Right wing nuts thread (3 Viewers)

[DaveXA]

Wasn't sure where to put this, but we need a thread for the wing nuts. Lauren Boebert.

 

[SamAndreas]

D&D’s 50th anniversary, The Making of Original D&D, referred to “derogatory language” and “cultural appropriation” in the 1974 version, prompting Elon Musk to urge Hasbro, the owner of WOTC, to “burn in hell”.

50 years ago, wow, has it been that long.

I played Dungeons and Dragons with dorm friends when I was a freshman in college and it was a new thing.

All this talk about people owning it, and, tabletop rule books and things... ... . What happened???

Back then we had things in our tunnels and dungeons too, Things like 4x4 blocks of wood, and steam pipes. Under that campus was an amazing maze of steam pipe tunnels. One could travel down there for about a mile. And there were neat chambers which we called dungeons.

Most of the steam pipes were jacketed with insulation. Where it had fallen off, we'd call those bare hot spots, dragons.

Don't touch the dragons. They would actually burn one pretty good, or bad, if one touched one.

We found a secret way into the dorm kitchen from the tunnels, so we had snacks in our dungeons, with our dragons.

 

[cuddlemonkey]

50 years ago, wow, has it been that long.

I played Dungeons and Dragons with dorm friends when I was a freshman in college and it was a new thing.

All this talk about people owning it, and, tabletop rule books and things... ... . What happened???

Back then we had things in our tunnels and dungeons too, Things like 4x4 blocks of wood, and steam pipes. Under that campus was an amazing maze of steam pipe tunnels. One could travel down there for about a mile. And there were neat chambers which we called dungeons.

Most of the steam pipes were jacketed with insulation. Where it had fallen off, we'd call those bare hot spots, dragons.

Don't touch the dragons. They would actually burn one pretty good, or bad, if one touched one.

We found a secret way into the dorm kitchen from the tunnels, so we had snacks in our dungeons, with our dragons.

Mountain Dew and Funyons, I hope.

 

[bird]

As always the tiniest bit of diversity and sensitivity to diversity leads to a “rightwing backlash”
===============


“My first Dungeon Master was an anti-racist skinhead,” Jeremy Cobb says of his introduction to the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons.

For Cobb, a 32-year-old actor, one of the joys of D&D is that it unites nonconformists – “the nerds who didn’t want to play sports”, as he puts it.

Despite that, efforts to draw back from stereotypes and give the orcs, elves, and dwarves who populate its fantasy world a little more individuality have provoked a rightwing backlash.

“For me, overall, from the creative side, the game is doing better than ever,” says Cobb, who started playing in 2018 and is now a professional Dungeon Master (or referee/narrator). “But from the business side, fan relationship side and culture war side? No, not really.”

The latest controversy involves the new rulebook for the game, in which “races” of characters have been renamed “species” and they no longer have specific attributes. Previously, orcs were labelled as savage, dwarves as strong, and elves as perceptive.

Announcing the changes, the D&D publisher Wizards of the Coast (WOTC) said “race is a problematic term that has prejudiced links between real world people and the fantasy peoples of D&D Worlds”.

But critics have complained that attempts to make the game more inclusive will make it less fun, with some social media users complaining of “wokeism personified” and “inclusive oblivion”.

The foreword to a book to commemorate D&D’s 50th anniversary, The Making of Original D&D, referred to “derogatory language” and “cultural appropriation” in the 1974 version, prompting Elon Musk to urge Hasbro, the owner of WOTC, to “burn in hell”.

Writing in Wargamer – a site dedicated to tabletop games and wargaming – the writer Timothy Linward conceded that D&D’s earliest version of orcs as “a simple violent threat to civilisation that needed to be pacified by brave adventurers” had “unfortunately echoed stereotypes used against tribal and indigenous subcultures”, but argued that the game’s “core fantasy relies on the existence of uncomplicated baddies”.


“Dungeons & Dragons “– considered purely as a rule system – is not a game about creating intercultural harmony in a multiracial community”, he said.

Cobb, of the podcast 3 Black Halflings, which explores diversity in D&D and pop culture, welcomed the rule changes, saying they make the game more “customisable, open and friendly … it’s easier for people to come in and build a character”.

