Earl Grey

Except the real concern is the fact that those who can appreciate pictures like this are not the people affected by it. Yes, farmers lose their livelihood and the government's plan to address it is abysmal, to say the least, with the idiot president Duterte still chasing his white whale of fighting a drug war in a manner that is swatting a few mosquitoes but doing nothing for their eggs and the conditions that invite them that somehow still bring him financial prosperity. https://www.rappler.com/nation/249339-lorenzana-urges-duterte-declare-taal-no-mans-land. So much of his manpower is focused on his drug war that he isn't able to allocate enough resources to helping people, and as usual, the Philippines will inevitably rely on NGOs and foreign government aid to address its problem. Those farmers don't just lose money and livelihood, multiple supply chains are now affected, driving costs up. The smoke may look pretty, but you try inhaling that every day now and feeling like someone is ripping your lungs out with bits of glass and rusty nails.

https://www.npr.org/2020/01/15/796541789/in-philippines-volcano-is-quieter-but-officials-renew-warnings-for-people-to-lea some American media coverage now...

If anyone would like to donate or volunteer to help evacuees, farmers, and animals, I will provide resources later. Rappler's link should have some information too for the animals at least.

I once comforted a very depressed man. He told me nobody took his work seriously. He then explained he was a clown. I thought that would be the end of the joke. Then it turned out he was a therapy clown for children with cancer in a hospital. In the course of a few details, I felt like a complete jerk going back and forth between empathizing with a guy to laughing at him for being a clown to crying when I realized he tried to make dying kids laugh and feel love and joy. So then I’m asking why nobody takes a guy who does so much good doesn’t get taken seriously. He says, “Oh, I get respect for helping the children. That’s never been an issue. The problem is that they brought in a TV to the ward and some idiot turned the channel to Fox News and Donald Trump as president, and suddenly, nothing else is funny to them.”

The most useful information here from a qualified professional--thank you, as always, Walker.

So it can get worse.... 24,000 evacuees, more earthquakes coming, and so on... https://www.rappler.com/nation/249357-phivolcs-advisory-taal-volcano-status-january-15-2020 But at least people are rescuing the poor pets left behind by some residents. I'll never go anywhere without my dogs either. https://www.rappler.com/nation/249361-video-volunteers-rescue-pets-taal-volcano-eruption-january-2020

I know you can hide your posts and admin can hide it too, but short of editing a post to read “.”, you can’t outright delete your post. As to why, I have no idea. Perhaps to hide from web search results?

Also if you click on an arrow from the quoted post, it will take you to the post as a link. If it shows an error message—yep: someone’s hidden it, @Nungali.

The dumbest people are the ones who think they’re smarter than everyone else, funny enough.

Yep, a lot of people hide or just edit their posts to read “.” Some also change their user names to hide their past associations—someone for example associated with M_ P__ changed their username then hid all posts related to any participation they had on the subject matter, then for some bizarre reason join up with another questionable individual and his group here, for example.

Probably hid his own posts.

That was a guy I believe named “The Enigma” or something like that from the Jim Rose Circus who did a lot of penis contortion. He once demonstrated in his trailer what he could do to a very amused author of “The X-Files Book of the Unexplained” who described it as both being bizarre yet not perverted since he really wanted to show what he could do with his dick and balls in the name of art and actually seriously wasn’t trying to have sex with her.

I shall say this: i was taught and shown the exact opposite of what Spotless said by my teachers. Is he wrong? Am I wrong? The answer I get from experiences of myself and with my students in line with our teachers is that a better question is “What are the fruits of of thy practice?” For some, faqi in an electrical manner for medical use, for others, martial application and fajin, and a few other skills I am presently not allowed to discuss publicly. this also presumes both supervision and correct practice at the right time. No LDT breathing at the beginning or filling LDT either for beginners.

activated is easy to get here. Coffee filters and duct tape too.

Charcoal and silk, yes; honeycombed cardboard--probably not as easily.

Yeah, what I don't get is this constant talk about scientific evidence when they don't have the experience or understanding of Yin let alone scientific documentation to explain Yin themselves...

Aaaand it can get worse potentially. https://www.rappler.com/nation/249263-phivolcs-advisory-taal-volcano-status-january-14-2020 My area has less ashes in the air, but we did have a little rain too. Can’t buy masks because they are all sold out, and only one area, Manila proper (as opposed to the greater Metropolitan area), has the city government handed out masks to residents. So while some don’t cover their faces because they don’t know and don’t care (as the government has avoided advising cautions), others simply can’t buy masks and prefer to hide in malls. Five years ago, I worked for a clean air NGO that is funded by the Asian Development Bank, and all the visitors from Germany to even China noted that there’s a degree of avoidance that the government from the state level to the city level where they avoid being accountable or avoid the subject entirely. The air is bad enough with PM2.5, but with the haze and ashes? If I had a chance to move my dogs and cats elsewhere, I would. If the gods of wealth smile upon me, then I will move and set up mechanisms in place to help the stray dogs and cats who don’t even have the benefit of shelter from the air problems here.

Technically true--there was a study last year that the NYT highlighted how creators of misinformation content and conspiracy theories know it's all bullshit, but they can make money off of it, so they will do whatever it takes and say whatever to monetize it. A sign of the time when people discard ethics for personal fortune...

