Happy Sunday, Knife Swap!
For sale today are 5 knives I shipwrecked! Now with prices dropped by at least 10% or $25 as per rules. I also did the entropic anodizing (also known as flame anodized) of the pm2 I have listed. The last 3 listed are not modified.
Fresh timestamp of all 9 knives I currently have for sale
Two CRKT Pilars Copper Shipwrecks - two knives beautifully designed by the brilliant Jesper Voxnaes. The left one has a more standard shipwreck style, right one was left in about 5 times as long and got a lot darker because of it. I want to note that both of them have Loctite on the 2 body screws. I was frustrated when taking them apart to do the shipwreck that they were Loctited in the first place from the factory, but when I put them back together I got why. Dunno why but they would not stay put otherwise. Left is nicely centered but the right blade very slightly leans to the show side, doesn’t seem to scrape the copper though. Neither carried or cut. Both have original CRKT boxes. SV $120 now SV $95 each
Spyderco Paramilitary 2 Copper Shipwreck - very good centering, has a copper plug in place of the lanyard hole for those who are not into lanyards. Satin finish blade in very good condition. I am the second owner so I cannot say for sure there were no cuts but as you can see in the video I can’t find any signs of usage. Nice dark blue shipwreck with small bits of shiny copper coming through. Handsome knife no doubt. No box on this one. SV 240 now SV $215
Spyderco Smock Brass Shipwreck - I am the second owner and wanted to experiment with this one. These brass scales were laser engraved from DNALasering in a floral pattern. There was some type of ink highlighting the engraving but that came off when using ammonia to get this patina. The scroll-work, leaves, and vines still show through the corrosion. Makes me think of plants growing from an abandoned building. Second detent is removed and long gone RIP. From the person I bought it from: “This knife was carried quite a bit and shows some wear on the blade. It was resharpened on a workshop precision Elite, but I can't remember to what angle.” Well they did a fantastic job sharpening it because I was about to say “no cut” until I consulted my notes. They made it look like new on that Worksharp! I have a beat up Smock box I can send it in but it doesn’t have the papers sorry. SV 210 now SV $185
Spyderco Shaman Copper Shipwreck - Absolute tank of a knife. It was already big and heavy and the copper scales add another 3 ounces. Big knife that is great for people with big hands tired of feeling like they are holding a toothpick when they need to slice and dice. One of my first shipwrecks and I’d love to see it go to a good home. Solid centering. Never been carried or cut with. Has original box and original Spydie Shaman leaflet. SV 385 now SV $360
Spyderco Paramilitary 2 Entropic Anodized Titanium - At least second owner. Wanted to point out a couple smudges on the blade that can be seen in the video but no scratches. I heated the titanium scales up with a torch until they were glowing hot and then quenched them in ferric chloride, giving them an amazing and unique smoke-like pattern. Beautiful blend of blue and golden brown. Drops shut beautifully and centering looks spot on in the middle to me. Has box n docs. SV 255 now SV $230
TwoSun Titanium Sidewinder - I did not do the entropic anodizing on this one, I believe it came from the factory that way. Second owner. It was a bit stiff when I got it so I opened it up and cleaned it really well and lubed with KPL (all knives I have disassembled including shipwrecks are cleaned with isopropyl alcohol and then lubed with KPL) Really cool knife! Centering leans very slightly to the show side. SV 85 now SV $75
Spyderco Native Chief St. Nick’s Exclusive - Picked this up on the swap, second owner. Deep crimson scales from St. Nick’s Knives compliment the black DLC coated blade, sweet color scheme. The long thin blade does not appear to have any scratches at all and the scales are very clean too. Pocket clip shows a little wear so I believe this was carried. Reminds me a bit of a stiletto in essence. Buy this knife and pretend you are Alex from A Clockwork Orange today! No box, comes in a sweet black pouch though. Has not been disassembled by me (nor previous owner I don’t think). SV 195 now SV $175
WE Blitz in blue and black - Second owner and there are a few smudges on black cerakote part of the blade. From the person I bought it from, “Super slick, awesome knife for an EDC, with an overall length of 7.875”, blade length of 3.375”. The handle scales are textured G10 with a super grippy milling pattern and two tone finish, blade is VG10 with a cerakote finish on the main bevel and spine.” I’d call it a user in good shape. Drops shut with a little bit of wiggling. Comes in a Kizer zipper pouch (box was lost I guess, came to me this way) with the 2 WE stickers, WE cloth, and original WE leaflet. Has not been disassembled by me. SV 85 now SV $75
Preferred payment method is PayPal “Friends and Family” with no notes please! For those new here, “SV” means “Sale Value” and is cost including shipping (seller covers shipping costs).