He sees two issues in the background of D&D’s “culture war” – an old guard of players unsettled by a more diverse wave of fans attracted by the boom in online content and D&D featuring in Stranger Things, and lingering tensions between the game’s publishers and fans over previous, unconnected attempts to maximise profits from the game.

Welcoming the dropping of the term “races” as a positive change – although he would have preferred “lineage” to “species” – Cobb, who grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, before moving to the UK, said: “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having an individual character who behaves brutally – but when you start painting a particular race that way, you’re inevitably going to draw on real world stereotypes.”………

Orcs, elves and culture wars: how diversity in D&D met a rightwing backlash

Some complained of ‘wokeism’ when the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons dropped ‘races’ in favour of ‘species’

www.theguardian.com

Never played D&D. Had zero interest. When I was in high school the other kids were reading Tolkien while I was reading Heinlein. I can understand why some play(ed) D&D but it just held no interest for me.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Expect to see a lot more of this in the future

Also expect the lion’s share to be perpetuated by one side
========

My brother held his phone up to my ear. “You’re gonna find this creepy,” he warned. An Instagram reel showing a teenage boy at a rally featured a voiceover in the style of a news broadcast.

A calm, female voice, with an almost imperceptible Mancunian accent, said: “The recent outcry from a British student has become a powerful symbol of a deepening crisis in the UK’s educational system.” I sat bolt upright, my eyes wide open.

As a presenter for a YouTube news channel, I was used to hearing my voice on screen. Only this wasn’t me – even if the voice was indisputably mine.

“They are forcing us to learn about Islam and Muhammad in school,” it continued. “Take a listen. This is disgusting.” It was chilling to hear my voice associated with far-right propaganda – but more than that, as I dug further into how this scam is perpetrated, I discovered just how far-reaching the consequences of fake audio can be.

AI voice cloning is an emerging form of audio “deepfake” and the third fastest-growing scam of 2024.

Unwitting victims find their voice expertly reproduced without their consent or even knowledge, and the phenomenon has already led to bank security checks being bypassed and people defrauded into sending money to strangers they believed were relatives. My brother had been sent the clip by a friend who had recognised my voice.

After some digging, I was able to trace it back to a far-right YouTube channel with around 200k subscribers. It was purportedly an American channel, but many of the spelling errors on the videos were typical of non-native-English-speaking disinformation accounts.

I was horrified to find that eight out of 12 of the channel’s most recent videos had used my voice. Scrolling back even further, I found one video using my voice from five months ago showing a view count of 10m.

The voice sounded almost exactly like mine. Except there was a slightly odd pacing to my speech, a sign the voice was AI-generated……..

‘You’re gonna find this creepy’: my AI-cloned voice was used by the far right. Could I stop it? | Georgina Findlay

It was chilling to hear ‘my voice’ repeating lies – and to discover that deepfake audio is a growing threat to democracy, says writer and presenter Georgina Findlay

www.theguardian.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

Never played D&D. Had zero interest. When I was in high school the other kids were reading Tolkien while I was reading Heinlein. I can understand why some play(ed) D&D but it just held no interest for me.

I could never get into to it either, I watched it being played a few times and tried to play once

We talked about it in EE not long ago

I always considered D & D an 80s phenomenon but apparently it’s more popular than it’s ever been

 

[bird]

I could never get into to it either, I watched it being played a few times and tried to play once

We talked about it in EE not long ago

I always considered D & D an 80s phenomenon but apparently it’s more popular than it’s ever been

I wonder if it has to do with the toxicity of the society. It would appear that it offers on the surface at least some respite from “real life”. That, of course, is also the danger it represents.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Members of the MAGAworld have defended a Nebraska senator’s husband for brazenly snubbing Kamala Harris when he refused to shake the vice president’s hand.

Republican Deb Fischer’s husband, Bruce Fischer, was by her side while she was sworn into her third term in the US Senate by Harris on January 3.

But when the vice president congratulated them both and extended her hand, Fischer’s husband, who was holding a bible in his left hand and a cane with his right, briefly glanced up at Harris and muttered, “thank you.” The senator took the bible from him, freeing up his left hand but instead, he put it in his pocket and continued to look down. Harris raised her eyebrows and shook off the snub with an uncomfortable smile as the group posed for an awkward photo.

Video of the snub has gone viral with people noting the snub and Harris’s reaction to being left hanging.

