or the user itself upon casting a skill or a certain scenario. A gauge will come up on enemies or above user's health bar, and after that gauge bar pops up your every move will fill the gauge bar and when the gauge bar gets full it will further boost the powers of those battle effect. But the gauge bar will replenish slowly if the user don't use moves to charge the gauge. Let me explain it furthermore with some battle effects I've created in my mind lol.
• RAGING FLAMES (fire type B.E): Upon casting any move it will trigger the B.E gauge. Upon triggering gauge effect enemy mon who's affected by the gauge effect will take 1% true dmg every second for 5 seconds after user lands a fire based move upon them (true damage amount and time duration of effect cannot be stacked).When the gauge bar gets full the affected enemies will instantly loose 15% max hp and will take 30% more dmg from the user and the user will grant a shield equal to 20% max hp and movement atk speed boost of 30%for 5 seconds. Raging Flames goes into cooldown for 20 seconds after it takes effect.
•PARALYSING CURRENTS (Electric type B.E): After triggering effect gauge affected enemies will get movement speed and atk speed reduction of 15% and upon filling the gauge bar the affected enemies will get instantly strucked by crushing thunderbolts stunning them for 3 seconds and reducing their movement speed by 20%, atk speed by 30%, healing effect by 15% for 5 seconds (after the 3 seconds stun ends). Paralysing Currents goes into cooldown for 25 seconds after it takes effect.
•FEAR (Ghost type B.E): After triggering effect gauge affected enemies will get healing reduction by 10%, sheild regeneration amount reduction by 10% dmg reduction of 15%. Upon filling up the gauge bar the affected enemies will immediately get stunned for 1 second and will no longer be able to heal(nor by themselves or by teammates) and can no longer generate any sheild by themselves (but can obtain a sheild effect by teammates or objectives) and will take 50% more dmg from user for 5 seconds. Fear goes into cooldown for 40 seconds after it takes effect.
•TOXCIN (Poison Type B.E): after triggering effect gauge affected enemies will take true damage of 2% max hp every second for 5 seconds and movement speed reduction of 15% and atk speed reduction of 10%. Upon filling up the gauge bar the affected enemies will take a burst dmg of 15% max hp, healing reduction of 30% and movement speed reduction of 20% and any of the user's move will deal true dmg for 4 seconds.Toxcin goes into cooldown for 30 seconds after it takes effect.
•DIVINE BLISS (Fairy type B.E): When any disruptive Effect strikes the user or ally the healing effect of user will be increased by 40% for 5 seconds and upon filling up the gauge bar every status effects will be removed from the user and nearby allies and gain a sheild of 30% max hp.Divine Bliss goes into cooldown for 30 seconds after it takes effect.
Furthermore battle effects can not be stacked with eachother only one effect will take place at a time (based upon move type) meaning for example a if a gengar hits you with a sludge bomb first you'll get Toxcin but if the ginger uses Hex it will apply Fear. But a mon can hold upto 2 max B.E at same time. So here's the whole thing although I still got many other Battle Effects to share but maybe another day. Thanks if you read it till the end. Tell me in the comments if I cooked or overcooked and you can also ask me questions if you want. see ya 😃👍

When looking into the makings of central banks and financal affairs in the uk and europe i came up with this
Finance and lending money was almost entirely run by jewish families long before 1066AD when William the conquerer borrowed significantly from jewish financiers of France a Rouen Banking family, name is still undisclosed. If anyone knows let me know.
government bonds from 1066 in the british library
The Worshipful goldsmiths company a 700 year old group of goldsmith (investors) who to this day buy up government guilds aka bonds aka loans. Aswell as owning vast estates in and around london. The company was formed after the jewish were originally exiled from britian because of accusations they controlled the UKs finances between 1066 and 1290 🤔 ( insert capitalism cloak and dagger) hide behind a business name.
the worshipful goldsmiths company
This company became of interest to me, as little is said about who actually founded the goldsmiths company other than they were the goldsmiths of london who had controll over london finances as they bacame the gold standard by royal charter. (where the hallmark name came from)
Its rather puzzling who these prominent people were, and interesting that little is said about them especially considering how well they recorded its rather odd they didnt have records of their ownership? (shell company style?)
So 700 years ago goldsmiths were almost all jewish as lending money was strictly forbidden in Christianity ( if you weren't a Christian in england 1000 years ago what even were you?
Also note the Rothschilds family owned the building to the royal mint where coins were minted for the last 200 years. Strange dont you think 🤔
royal mint
Also an interesting financial scale within jewish economics. Jewish law states that jewish can only charge interest to non jewish. So if your entire business model is to charge interest and if a huge percentage of banks are jewish owned and they can only charge interest to non jewish that would denote a pyramidal scale? Note the largest hedge companies in the world are jewish owned.
halachah or jewish law
Now i am not saying this is the entire jewish race, but certainly prominent elite familes hidden behind a cover of a capitalist system that assists obscurity it for what it is.
If you have checked out the links above note they are all from jewish sources.
And you can start to imagin how long the banking business has actually been going on for. If halachah must be followed that would mean continual money supply into a pot for one race obtained from everyone else. (quite possibly why the US pushes for capital markets everywhere and detest communist systems that prevents 👆)
Some examples of said families
rothschilds family archives
The duke of wellington took a loan of £1 billion to pay for the battle of waterloo in 1815, which would now be worth over 20 trillion in todays money. This loan is supposedly still being repaid by british taxpayers to this day.
Can you imagin what interest repayments the Rothschilds must be recieving for a loan that's over 200 years old.
Calculations for 1 billion over 200 years at 4% workds out to a total repayment of 2,940,562,619,656.00 = £2.94 trillion
Oh and guess who funded the loan to pay slave owners for freeing slaves. You guessed it the Rothschilds and Montefoire family if you haven't already come across the latter another name to consider.
Rothschilds and Montefoire
The slave ownership loan was only just been repaid by british tax payers in recent years. If you understand how loan repayments work from mortgages you can imagin what a 200 year old loan does to the total repayment cost.
Calculations for
15 million over 200 years at 4% works out to a total repayment of 38,261,246,866.00 just over 38 billion. So where is all this money as their net worth vastly differs 🤔.
I believe that we are built on a system of finance, either capitalist who want a portion and access of other nations interests or the communists who want to keep the financial system in their own company.
who ever owns the finance owns the world.
Im not sure who secretly runs the countrys of the world but in delving deeper into the history behind finance i found the aforementioned. Some will say this is antisemetic trope. But everything i looked up was backed up by jewish authors and resources. Jewish chronicles being one of them
Thodore Herzle is another prominent name in zionism as its founder who started the zionist movement from Basel switzerland, the mothership of all central banks the IBS International Bank of Settlements. He also founded the jewish colonial bank which later turned into the central bank of israel.
jewish virtual library source
Its interesting that more of this is not known or more public knowledge, or is that the point keep this buried and call everyone antisemitic for brining it up?
Whilst im not from the US, its domination in war time affairs raises some questions. As war requires large bonds borrowed from the prominent wealthy families mentioned. Creating debts that continue to be paid by tax payers over hundreds of years. It may be worth researching who actually bought the long term bonds for the covid packages and Ukraine and Israel piggy bank.
Nearly the entire biden administration is made up of jewish, so theres no wonder why he keeps vetoing everything. A list below of his jewish team.
biden administration jewish team list
and well the US economy has a big hand in debt making and taking. If you arent with it, your in the way as many countries have found out the hard way.
I have lots more, but conscious this is long and getting bored now.
Enjoy your rabbit hole hunting and if anyone has anything to add or if i have got anything wrong id be interested in your view points ✌️

