I hadn’t seen any English reports on this but its too good not to share.
So right now there are pretty crazy right-wing nationalist sexists in Japan. They’re dressing up in WWII military outfits, they’re standing outside of Korean schools (in Japan) shouting that Koreans should be killed, and just generally being horrible human beings. For reasons unknown, the Japanese police haven’t done anything to stop them, and when people get physical with the right-wingers and a fight breaks out, it’s not the right-wing people who get punished.
Enter: the Yakuza.
Yakuza, for those who don’t know, is the name for the world of Japanese gangs, commonly known for being covered in tattoos. A few retired yakuza members (most of whom are notoriously and vocally conservative) got tired of this extreme right wing BS. They believe that picking on people who are weaker than you, like the children at the Korean schools or refugees, is embarrassing, and not something to be proud of. They want these right wingers to man up (the group is almost entirely men) and shut up.
These old retired yakuzas start showing up at the right wing protests and intimidate the hell out of these guys. When they feel like it, they’ll use physical force too. The police don’t mess with the yakuza so these right wing protesters become human punching bags. All their talk of killing Koreans or their superiority to just about everyone flies out the window when these gangsters roll up.
It started with only one or two yakuza who were bored and fed up, but more and more started to come. They started training in boxing and street fighting, and wouldn’t you know it…the number of right wing protesters got less and less.
Then, people of other walks of life joined in too. With the yakuza throwing the police off, professors could join by writing about the issues profusely. Suddenly a ton of otakus joined too, using their art and community to protest. They’d show up in droves and stand behind the muscle (yakuza) and make a ton of noise. They literally staged an “otakus against racists” rally.
Slowly, the protests have seen the right wing attendance drop more and more and I am living for these “manly men” being trashed by retired gangsters and fans of Love Live.
In conclusion:
First, I’d like the extreme right wing to gtfo
Second, I’d like a manga, then an anime, about these yakuza who befriended professors and otakus to fight neo-nazis. K? cool.
and this, my friends, shows you exactly how to deal with fascists.
you intimidate them, you fight them, you let them know that They Are Not Safe and then you outnumber them. you might not be ex-yakuza or whatever, but you can still do it- get buff, work out, train in martial arts, and learn how to hold yourself in an intimidating manner. scare the fash into submission.
Remember Rosetta? That comet-chasing European Space Agency (ESA) probe that deployed (and accidentally bounced) its lander Philae on the surface of Comet 67P? This GIF is made up of images Rosetta beamed back to Earth, which have been freely available online for a while. But it took Twitter user landru79 processing and assembling them into this short, looped clip to reveal the drama they contained.
while the stuff in the foreground is dust/ice on the surface of the comet itself, the background is actually stars. i saw a stabilized video where you can really make it out, and it blew my mind.
here’s the stabilized clip, if anyone’s interested
Also QED, “quod erat demonstrandum” meaning “thus it has been demonstrated.“
Remember:
e.g. stands for exempli gratia, “for [the sake of an] example”
i.e. stands for id est, meaning “that is [to say]” or “in other words”
QUI BONO?
And remember! If you can’t remember how to spell any of these, or you have trouble keeping the meanings straight, it’s fine. All these phrases have perfectly fine plain English equivalents that work just as well, in addition to the literal translations above.
Ad hoc: just for this. Et cetera: and so on. In flagrante delicto: caught in the act. Ipso facto: therefore / inevitably. Per se: as such. Pro bono: donated.
In particular, I would really love to see people use “as such” instead of “per say” please. I don’t blame anyone for not knowing how to spell it, but just remember that you don’t have to use it!
tl;dr this woman was hearing creepy phantom nursery rhymes every night and it turned out to be a local industrial building’s alarm system, being triggered by spiders on the motion detectors
which is all well and good but “we investigated the creepy nursery rhymes, and it turns out it’s spiders” is one hell of a true statement
You left out the best part!
The alarm was at some kind of industrial building, and is apparently SUPPOSED to play creepy nursery rhymes, to deter criminals from breaking in in the middle of the night! It was just turned up too loud, and too sensitive, so it was being triggered by spiders.
That’s some creative theft-deterrent there. If you’re breaking in to a place, you kind of expect to hear a burglar alarm. You’re prepared for that, and you’re prepared to grab and go once it goes off.
But if you hear a creepy kid’s voice singing nursery rhymes at a seemingly abandoned industrial building in the middle of the night, you’re going to shit your pants and get the fuck out, in that order.
Give the guy who thought that up a promotion.
holy shit thay video is terrifying i should not have watched that alone