Now, some on the far-right have come to Bruce Fischer’s defense and offered a raft of excuses……

MAGAworld defends Nebraska senator’s husband after he refuses to shake Harris’s hand

Harris raised her eyebrows and shook off the snub with an uncomfortable smile

www.independent.co.uk

 

[fooferdoggie]

Members of the MAGAworld have defended a Nebraska senator’s husband for brazenly snubbing Kamala Harris when he refused to shake the vice president’s hand.

I am sure god will refuse to shake his hand too.

 

[Optimus Prime]

NSFW a couple f bombs

 

[Optimus Prime]

Elon Musk has lashed out at California fire officials, baselessly accusing them of putting DEI measures over “saving lives and homes,” as MAGA supporters are spreading conspiracy theories on social media about the catastrophic wildfires ripping through Los Angeles County.

Musk joined President-elect Donald Trump in pointing fingers over the fires that have so far spread to more than 20,000 acres across Southern California……..

On Wednesday afternoon, Musk reposted a comment on his social media platform X (formerly Twitter) from the right-wing account Libs of TikTok, which hit out at the Los Angeles Fire Department’s diversity hiring policies.

“They prioritized DEI over saving lives and homes,” Musk wrote, without offering further evidence or explanation.

As the fires exploded in size on Wednesday, Trumpworld seized on the devastation to attack California and its Democratic leadership, as unfounded conspiracies began to spread online.

One prolific Trump-supporting account claimed that state leaders “used public funds to house illegals” instead of building infrastructure to store water.……

Elon Musk uses wildfires to attack DEI practices — as MAGA spread conspiracies

Musk joined President-elect Donald Trump in lashing out at state officials and pointing fingers over the devastating fires

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Optimus Prime]

A tattoo artist in Yuma, Arizona is defending his decision to tattoo an American flag on a 9-year-old girl after a video of the inking stoked outrage on social media.

The tattoo artist, who goes by the name Sosa, is a part owner of Black Onyx Empire Tattoo in Yuma. He received an odd request; a family from out of state flew into Arizona to get their 9-year-old daughter a tattoo.

Initially, the girl wanted a tattoo of Donald Trump on her neck, but Sosa told AZ Familythat he convinced her instead to get something more patriotic — an American flag.…….

Tattoo artist defends inking 9-year-old with American flag

The tattoo artist said he made an exception for the 9-year-old because of her family’s tradition of getting tattoos

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Optimus Prime]

The gunman involved in the 2016 “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory attack on a Washington DC pizza restaurant that was mistakenly thought to be at the center of a pedophile ring has died after being shot by police in North Carolina during a traffic stop.

In a news release issued on Thursday, North Carolina’s Kannapolis police department announced that Edgar Maddison Welch died from his wounds caused by two police officers who fired at him after he pulled out a handgun during a traffic stop on Saturday.

In 2016, Welch made headlines when he drove from his North Carolina home and stormed into the Washington DC-based Comet Ping Pong restaurant, where he fired an assault rifle inside. Although no injuries were reported, two weapons were found inside the restaurant and another one was recovered from Welch’s vehicle, police said at the time.


According to police, Welch had come to the restaurant to “self-investigate” “Pizzagate”, a baseless conspiracy theory that falsely claimed that Hillary Clinton and her campaign chief John Podesta were operating an underground child sex-trafficking ring from the restaurant’s backrooms.……

Gunman in ‘Pizzagate’ conspiracy attack fatally shot by North Carolina police

During traffic stop, officers fire at Edgar Welch, 2016 shooter at eatery mistakenly thought to be center of pedophile ring

www.theguardian.com

 

[fooferdoggie]

A tattoo artist in Yuma, Arizona is defending his decision to tattoo an American flag on a 9-year-old girl after a video of the inking stoked outrage on social media.

The tattoo artist, who goes by the name Sosa, is a part owner of Black Onyx Empire Tattoo in Yuma. He received an odd request; a family from out of state flew into Arizona to get their 9-year-old daughter a tattoo.

Initially, the girl wanted a tattoo of Donald Trump on her neck, but Sosa told AZ Familythat he convinced her instead to get something more patriotic — an American flag.…….