I've recently finished a Java code for the Dolmenwood system, by Gavin Norman, for my own group. It's able to generate characters/retainers/NPCs of any kindred or class of any level. These all may be randomized by the generator as well. The code writes a text file (which is overwritten every time the code is run), which populates nicely in other formats, like a discord message for example. I tried to include every detail in the generator besides personable details such as name, traits, backgrounds, and trinkets. It also is not currently suited to roll up kindreds as classes, for those using the OSE basic-like rule set. This is NOT the official character generator as promised in the Kickstarter, but hopefully it's usable enough until we get that release. I'm sure Matthew Fee will do far better than me.
Unfortunately, I'm not too code savvy, so I am unsure how to translate this code into something like a web run-able format. I do know there are ways to run the Java code without Oracle, but maybe someone here has a better solution than just uploading the .jar file. I've posted it on Github for anyone to enjoy. It's also my first time using Github and exporting a .jar file, so please let me know if there are any problems. Happy Dolmenwood-ing!
https://framagit.org/bojanglespanda/dolmenwood-charater-generator

A list of all the ideologies (within the game files), including their descriptions. Enjoy.

Conservatism

Conservatism is a political and social philosophy promoting traditional social institutions in the context of culture and civilization. The central tenets of conservatism include tradition, human imperfection, organic society, hierarchy and authority, and property rights. Conservatives seek to preserve a range of institutions such as monarchy, religion, parliamentary government, and property rights, with the aim of emphasizing social stability and continuity.
National Conservatism National conservatism is a variant of conservatism that concentrates more on national interests and upholding cultural or ethnic identity than most other conservatives. In Europe, national conservatives are usually Eurosceptics.
Gaullism
Gaullism is a French political stance based on the thought and action of World War II French Resistance leader General Charles de Gaulle, who would become the founding President of the Fifth French Republic.
Corporatism I do not know where the description for this is. Considering corporatism doesn't exactly fit within conservatism I believe this is a mistake, but I'm including it here anyway.
Republican Party [sic]
The Republican Party is one of the two major political parties in the United States, the other being its historic rival, the Democratic Party. The party is named after republicanism, a major ideology of the American Revolution. Founded by anti-slavery activists, economic modernizers, ex-National Republicans, ex-Free Soilers and Whigs in 1854, the Republicans largely dominated politics nationally and in the majority of northern states between 1860 and 1932.
Religious Zionism Formed as a nationalist opposition and acts as the basis of the Israeli right, Revisionist Zionism envisions territorial integrity over the historical Land of Israel and supports Jewish nationalism. Revisionist Zionists believed that Jews have sovereignty over both banks of the Jordan river and its followers question the legitimacy of the Kingdom of Jordan. Currently, Revisionist Zionism is regarded as a fringe ideology but its proponents have recently began a push to make the ideology more moderate and hence more electable.
Black Conservatism Black Conservatism is a type of conservative ideology popular among Africans in both hemispheres. Individuals which would promote black conservatism would likely be advocates of free market capitalism, promotion of traditional beliefs (generally in regards to Catholic and Protestant Christianity), and Patriotism or Jingoism. Black Conservatism generally is opposed to Pan-Africanism, Socialism, and Anti-Imperialism.

Liberal Conservatism

Liberal conservatism combines conservative policies with liberal stances, especially on economic, social and ethical issues. It incorporates the classical liberal view of minimal government intervention in the economy, according to which individuals should be free to participate in the market and generate wealth without government interference. However, individuals cannot be thoroughly depended on to act responsibly in other spheres of life, therefore liberal conservatives believe that a strong state is necessary to ensure law and order and social institutions are needed to nurture a sense of duty and responsibility to the nation. They also support civil liberties, along with some social conservative positions.
Conservative Liberalism Conservative liberalism is a variant of liberalism, combining liberal values and policies with conservative stances, or simply representing the right-wing of the liberal movement. It is a more positive and less radical variant of classical liberalism.

Christian Democracy

Christian democracy is a form of conservatism and a political ideology which emerged in 19th century Europe under the influence of Catholic social teaching, as well as Neo Calvinism. It was originally conceived as a combination of traditional Catholic beliefs and modern democratic ideas, and it grew to incorporate the social teaching of other Christian denominations, such as the Lutheran Church and the Reformed Church.
Vatican [sic]
The politics of Vatican City take place in a framework of an theocratic absolute elective monarchy, in which the Pope, religiously speaking, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church and Bishop of Rome, exercises ex officio supreme legislative, executive, and judicial power over the Vatican City, a rare case of non-hereditary monarchy.