I am open to chats about custom modifications, here are some (instagram) examples of etchings of octopuses, turtles and rays, and more on the shipwrecks I have done.
A little bit about my work, thought I would save this for last since most people just want to see the listings and not read a novel. When doing a shipwreck I try to leave some spots of the metal exposed because I think it looks cool when there are flakes shining through all the beautiful chaotic patterns of forced patina. Each piece is sprayed twice with polyurethane clearcoat to preserve the patina and metal, it also gives the nice bonus of not making your hands smell like copper when you handle your knife (a lot of people seem to dislike the smell of copper). Should be a little something for everybody in here, lots of variations and each piece is one of a kind!

I’m a 23 yr old Male. 5’5 weighing 218.3lbs.
In March of 2022 I started having lots of acid reflux. On 12/24/22 I start having a very dull pain on my left side just below the ribs. I could sometimes feel it just a little bit above that spot behind the rib. Over the next 2 months the pain stayed full and was come and go. Still having acid reflux. However, in February a doctor put me on 40mg Pantroprazole. It seems to help because my burps are airy again compared to being thick if that makes sense. In April the pain dull pain started to feel like muscle cramps or tighting. Then for a week I was pain free. It started back up and the pain was no longer dull but maybe 1 or 2 on the pain chart. And still feels crampy or tighting.
The pain also started hurting just below the breast bone in the middle of my upper abdomen. And on my right side of the upper abdomen. All of which is come and go pain only lasting maybe a second or 3. However, the pain in my left side is some days constant.
I also started to have a diarrhea, yellow and pale stools, and greasy and oily stools. After about a week the diarrhea stop. But my stool was still odd colors. About a week or 2 later my stool went back to being light brown and hasn’t changed since. I still have diarrhea but it almost seems episodic. As I’ve noticed there seems to be a pattern of when it happens.
Come May my back has started to hurt. In the middle and sometimes lower part of my left side close to the edge of my back where the body wraps around to the abdomen. The pain is is maybe a 1-3 on pain scale. Some days it’s come and go. Others it’s constant. It could be due to my lumpy mattress but I don’t think so because my mattress has been lumpy for years and it just now is causing me problems. Also the pain I feel in my upper left abdomen just below/behind the rib has moved up to just below the pectoral muscle area. The pain is. 2 maybe 3.
About three weeks ago my stool has been floating almost constantly. I’ve noticed that the first bowl movement of the day usually sinks to the bottom. But any other stool for the day is 90% floating. sometimes with that white fuzzy stuff around it. It’s sometimes formed, others it’s just a pile of mush or very oily/greasy. I’ve noticed blood a few times but on those days I noticed I was either having a hemorrhoid or it was hard to push out.
About a week ago I started to be very constipated. However, I also have not been drinking nearly as much water as I usually do. Not sure if that has something to do with it.
I would also like to mention that some days I have to poop a lot like almost all day it feels. Then the next day it’s back to normal or sometimes it starts the diarrhea that lasts for about 2 or 3 days.
Recently I’ve started doing 15 hour fasts and it has helped a lot I believe. The pain in my abdomen is not as frequent.
My doctor has tested me for H. Pylori which came back negative & he legitimately believes I have a hiatal hernia. But I’m not so sure. Can anyone tell me what they think?

TLDR; Er det muligt at bygge bro fra humanist til IT, eller skal jeg tage en helt ny uddannelse?
Hej dkfinance. Inspireret af tidligere kommentarer fra andre tråde, håber jeg på at kunne få nogle ærlige svar her så jeg ikke spilder mere tid end jeg allerede har gjort. Jeg er tidligere uddannet folkeskolelærer, men gider ikke at undervise længere. Jeg blev derfor cand.mag. i Læring & Forandringsprocesser i 2022, da jeg fuldt ud troede at det ville forøge mine chancer for at komme ud af undervisningsregiet ved at bygge ovenpå eksisterende kompetencer. Jeg tog fejl. De sidste par måneder er jeg blevet overbevist omkring at IT er vejen frem. Spørgsmålet er så bare om det kan betale sig at forsøge at bygge ovenpå med certifikater og kurser for at bevise at jeg kan noget, eller om jeg skal tage en helt ny uddannelse. Google data analyst certifikatet er et af de kurser jeg er ved at tage, da en karriere som data analytiker ikke virker som urealistisk et spring - målet er derfor i skrivende stund at komme i praktik som data analytiker så jeg får noget andet på CV'et. Men lad mig høre hvad I menekigger efter når i ansætter nye. Betyder kurser og certifikater noget som helst på ens CV? Har du selv foretaget brancheskift fra A til B og har noget relevant viden du kan dele? Lyder min plan alt for langt ude? Alle input sættes der pris på. Tak på forhånd.