Hey, this is pretty good! When I can head to Chinatown or procure the ingredients, I'll make this! Thank you!

The problem is that your criteria for "science" rests on both faulty premises, misinformation, poor understanding, and however one would characterize your bizarre ideology. Are you aware that animals long before human interaction or "colonialist chemicals" relieve sexual urges with each other, whether it is male dogs humping both for dominance and sexual release or females for playfulness? You're creating a division and diversion here. By this question, you are creating a straw man argument (one of your favorite tactics), which posits that frogs are unable to fulfill their ecological role because of "homosexuality" and that frogs can even be "homosexual". Animals will hump one another, but preference for the same sex is hardly the case, since that itself is a projection of the ridiculous ideologies of human sexuality onto animals. However, the bigger problem is that your earlier allegation The so-called "feminist Pill" you say, which is in itself a convenient scapegoat for whatever distorted idea of both science and feminism exists in the hollow void of mediocrity and delusions of grandeur that exists inside your skull where a brain should be. It sounds like you're saying the ideology of Feminism is caused by chemicals and causing sexual dysfunction--which is not how it works. Thus, your argument focused on the already ridiculous idea of "colonialist chemicals" affecting frogs in an ecosystem is a diversion from your supposed human argument--or you are simply a terrible writer whose ability to communicate equally terrible ideas is severely limited. Your so-called "scientific source" that you cite as well is highlighted on a right-wing watch list, where some post titles that I will not link here include such literary and scientific genius such as Rainbow Dorritos a Gay Gateway Drug or the extremely ridiculous idea that "women ruin public discourse by talking about rape". I presume you understand what the cause of cancer is, which many medicinal systems still struggle to identify, because of your illuminated state of understanding gives you insight? Enough with the faulty premises and forcing your idiotic views that are unrelated to any topic you invade, Gendao. You still have up to this day not demonstrated your understanding of history as a concept or the individual histories of the people you claim to speak for by creating this false dialogue that assumes everything is a byproduct of alien colonialism cum Christian colonialism, ignoring the subtleties and actual history of people, whether it is the pre-colonial times of Southeast Asia or even the history of western civilization. It is more bemusing to see how you think you have a more enlightened view because of your conspiracy theories and the so-called people you speak for (like me and my ethnic heritage) are too "brainwashed" to be able to think clearly--which is about as condescending as an actual colonialist mentality of "I know better than you and you are too stupid to think due to your heritage". You have not demonstrated any linguistic competence even in the English language, and as such have yet to dialogue with people instead of talking over them, let alone understand anything from primary sources without relying on your usual memes and conspiracy groups. You have been unable to demonstrate anything that remotely resembles science free of ideology and something that actually resembles existing paradigms, and sound more like a petulant child who insists that his views are correct because he says so, who, when caught in a lie, calls others liars and ignorant. You do not exhibit any credentials and refuse to identify how you are able to come to the bizarre conclusions you make, even when directly asked what your academic background, employment history, or travel experience has been, and sound more like a town drunk and busybody--a term used to describe people who meddled with others' business because they have nothing better to do--who sits around cafes reading tabloids and sneering at people who are in his vicinity before inviting himself to their tables and ignores their requests to go away. You lack any sort of understanding in the internal arts or experience in practicing them, yet seem to come here and tell other cultivators and those with an interest in the study of such philosophies that you possess an understanding of things that are far more significant and worth talking about--regardless of whether anyone is interested in hearing about and if it even has to do with the subject at hand. Now you are alleging that chemicals cause homosexuality among humans and animals--the topic here is climate change. How you manage to misconstrue these things is no longer false equivalence, but the signs of a severely unstable and uneducated individual.

Reminds me of an old sports joke. A basketball star just finished a night of hanky panky with his girlfriend, and they were laying in bed after, with him smoking a cigarette in total relaxation, while his girlfriend was shivering. She says to him, "God, it's freezing in here! Can we turn up the heat a bit?" The basketball star says, "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Baby! What did I tell you? You can call me by my real name when we're alone and in private!"

This sounds extremely homophobic, even for you.

I mentioned this before, but it bears repeating here: a guy was arguing with absolutely no uncertainty about things Confucius said, going on and on about it while making no sense. It eventually reached a point one of us asked him if he realized that he was describing the Buddha. The guy then responds matter-of-factly, "Well, of course! Aren't they the same person?" Right, one Asian guy providing great wisdom and another Asian guy providing ancient wisdom--easy to confuse them, they all look the same anyway. This guy also insisted a DVD qigong "master" was authentic Chinese lineage and was an actual Chinese master, about as yellow as one can be and therefore legitimate because he's Asian. The DVD ended up being Tai Chi with David Carradine. In response to the video itself...A lot of contemporary entrepreneurs and authors sound more like they are repeating New Age drivel with basic business platitudes and making it "Oriental" with shitty generic music and attributing it to anyone they can to look like they have ancient insight for modern success.

More in pictures here: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/01/philippines-alert-volcano-spews-ash-steam-lava-200113050738645.html

Willful ignorance too. Thankfully, Tao never gives nothing more than the illusion of power to such individuals, and a host of other problems as well... sort of like coming back from the red light district and bringing herpes and other unexpected gifts that surprise no one else.