Socialism

Socialism is a range of economic and social systems characterized by social ownership and workers' self-management of the means of production as well as the political theories and movements associated with them. Social ownership may refer to forms of public, collective or cooperative ownership, or to citizen ownership of equity. There are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them, though social ownership is the common element shared by its various forms. Socialist economic systems can be divided into non-market and market forms. Non-market socialism involves the substitution of factor markets and money, with engineering and technical criteria, based on calculation performed in-kind, thereby producing an economic mechanism that functions according to different economic laws from those of capitalism. Non-market socialism aims to circumvent the inefficiencies and crises traditionally associated with capital accumulation and the profit system. By contrast, market socialism retains the use of monetary prices, factor markets and in some cases the profit motive, with respect to the operation of socially owned enterprises and the allocation of capital goods between them. Profits generated by these firms would be controlled directly by the workforce of each firm, or accrue to society at large in the form of a social dividend. The socialist calculation debate discusses the feasibility and methods of resource allocation for a socialist system.
Democratic Socialism Democratic socialism is a political philosophy that advocates political democracy alongside social ownership of the means of production, with an emphasis on self-management and democratic management of economic institutions within a market or some form of decentralized planned socialist economy.
Market Socialism Market socialism is a type of economic system involving the public, cooperative, or social ownership of the means of production in the framework of a market economy.
Royal Socialism No information in the game files. Probably a scrapped ideology, but still here for showcase purposes.
Neocommunism Ditto to above.
African Socialism African socialism is a belief in sharing economic resources in a traditional African way, as distinct from classical socialism. Common principles of African socialism are social development guided by a large public sector, incorporating the African identity and what it means to be African, and the avoidance of the development of social classes within society.
Ujamaa The Swahili word Ujamaa means 'extended family', 'brotherhood' or 'socialism'; as a political concept it asserts that a person becomes a person through the people or community. Ujamaa was a term made popular by the political philosophy applied under Julius Nyerere's social and economic development policies in Tanzania after it gained independence from Britain in 1961.
Labor Zionism (Mapai) Labor Zionism is the left-wing of the Zionist movement. For many years, it was the most significant tendency among Zionists and Zionist organizations. It saw itself as the Zionist sector of the historic Jewish labor movements of Eastern and Central Europe, eventually developing local units in most countries with sizable Jewish populations. Labor Zionists believe that a Jewish state could only be created through the efforts of the Jewish working class settling in the Land of Israel and constructing a state through the creation of a progressive Jewish society with rural kibbutzim and moshavim and an urban Jewish proletariat.
Kemalism Kemalism is the founding ideology of the Republic of Turkey. Kemalism, as it was implemented by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, was defined by sweeping political, social, cultural and religious reforms designed to separate the new Turkish state from its Ottoman predecessor and embrace a Westernized way of living, including the establishment of democracy, secularism, state support of the sciences and free education.
Oriental Personalism Oriental Personalism is the official ideology of Ngo Dinh Diem's Can-Lao Party in South Vietnam. Owing as much to the influence of his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu as Diem himself, Oriental Personalism has diverse ideological influences, including Emannuel Mournier's theory of Personalism, Marxism, and the folk traditions and religions of Vietnam. The Can-Lao manifest calls for the gradual transformation of Vietnamese society through two phase. In the first phase, the Personalist Revolution, the Social and Working Classes will tear their divisions and join as one. Then comes the Social Revolution, where all forms of capitalism and colonial influence will be swept out on a triumphant march to a utopian, socialist, and proudly Vietnamese society.

Social Democracy

Social Democracy is a political, social and economic ideology that supports economic and social interventions to promote social justice within the framework of a capitalist economy, as well as a policy regime involving a commitment to representative democracy, measures for income redistribution, and regulation of the economy in the general interest and welfare state provisions.
Democratic Party [sic]
The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. Tracing its heritage back to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison's Democratic-Republican Party, the modern-day Democratic Party was founded around 1828 by supporters of Andrew Jackson, making it the world's oldest active political party.
Labor Zionism Functionally the exact same as Labor Zionism (Mapai), with the same description. I have no clue why it's divided as such.

Social Liberalism

Social liberalism is a political ideology that believes individual liberty requires a level of social justice. Like classical liberalism, social liberalism endorses a market economy and the expansion of civil and political rights and liberties, but differs in that it believes the legitimate role of the government includes addressing economic and social issues such as poverty, health care, and education.

Progressivism

Progressivism is the support for or advocacy of improvement of society by reform. As a philosophy, it is based on the idea of progress, which asserts that advancements in science, technology, economic development and social organization are vital to the improvement of the human condition.
Green politics Green politics is a political ideology that aims to create an ecologically sustainable society rooted in environmentalism, nonviolence, social justice and grassroots democracy.

Centrism

Centrism is a political outlook or specific position that involves acceptance or support of a balance of a degree of social equality and a degree of social hierarchy, while opposing political changes which would result in a significant shift of society either strongly to the left or the right.

Classical Liberalism

Democracy (yes, that is the entire description)
Libertarianism Libertarianism is a collection of political philosophies and movements that uphold liberty as a core principle. Libertarians seek to maximize political freedom and autonomy, emphasizing freedom of choice, voluntary association, and individual judgment. Libertarians share a skepticism of authority and state power, but they diverge on the scope of their opposition to existing political and economic systems.
Zionism (General Zionism) Many people and parties chose not to follow any of the distinct Zionist schools of thought and chose to stick to the core ideology of Zionism, settling in Israel and the establishment of the Jewish State. Many of the parties that stick to the 'core' of Zionism are centrist parties that don't associate themselves with either the left nor the right and tend to be economically liberal.

Marxism-Leninism

Marxism-Leninism is the ideology combining Marxist socioeconomic theory and Leninist political praxis, which is the official ideology of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and of the Communist International. The purpose of Marxism-Leninism is the revolutionary development of a capitalist state into a socialist state, effected by the leadership of a vanguard party of professional revolutionaries from the working class.
Liberal Communism I can find no reference. I presume this refers to the like of Gorbachev.
Stalinism Stalinism is the means of governing and related policies implemented from around 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. Stalinist policies and ideas as developed in the Soviet Union included rapid industrialization, the theory of socialism in one country, a totalitarian state, collectivization of agriculture, a cult of personality and subordination of the interests of foreign communist parties to those of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, deemed by Stalinism to be the leading vanguard party of communist revolution at the time.
Juche Juche is the official state ideology of North Korea, described by the government as Kim Il-sung's original, brilliant and revolutionary contribution to national and international thought. It postulates that the Korean masses are to act as the masters of the revolution and construction and that by becoming self-reliant and strong a nation can achieve true socialism.
Ho Chi Minh Thought Ho Chi Minh Thought is the official ideology of the Communist Party of Vietnam under the leadership of Chairman Ho Chi Minh. Though firmly Marxist-Leninist, Ho believes in a more nationalistic reintepretation of Marxism for the unique conditions of the Vietnamese revolution, even taking some influence from Sun Yat-Sen's "Three Principles of the People" and the American revolutionaries. Ho Chi Minh Thought is as proudly Vietnamese as it is Communist, and calls for a "national democratic revolution" -- a truly Vietnamese path to socialism where worker, peasant, soldier, and merchant will unite against inequality and imperialism in all its forms.