Tattoo artist defends inking 9-year-old with American flag

The tattoo artist said he made an exception for the 9-year-old because of her family’s tradition of getting tattoos

www.independent.co.uk

Jesus forking family christ. What a horrible family. hope the artist gets some jail time. wait I see itas ok in Arizona another forked up state.

 

[Sendai]

A tattoo artist in Yuma, Arizona is defending his decision to tattoo an American flag on a 9-year-old girl after a video of the inking stoked outrage on social media.

The tattoo artist, who goes by the name Sosa, is a part owner of Black Onyx Empire Tattoo in Yuma. He received an odd request; a family from out of state flew into Arizona to get their 9-year-old daughter a tattoo.

Initially, the girl wanted a tattoo of Donald Trump on her neck, but Sosa told AZ Familythat he convinced her instead to get something more patriotic — an American flag.…….

Tattoo artist defends inking 9-year-old with American flag

The tattoo artist said he made an exception for the 9-year-old because of her family’s tradition of getting tattoos

www.independent.co.uk

A Turkish family with a tradition of tattoos. Ok. Dude did good to convince the girl to go for the flag instead.

 

[fooferdoggie]

A Turkish family with a tradition of tattoos. Ok. Dude did good to convince the girl to go for the flag instead.

even then it will look like shirt as she grows. I love how the family thinks Trump is a hero when he would toss them out of America if he can.

 

[Optimus Prime]

As Los Angeles firefighters battle ongoing blazes, prominent rightwing figures are spreading bigoted criticism of the response and lies about who’s to blame, including that the fire is raging because of diversity within the fire department.

The misinformation echoes the claims that plagued the North Carolina hurricane response. Both disasters led to righteous outrage that partisan actors seize upon to advance their political goals, muddying the already confusing information ecosystem that comes along with a fast-moving news event.

In what has become a common theme, rightwing media and commentary have said that diversity within the Los Angeles fire departmentis to blame for the devastation.


“Meet Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley,” X account Libs of TikTok, known for spreading anti-LBGTQ+ rhetoric, posted. “She boasts about being the first female and LGBTQ fire chief in the LA Fire Department. Promoting a culture of DEI is her priority. Does this make you feel safer?” In another tweet,the same account, which has nearly 4 million followers, wrote: “DEI will get people k*lled. DEI must DIE.”………

Alex Jones, the man behind InfoWars and prolific spreader of lies, has gone even further, posting erroneously that the president Joe Biden had grounded firefighting plans and that the fires were being spread “by design” as part of a “globalist plot to wage economic warfare”. Musk responded in a now-deleted tweet with a simple one-word: “True”.……

US right wing fans misinformation fires as firefighters battle Los Angeles blazes

A similar campaign of rumors and lies was seen after the North Carolina hurricane, with DEI a primary target

www.theguardian.com

 

[SamAndreas]

A tattoo artist in Yuma, Arizona is defending his decision to tattoo an American flag on a 9-year-old girl after a video of the inking stoked outrage on social media.

The tattoo artist, who goes by the name Sosa, is a part owner of Black Onyx Empire Tattoo in Yuma. He received an odd request; a family from out of state flew into Arizona to get their 9-year-old daughter a tattoo.

Initially, the girl wanted a tattoo of Donald Trump on her neck, but Sosa told AZ Familythat he convinced her instead to get something more patriotic — an American flag.…….

Tattoo artist defends inking 9-year-old with American flag

The tattoo artist said he made an exception for the 9-year-old because of her family’s tradition of getting tattoos

www.independent.co.uk

Nut's don't fall very far from the tree.

 

[horse2H5]

A tattoo artist in Yuma, Arizona is defending his decision to tattoo an American flag on a 9-year-old girl after a video of the inking stoked outrage on social media.

The tattoo artist, who goes by the name Sosa, is a part owner of Black Onyx Empire Tattoo in Yuma. He received an odd request; a family from out of state flew into Arizona to get their 9-year-old daughter a tattoo.

Initially, the girl wanted a tattoo of Donald Trump on her neck, but Sosa told AZ Familythat he convinced her instead to get something more patriotic — an American flag.…….

Tattoo artist defends inking 9-year-old with American flag

The tattoo artist said he made an exception for the 9-year-old because of her family’s tradition of getting tattoos

www.independent.co.uk

I guess thats better than letting her take meds to become boy. Still trashy.