Revolutionary Socialism

Revolutionary socialism is the socialist doctrine that social revolution is necessary in order to bring about structural changes to society. More specifically, it is the view that revolution is a necessary precondition for a transition from capitalism to socialism.
Revolutionary Islamic Socialism Your guess is as good as mine.
Trotskyism Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Russian Leon Trotsky. Trotsky identified as an orthodox Marxist and Bolshevik-Leninist. He supported founding a vanguard party of the proletariat, proletarian internationalism and a dictatorship of the proletariat based on working class self-emancipation and mass democracy.
Sartre Thought No description given.
Anarcho-Communism Anarcho-communism is a theory of anarchism which advocates the abolition of the state, capitalism, wage labor and private property in favor of common ownership of the means of production, direct democracy and a horizontal network of workers' councils with production and consumption based on the guiding principle: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.
Posadism No description. Another relic.
Titoism Titoism is described as the post-World War II policies and practices associated with Josip Broz Tito during the Cold War, characterized by an opposition to the Soviet Union. It usually represents Tito's Yugoslav doctrine in Cold War international politics. It emerged with the Yugoslav Partisans' liberation of Yugoslavia independently of the Red Army, resulting in Yugoslavia being the only Eastern European country to remain socialist, but independent after World War II as well as resisting Soviet Union pressure to become a member of the Warsaw Pact.
Left-wing Military Dictatorship a Left-wing Military Dictatorship is a government which may espouse specific socialistic beliefs to gain second world support, but is however a military-controlled oppressive autocratic state. [sic]
Person Dignity Theory (Nhuism) Person Dignity Theory, also known as Spiritualistic Marxism, describes the more radical worldview of Ngo Dinh Nhu. Influenced by his involvment with French syndicalism in the 1930s and the left-wing nationalism of the Viet Minh, Nhu's views are significantly to the left of his older brother. Nhu's interpretation of \"True Marxism\" calls for a total centralization of state power in the Can Lao Party and the complete destruction of traditional society in favor of the strict regimentation of the peasants in collectivist \"Strategic Hamlets\" and the city dwellers through \"Urban Revolutionary Syndicates\". Some believe Nhu's ambitions may lie beyond Vietnam, given his calls for a worldwide crusade against \"Materialistic Capitalism\". [sic]

Maoism (Mao Zedong Thought)

Actually clumps together "anti-revisionist" ideologies, but for our purposes we'll start with Mao Zedong Thought.
Mao Zedong thought is the product of the combination of the basic principles of Marxism Leninism and the specific reality of the Chinese revolution. It is the crystallization of the collective wisdom of the Chinese Communists. It is a political, military and development theory advocated by Mao Zedong and widely practiced in the Chinese revolution in the 20th century. It is generally considered to be the development of Marxism Leninism in China.
Anti-Revisionism A Marxist-Leninist position emerging after the XXth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Anti-revisionist movements oppose the reforms of the Khrushchev period and uphold Stalinist and Maoist developments in Marxism.
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism The synthesis of Marxism–Leninism–Maoism did not occur during the life of Mao Zedong. From the 1960s, groups that called themselves Maoist or which upheld Maoism were not unified around a common understanding of Maoism and had instead their own particular interpretations of the political, philosophical, economical and military works of Mao; these disorganized ideological trends comprised, and still comprise, Mao Zedong Thought.
Scientific Socialism Scientific Socialism was founded by Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx, but was widely used by Deng Xiaoping of the PRC to reform Maoism. It is often Maoism, but with a few reforms that add more emphasis on science, industrialization, and overall a new focus on the economy.
Hoxhaism Hoxhaism is a variant of anti-revisionist Marxism-Leninism that developed in the late 1970s due to a split in the Maoist movement, appearing after the ideological dispute between the Communist Party of China and the Party of Labor of Albania. The ideology is named after Enver Hoxha, a notable Albanian communist leader.
Guevarism Guevarism is a theory of communist revolution and a military strategy of guerrilla warfare associated with communist revolutionary Ernesto \"Che\" Guevara. The ideology promotes exporting revolution to any country whose leader is supported by the empire (United States) and has fallen out of favor with its citizens. The ideology has three main points, namely that the people can win with proper organization against a nation's army; that the conditions that make a revolution possible can be put in place by the popular forces; and that the popular forces always have an advantage in a non urban setting. [sic]

Third Positionism

Encompassing a variety of ultra-nationalist movements, third positionism typically venerates devotion to the state and uniting the people under a strong leader. Third Positionism is presented as its own unique ideology as a third option to capitalism or communism.
Falangism An authoritarian ideology with traits of fascism and conservatism, Falangist values national and Catholic identity.
Rexism Strongly opposed to both liberal and communist ideals, Rexism is a staunchly conservative nationalist movement who advocate a corporatist economic policy. Employing increasingly populist and authoritarian rhetoric, their ideals are shifting closer to other fascist movements.
Hindu Nationalism Hindu nationalism has been collectively referred to as the expression of social and political thought, based on the native spiritual and cultural traditions of the Indian subcontinent.
Salazarism Salazarism is a nationalist authoritarian ideology focusing on 'God, Fatherland and Family' and emphasizing the social role of Catholicism - setting it apart from mainstream variations of Fascism.
Neo-Nazism Neo-Nazism consists of post-World War II militant, social or political movements seeking to revive the ideology of Nazism. It borrows elements from Nazi doctrine, including ultranationalism, racism up to xenophobia, ableism, homophobia, anti-Romanyism, antisemitism, anti-communism and initiating the Fourth Reich. Holocaust denial is a common feature, as is the incorporation of Nazi symbols and admiration of Adolf Hitler.
National Bolshevism National Bolshevism is a political movement that combines elements of nationalism and Bolshevism.
Baathism Baathism is an Arab nationalist ideology that promotes the development and creation of a unified Arab state through the leadership of a vanguard party over a progressive revolutionary government.
Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan is an American white supremacist hate group. The Klan has existed in three distinct eras at different points in time during the history of the United States. Each has advocated extremist reactionary positions such as white supremacy, white nationalism, anti-immigration and-especially in later iterations-Nordicism and anti-Catholicism.
Kahanism No information.
Authenticité Ditto.
Trujillism Ditto.
Peronism Ditto.

Nationalism

Encompassing a variety of ultra nationalist movements, Nationalism typically venerates devotion to the state and uniting the people under a strong leader.
National Democracy no desc.
Pan-Africanism Pan-Africanism is a worldwide movement that aims to encourage and strengthen bonds of solidarity between all people of African descent. Based on a common fate going back to the Atlantic slave trade, the movement extends beyond continental Africans, with a substantial support base among the African diaspora in the Caribbean, Latin America and the United States.
Leftwing Nationalism Leftwing Nationalism is a form of nationalism which promotes the raising of societal standards for one's own national people generally through the introduction of social equality and government nationalization. Leftwing Nationalism is often anti-imperialist and can commonly represent national liberation fronts. Generally, Leftwing Nationalism will be a response to repeated exploitation of a nation by outside factors.
Bourguibism No desc.
Nasserism Nasserism is a revolutionary ideology, inspired by the second Egyptian President, Gamal Abdel Nasser; espousing the unification of what is referred to as the Arab world. It asserts that the Arab people constitute a single nation or federation, based upon a shared language and culture, transcending Islam and Christianity. Advocates of Nasserism have often been described representing political and economic positions which are secular, socialist, nationalistic, socially progressive, and anti-imperialist.
Revisionist Zionism See above.

Monarchism

A monarchy is a form of government in which a group, generally a family representing a dynasty, embodies the country's national identity and its head, the monarch, exercises the role of sovereignty.
Islamic Monarchy Islamic monarchies are a type of Islamic state which are monarchies. They are historically known by various names, such as Mamlakah, Caliphate, Sultanate, or Emirate.
Negusa Nagast
Negusa Nagast, or king of kings, is a type of selective hereditary imperial monarchy that became the prevalent leadership of Ethiopia since Negus Zemene Mesafint ended the Age of Princes period where Ethiopia was fractured between small principalities, kindoms, and sultanates.

Reactionary (also Neutrality)

In political science, a reactionary is a person who holds political views that favor a return to the status quo ante, the previous political state of society, which he or she believes possessed characteristics that are negatively absent from the contemporary status quo of a society.
Despotism Despotism is a form of government in which a single person rules with absolute power.
Military Dictatorship A military dictatorship is a form of government wherein a military force exerts complete or substantial control over political authority.
Oligarchic Oligarchy is a form of government in which a group of people rule with absolute power.
Colonialism Colonialism is the policy of a foreign polity seeking to extend or retain its authority over other people or territories, generally with the aim of opening trade opportunities. The colonizing country seeks to benefit whilst the colonized country or land mass, as many of the colonized countries were not countries at all, modernize in terms defined by the colonizers, especially in economics, religion, and health.
Independent An independent politician is an individual politician not affiliated with any political party.
Haredi no desc.
Vennamoism Vennamolaisuus, or Vennamoism in english is name given to the ideology and political movement of Veikko Vennamo, the leader of Finnish Rural Party. It is categorized by populism, reliance on slogans and support for agriculture.

Islamism

Sunni Islam is the largest denomination of Islam. Its name comes from the word Sunnah, referring to the exemplary behavior of the Islamic prophet Muhammad
Democratic Islamism Islamic democracy is a political ideology that seeks to apply Islamic principles to public policy within a democratic framework. Islamic political theory specifies three basic features of an Islamic democracy: leaders must be elected by the people, subject to sharia and committed to practicing \"shura\", a special form of consultation practiced by Prophet Muhammad
Ibadi Imamate no desc.

Radical Shiaism

Shia is a branch of Islam which holds that the Islamic prophet Muhammad designated Ali ibn Abi Talib as his successor (Imam).
Shia Monarchy no desc.
Houthiism
Houthiism is an armed movement stemming from a sect of Shia Islam, Zaidiism. Houthiism is almost nonexistent outside of Yemen. The Houthi movement strongly opposes Saudi Arabia, the US, and Israel and seeks to combat the 'underdevelopment and marginalization' of Yemen.

Salafism

Salafism is a reform branch or revivalist movement within Sunni Islam that developed in Egypt in the late 19th century as a response to Western European imperialism, with roots in the 18th-century Wahhabi movement that originated in the Najd region of modern day Saudi Arabia.
"Eereerhmm... where are the ideology tags?" NOWHERE! I will not add them.

Scott Masterson had first met Scarlett at a rooftop party in downtown Dallas. Their age and the time of year were both in late springtime, them in their mid twenties and the date in early May. He had on a sharp yet breezy blazer and she astonished in a thigh length sleeveless blue dress.
“Oh hey Scott I don’t believe you two have met…” his then happily married friend had remarked with a slow swinging open hand toward her.
“Scott Masterson…reluctant friend to this knucklehead” he said with a tight lipped grin, trying not to be so obvious with his instant rapture.
“Scarlett…a pleasure…”
Her hand was so delicate to Scott’s touch. They locked eyes. It was like looking back through centuries of connection, endless days of laying in the sun next to the Seine River, or rising to Hollywood fame in the 1940’s and only having each other who would understand the glory and the pain of it all, or generations of quiet, simple country love that would bear such beautiful, happy children that would go on to raise beautiful, happy children, all with their dark blue eyes. Yes, the memories of every love story since the beginning of time was swirling right there in Scarlett’s irises. Scott had to catch himself before he stared embarrassingly too long.
“Sorry Scottie here doesn’t get out often” his friend quipped, which Scott appreciated actually, it helped him snap back to professionalism.
“Well I don’t either…at least I prefer not to.” Scarlett’s words flowed through the air like a flock of rose petals.
“Hey, kindred spirits.” Scott was really sensing a rising energy out of her, they had barely broken eye contact.
“Well, I’ll let you two have at it, I got a wife around here somewhere. Hey…Scott and Scarlett…not bad, not bad.” His friend exited stage right with a sly chuckle.
“Nice guy…so…what are you drinking, Scarlett?” Scott looked around for the emptiest corner of the rooftop bar, hoping to find a nice place for them to be able to hear each other. This night had just become something.
“That depends, Scott…what do you like?”
Oh man.
Well, as you can expect, the evening blossomed into a beautiful, long winded conversation that etched a long list of similarities between the two. They both lived in the city, had never married, and had dreamed of stable, simpler lives far away from tall buildings and busy streets. The next morning Scott awoke in her arms, which warmed much deeper than just his skin. He could feel her soothing his very identity, his future, everything. Her arms were tailor made to fit his very soul, and he had never felt more safe and at home.
“Mmm…you can stay right here…” she whispered, eyes still closed.
“I will…I will”
They both fell back asleep, into a dream that wouldn’t end upon waking.
Two years passed and suddenly they lived that simple backwoods life, way out where acres of land far out-populated the few and far between people. They took a lovely home, which happily looked over a long backyard, right up to a lively yet mostly undisturbed river. Their only neighbor within a mile was an older ranch worker named Charles, who rarely made himself perceivable. Days were spent way on into town where they both had offices. They didn’t mind the commute. Nights were spent mostly like this night, cuddled outside near a lovely little fire, with a slowly shrinking amount of wine sitting between them. Enjoying their Kingdom. Tonight, however, would prove to be a special night, for many reasons, all unexpected.
“Honey, I’ve been thinking…” Scott began, sitting up and opening his hands to the warmth of the fire.
“Oh?” Scarlett also sat up, eyes widening.
“So look, Scarlett, the last two years have been the best of my life. An absolute dream…”
She held her breath, her focus darting between his eyes and mouth.
“Yeah?”
“We have everything we ever want out here. But…what if there’s more?”
“More?” She had envisioned this very conversation hundreds of times.
“Our dreams have come true, but what if we…made some new dreams?” Scott turned and embedded his eyes into hers. He burst into a big smile.
“Scott…I thought…”
“Nevermind what I said” he cut her off, which he always made a point to never do, but this was a good exception.
“I’m ready, Scarlett…let’s have a family.”
“Ohhhh Scott, oh Scott”
They hugged tight enough to where it hurt.
“Well, in that case, we may need to open another bottle.” She said playfully, bouncing her eyebrows twice.
“Excellent. I’ll be right up. I’ll put this fire out and then start yours up.”
“Oh stop!” She bounded away girlishly, up the snowy back steps and into the house.
Scott let out a big sigh that he could see in the cold air and sat back in his chair, taking in his decision. He really was ready. He had secretly been keeping a long list of names that he liked and that he thought would work in front of Masterson. Especially little girl names. He stared into the campfire flames, getting lost imagining the three of them sitting right here, a little girl resting securely in Scarlett’s arms, as Scott had found himself, and stayed within these past two years.
Suddenly his trance was broken when, from the road in front of their house, came the sound of a vehicle approaching at high speed. Scott snapped his head back toward the house to get a better listen. He could see, around the house and through the trees, a large truck barreling down the country road, its headlights racing and bouncing with intensity. In an instant, it had passed up the road and out of sight.
“Huh?”
Soon, after a moment of silence, another sound echoed into the night. This sound rattled Scott to the bone and tore all that was right in his world into pieces. A sharp, bellowing squeal. His eyes shot over to his neighbors house, which was about a tenth of a mile to his right but still had a couple dim lights on that he could see. The shriek seemed to come from there.
Then, more squeals. It was hellish. More than animal but not quite human. Scott stood up. He heard crashing and tearing and further destruction coming from Charles’ house.
“Scarlett!! Scarlett!” He yelled toward his house, where he looked and could see her silhouette behind the curtains at the kitchen window. She didn’t seem to hear him.
He turned back toward his neighbors. The chaos had gone quiet. Not a half a moment after, though, he heard something big barreling through the trees as fast as that truck had been sprinting. Running, running furiously between the two houses. Searching, hunting. Scott was taken aback so hard that his heel had caught the edge of the fire pit, throwing him down only inches away from severe burns. He had knocked his head in the whiplash, making him groan and take a moment to regain his bearings.
“SCARLETT!!!!”
He screamed out toward his home as he sat up, rubbing a quickly rising bump on the back of his head. He heard a loud breaching on the side of his house. The patio door. No. No. Then, all hell broke loose. Scarlett started wailing and crying and he could hear crashes of plates and glasses and deep guttural roars coming from the kitchen inside. Shadows danced in a frenzy from the curtained windows. Sounds of instinctual survival seemed to be thrown from Scarlett inside. Sounds of defeat. Sounds of agony. Sounds of insanity. Scott sprang to his feet, his equilibrium being more damaged than he realized after his fall. He had to catch his hand on a chair to stabilize himself. Scarlett’s symphony of pain had gone quiet. Soon after something burst back out the patio door again and off in the same direction as that truck before.
Scott struggled back up to the house, slowly climbing the wintered, crunching stairs that led to the patio. He no longer yelled for Scarlett. In fact, the only thing that came to his senses was the sound of his own heavy breathing. Everything else had been turned off, save for a heavy and sudden dread that he had prayed he would never feel. He came to the side of his house where indeed the patio door had been busted and forced open. It laid inside the kitchen, its hinges snapped like toothpicks. Scott, with eyes wide and twitching, slowly entered his home and looked into the kitchen.
He didn’t scream. He didn’t even change his breathing. He didn’t blink. He just got a good long look at what laid before him.
Everything was broken. The fridge was on its side, the door hanging open and food and drink scattered all over the floor. The table was upended, its legs to the ceiling. A chair was resting on the counter, possibly having been thrown in defense. And Scarlett. Oh Scarlett. She…was…everywhere. She was all over the floor. She was sprayed against the walls. She was stuck to the window. She was in the sink.
Scott gently walked through the carnal mess and sabotage of his world. Long ago he had known exactly what he would do if something anywhere near this bad were to happen to him. He politely stumbled through the kitchen, down the hall, and into the bedroom. He opened his closet door and lowered a fire safe from the top rack. He unlocked it with a passcode. 511, after that warm May date when he had first met Scarlett. In the safe was a Sig Sauer P320 handgun. Scott took it out, along with a box of bullets, loaded one into the gun, put the safe back on its rack, and walked out of the closet, sitting on his bed. Their bed. Where they should’ve been laying right at this very moment, working toward a happy future. Where he would’ve kissed her forehead and put a hand on her growing midsection. Where they would have awoken on Christmas morning to the sound of children who were way too excited to remain asleep. Where they would’ve grown old. Where they would’ve smiled at each other through wrinkles, satisfied with all the love they shared and passed on to the next generations. Where they would’ve held each other in deep peace as they finally fell asleep to this world.
“I will…I will”
In one quick motion Scott pulled back the hammer and stuck the barrel of that pistol right up against his Governor and blew himself away, far away, right back into Scarlett’s loving arms.
Jeremy “Smallmouth” Bassett quickly yet stealthily made his way back to his Uncle’s house. He hugged the sides of the dark country road, keeping his eyes and ears wide open as to notice any sounds pertaining to the event that he had just witnessed there in the field next to the huge blaze. His only thought was Uncle Chuck. His house was right on the warpath of that horrible thing and Smallmouth had to go to him and make sure he was safe. He dared not go back to his truck, which would bring a lot of unwanted attention. No, Smallmouth walked and walked and finally saw the lights of his Uncle’s house. He carefully approached the front door from the shadowed driveway. Suddenly it occurred to Smallmouth that something was very wrong here. The door was busted in, having been plowed through by something very large and very strong.
“No…no…no”
Smallmouth slowly entered the house. The kitchen and living room were a disaster, chairs and tables and bottles strewn about and shattered. Bloody hoof-prints covered the floors, each of them the size of dinner plates. Smallmouth heard no noise. He felt himself well with tears, his nose a faucet that he began to sniff up as he worked his way through to his Uncle’s room, the door there also being broken in. A small whine growing in his throat, Smallmouth peaked into his uncles bedroom.
It was all in tatters. The bed had been attacked and shredded, the mattress being ripped up and thrown about as if it were made of cotton candy. More bloody hoof-prints were painted all over the brown carpet. Smallmouth trembled and put a hand up to his wet face. He didn’t see a way that his Uncle was anywhere near alive, knowing what he knew about the monster that had been in this house.
Smallmouth slowly walked to the living room, to the only little table that had been untouched in the attack. It was almost as if the bottle of whiskey teleported into his hand from the overturned cabinet, unopened. He fixed that real quick.
Soon he was several pulls deep of the only thing in the world that he knew would make him feel better, even if only for a few hours. He found his pack of cigarettes in his coat pocket and lit one up, although he was indoors. What did it matter? He sat in a chair that he had turned right side up and set the bottle on the table and looked out the back window into the pitch black. He cried for his Uncle and he cried for the world. He cried for himself. He cried for broken promises and his own weakness. He drank and drank until his vision shook from right to left everywhere he looked. At first he didn’t even notice the figures on the back porch. Then his vibrating focus did pick up on them, but by then it was too late. It was so dark out there but in their outlines he could see they wore long robes and hoods.
“HA!! COME AND GET ME! HAHA!! YOU COME AND YOU GET ME!!” Smallmouth boasted with a delusional amount of courage.
A creak escaped from the kitchen and he drunkenly slung his head over toward it. Three more figures stood there. Or was it just one? Smallmouth was none the wiser. All at once the hooded intruders from both inside and outside began to chant a strange, twisted rhyme in strikingly low and dissonant harmony:
“A sliver…of liver…goes down…with a shiver… …and gives…your gullet…to gall… …but drink…the Cider…that drowns…the Spider… …and you…will be free…of it all… …so tighten the grip…that loosens your lips… …O raise…the bottle…of brown… …and wake tomorrow…to find…in sorrow… …ANOTHER…SPIDER…TO…DROWN”
Smallmouth groaned at them in dissatisfaction and turned his bottle up again and began to chug the whiskey. As he did they repeated the chant except this time it was louder and closer. By the time Smallmouth had finished his bottle he was quickly losing consciousness. This wasn’t just whiskey. As he closed his eyes he felt hands grabbing him from all sides.
Smallmouth pulled open his sticky eyelids. His head felt like someone had bowled a strike into it. Wind froze his face. The smell of sickly, wet iron stung his nostrils. His vantage was higher than usual. Way higher. He was looking out into another field, but from easily ten feet up. He saw an old church, formerly painted white but now a flaky pale-beige. He heard the friction of a quick pull of rope below him, matched with a slight, tight pain at his feet. He looked down. A red-robed figure was fastening him against a wooden structure of some kind. His feet sat on a small flat platform perpendicular to a post that went from the ground up past smallmouths head. He couldn’t move his arms, so he quickly shot his eyes side to side. They were also tied to another horizontal post. A cross. He was being tied to a crude wooden cross. His shirt had been removed, exposing a hairy, overweight belly. Smallmouth tried to speak, but all that came out was a slow, unintelligible grumble. He was still drunk. No, this was more than that. He was under the influence of something strong and absolutely inhibitive. He wallowed again, and took in a deep breath. The smell of iron once again hit his nose. He looked down at himself. He was covered in a thick, red liquid. That wasn’t just the smell of iron. He had been splashed full body with blood.
“Now now, young servant…” the figure at his feet had finished his task and took a couple of steps out to admire his own handiwork.
“Ahh…perfect. The picture of martyrdom. Yes, you will always be remembered, Brother Bassett. You are to be the first Saint of The New Bible.” He opened his arms in his declaration.
Smallmouth looked up into the cold night sky. The moon shown down, giving everything a midnight spotlight. It was a gorgeous waxing gibbous, big and bright but not quite full. Yes, he was in a great big snowy field that housed an old worn down church. From the windows of the church he saw candles glowing, showing dark heads and shoulders looking out to him, also covered in loose hoods, hiding faces. He was hanging on a cross about one hundred feet from the old church. In front of the cross was a partially covered pit, a couple of two by fours supporting double armfuls of branches and dead leaves.
The figure at the base of the cross put his arms back to his side. He was still looking right at the drugged Smallmouth’s dumbstruck face. Even with a veiled mouth you could hear the twisted smile in his voice.
“Tonight you will help us finally defeat this legion, Smallmouth. You see, it may have the evil spirits within it, but at its core, it is still an owned animal. An animal that knows its Master very well. An animal that will remember the smell of its Master. You, my friend, are covered in its Master right now. And you are hanging on a cross, the symbol of this brute’s most hated enemy. But take heart, young Brother. Before you is our pit of spears. Yes you will attract the beast, but our Divine plan will intercept it and the beast will fall and be pierced. And then, oh dear brother, you will forever be immortalized. You will be purified in fire by the hands of your church brethren. Out of your screams and into the smoke the iniquities of all will be released. We will go on to preach your good example and your sainthood forever and ever.”
Smallmouth began to drool and hum pathetically. He could hear and understand the words of the robed man but he couldn’t fight back. His body was useless, limp inside its rope confines. All he could do now is think, and watch, and wait, and dread his fate.
The figure turned away from him, walking over near the pit and gathering up a bundle of brambles and throwing them over the last open area, covering it completely. He then crunched through the snow over to the front door of the old church, groaning open the door. He stood at the dark doorway for a few seconds in silence, and then began to make a noise. An over exaggerated pig squealing noise, high pitched and infuriating. Soon after other voices from inside the church began to do the same, their wailing echoing out of the building and all across the field, loudly signaling, calling out. It may as well have been a dinner bell. Not a half minute after they began the distress signal it was loudly answered by a distant squall. A furious squall.
This was it. Either way it happened Smallmouth was about to die. Experience terror, and then die, and not even have the ability to put up any kind of defense. It wasn’t fair. He just slowly lifted up his head and watched out far into the moonlit, white field. He then raised his heavy head further and took a good gander at the moon and stars for the last time.
“God,” he thought to himself, still having full inner monologue yet no outer motor function, “I am so sorry. I am so sorry for being what I am. I am so sorry for ending up in this place. It’s only my own fault. If it wasn’t for me being so stupid and messy and drunk and terrible then this wouldnt be happening to me.”
He began to shed tears that washed lines into the blood on his face.
“Please forgive me God. Please, please, please forgive me for all of my sins. This is it. I’m gonna die. I’m gonna die. PLEASE FORGIVE ME!!!!” He yelled inside his own mind, hoping and trying to send his silent words as far up into heaven as they could go.
He lowered his eyes back to the ground. He looked over at the church again. The windows were empty, the candles were extinguished. Those hooded cowards were hiding from their own handmade sacrificial service. All was quiet for a long pause until a much louder, closer bleating began at the edge of the forest not even three hundred feet away from Smallmouth’s glazed over eyes. It was time, and it was too late for a miracle.
Out of the woods, slowly and heavily, stomped the massive hog. As it marched closer and closer Smallmouth could see its white, boiled over eyes and black-burnt skin. Its jaws were flying open and snapping its sharp, pocket knife-sized teeth together in an intimidating “clack”. It was now less than a hundred feet away, the dark old church to its right shoulder. It stopped, its pale glowing eyes fixed right on Smallmouth on the crude cross. It truly was a monster. It stood as tall as a man and as long as a canoe. Around its murderous mouth were stains of red, the remnants of all that it had taken from the world on this unholy night. In its clanging jaws were bits of flesh. It snorted and scowled.
Then, in a fury, it wailed that horrible squeal and started off into a dead sprint. It galloped and galloped toward Smallmouth at a high, blistering speed. It kept yawping and howling as it cut the distance from the cross down to fifty feet, forty feet, thirty, twenty. All at once it passed over the covered pit and plunged in. In his doomed, dead eyed stupor Smallmouth could hear what sounded like paint being dumped from a rooftop onto concrete. Trails of black liquid squirted and splashed up from the pit, which had been uncovered in the fall of the beast. Unbelieving, Smallmouth saw dozens of steel spear tips standing up from the dug-in ground. Right in the middle of them the beast was stuck. The sheer weight of the animal had caused the spears to pierce through its tough skin, sticking out of its back, soaked in black blood. One spear had stabbed right under the hogs chin, passing up through its jaws and out its black snout. It made agonized sounds. It roared and roared and shook the spears inside it, beginning furiously, then growing weaker and weaker within seconds. Finally, it let out one last weak little squeal, before it went still and quiet.
Smallmouth was frozen both physically by drugs and constraints and mentally by shock. His mouth hung open toward the pit of spears, his vision blurry. He took in a deep, troubled breath and let out a moan of disbelief and relief. The old church doors sprang open, and the sound of jubilation within flowed out into the night. The red robed figures flocked out of the building toward the pit, arms raised in celebration. They surrounded the hole, getting a good look at their success and their enemies defeat. Some held additional spears and began further stabbing the dead animal, causing more black blood to be shed up at them. They all yelled loudly and triumphantly. Some danced around the pit. Some skipped over to Smallmouth on the cross and danced around him, slapping his legs and spinning in circles.
Smallmouth looked on at the raucous celebration, both in utter disbelief of their trap actually working and also in turmoil. How long now until they fully execute their plan.
A taller robed man, whose voice matched the same one who spoke to Smallmouth as he tied his feet, spoke up, sounding almost happily intoxicated.
“Ahh yes my Brothers!! It is done!! We have won!!!”
They all whooped and cheered.
“Brother Norman, go into the church and bring me the small tank of fuel. Let us send our dear Saint Bassett to the Holy lands, where he will be adored for all eternity!”
They all clapped and hollered. One figure began childishly skipping away from the pit and over toward the front door of the church.
Then, it happened.
From the pit all of a sudden a great blaze erupted instantly. It stood as tall as the cross, and it burned a furious red and blue. It raged and raged, blinding Smallmouth and making him clumsily turn his face away from the heat.
All of the figures panicked, screaming and scattering away toward the church. They didn’t get far. Up from the fiery pit, dozens of long, long, black arms, adorned with six hooking claws emerged and stretched out of the flames and latched on to the legs of those trying to escape. Smallmouth heard crying and wailing from the men as the black, razor clawed-hands of the legion grabbed them and began pulling them back, into the blazes. One by one the red robed people were dragged into the flames, their clothes catching instantly. Smallmouth could see violently shaking bodies in the evil furnace. Oh, the screams. Above the tortured howling, the sound of laughing broke out. Deep, menacing laughter, hundreds of voices, echoed up into the air from the burning hole. Then, in one extinguishing squeeze, the ground swallowed the entirety of the fiery pit, leaving it completely covered in dirt, still and quiet. Soon after, and just like the pit of spears, the old church building caught in an instant and raging fire, quickly toppling the walls and dropping the steeple into its ruins. The smoke towered high in the night sky, which had just began to hint at a pale morning blue. Smallmouth hung on his cross in utter horror and surprise.
As the late evening hours glowed into early morning the smoke eventually tapered off, as Smallmouth’s drugs finally began to wear off as well. The fires of the church did garner long distance attention, though. Just as Smallmouth was able to regain control of his muscles and voice he heard emergency sirens call out into the cold morning air. Not long after, two fire trucks, an ambulance and a sheriffs truck tore into the field and toward Smallmouth on the cross. Not long after Smallmouth could feel the tied ropes being cut loose by firemen, their uniforms easily the best red clothes he had seen all night.
“What on God’s green Earth happened here son?” A bearded man with a dark hat and brown shirt and pants asked Smallmouth once he had been lowered down from the cross and sat on the ground with a shock blanket around his shoulders. The Sheriff, no doubt.
“God’s green Earth. It really is God’s, isn’t it?” Smallmouth whispered, staring out across the cold field. Then, at the very place he was staring, an old, familiar truck came barreling out of the gravel road in the woods and through the field in the steadily growing morning light. It was Uncle Chuck’s truck. It hurried over toward the other emergency vehicles, parked, the driver’s side door burst open, and Uncle Chuck came bounding out over to Smallmouth, his eyes wide and his mouth a wonderfully shocked “O”.
“JEREMY! JEREMY!!!” He basically fell on Smallmouth in a tight, warm hug. Smallmouth was caught off guard by Chuck using his real name.
His Uncle held him for several seconds and then let up, but kept his hands on Smallmouth’s shoulders.
“I thought you were dead.” Both of them said at almost the exact same time.
“I came back and your house was a mess and there was blood everywhere. I thought you were dead.” Smallmouth weakly spat out.
“Well, I woke up and you were gone, son, so I walked to the ranch to get my truck. I was worried bout ya son. I came back home and the whole place had been turned upside down. Blood on the carpet. I just thought the worst. Then I tried my neighbors house. Buddy, they’re dead. Looks like some wacko murder-suicide if I ever saw one. Scott probably tried to come kill us too and wrecked the place when he found it empty. I don’t know. But what I DO know is that you are right here! You are okay Jeremy!! Ahhh Praise Jesus!!”
“It’s not that, Uncle. That isn’t what happened out here. It’s..it was a..a, uh…”
Smallmouth’s fried brain couldn’t even comprehend what he had witnessed over the past few hours. It was all a violent blur.
“Dont worry bout it son, you can tell me everything on the way to the hospital. We gotta go get you checked out and cleaned up. C’mon.” He helped Smallmouth up and they walked over to the ambulance, his Uncle’s arm thrown around his shoulder.
Smallmouth would be sent home later that afternoon. It would take him and his Uncle a long time to sort through the chaos of that deadly night and rebuild their lives. But life kept on. Smallmouth would remain living with his Uncle, and would begin a job working with him down at the ranch. Together they started to attend a local church. Smallmouth never touched a drink or a drug or even a cigarette ever again, and remained steadfast in his newly revitalized faith.