My tradelink: https://steamcommunity.com/tradeoffenew/?partner=102474654&token=BH1q6eSo
My steam profile: https://steamcommunity.com/id/darknezz\_/
Everything up for a trade, some skins might not be tradable yet
Buyouts are in cash (EURO), send trade offers, only trading
★ Survival Knife Crimson Web FT - B/O 294.96
★ Bayonet Night FT- B/O 253.23
★ StatTrak Flip Knife Ultraviolet BS - B/O 194.65
★ Classic Knife Stained FT- B/O 181.07
★ Survival Knife Case Hardened WW - B/O 176.15
★ Survival Knife Stained MW - B/O 173.19
★ Falchion Knife Bright Water FN- B/O 165.71
★ Huntsman Knife Forest DDPAT MW - B/O 144.32
★ Falchion Knife Bright Water FT - B/O 127.27
★ StatTrak Navaja Knife Night Stripe MW - B/O 125.51
★ Falchion Knife Black Laminate WW - B/O 120.71
★ Paracord Knife Scorched BS - B/O 106.93
★ Navaja Knife Damascus Steel FT- B/O 93.68
★ Navaja Knife Stained FT- B/O 93.24
★ Navaja Knife Rust Coat BS- B/O 92.89
★ Navaja Knife Ultraviolet BS - B/O 89.87
★ Navaja Knife Safari Mesh MW - B/O 89.75
★ Driver Gloves Black Tie FT- B/O 229.61
★ Sport Gloves Bronze Morph FT- B/O 176.27
★ Broken Fang Gloves Needle Point MW - B/O 122.94
★ Hydra Gloves Case Hardened FT- B/O 82.00
★ Bloodhound Gloves Bronzed FT- B/O 79.18
★ Hydra Gloves Mangrove FT- B/O 52.28
★ Driver Gloves Racing Green FT- B/O 50.44
Sticker Ninjas in Pyjamas (Holo) DreamHack 2014 - B/O 108.25
AWP Pink DDPAT FN- B/O 142.56
AWP Asiimov FT- B/O 137.11
AWP WW - B/O 100.37
AWP Wildfire FT- B/O 57.33
AWP Redline FT- B/O 38.70
AK-47 Vulcan WW - B/O 138.42
AK-47 Bloodsport FN- B/O 131.87
StatTrak AK-47 The Empress WW - B/O 54.39
AK-47 Aquamarine Revenge MW - B/O 51.76
StatTrak AK-47 Redline FT- B/O 45.13
M4A1-S Master Piece FT - B/O 124.51
M4A1-S Golden Coil MW - B/O 79.84
StatTrak M4A1-S Golden Coil BS - B/O 62.31
StatTrak M4A1-S Guardian MW - B/O 55.18
Desert Eagle Golden Koi FN - B/O 75.45
USP-S Printstream FT- B/O 57.73
USP-S Printstream WW - B/O 52.02
Five-SeveN Berries And Cherries FN- B/O 50.44
Glock-18 Gamma Doppler (Phase 3) FN- B/O 45.27
M4A4 In Living Color FN- B/O 44.74
StatTrak M4A4 Spider Lily FN - B/O 40.61
Stickers, pins
And more…
Some prices might be outdated
My tradelink: https://steamcommunity.com/tradeoffenew/?partner=102474654&token=BH1q6eSo

My tradelink: https://steamcommunity.com/tradeoffenew/?partner=102474654&token=BH1q6eSo
My steam profile: https://steamcommunity.com/id/darknezz\_/
Everything up for a trade, some skins might not be tradable yet
Buyouts are in cash (EURO), send trade offers, only trading
★ Survival Knife Crimson Web FT - B/O 294.96
★ Bayonet Night FT- B/O 253.23
★ StatTrak Flip Knife Ultraviolet BS - B/O 194.65
★ Classic Knife Stained FT- B/O 181.07
★ Survival Knife Case Hardened WW - B/O 176.15
★ Survival Knife Stained MW - B/O 173.19
★ Falchion Knife Bright Water FN- B/O 165.71
★ Huntsman Knife Forest DDPAT MW - B/O 144.32
★ Falchion Knife Bright Water FT - B/O 127.27
★ StatTrak Navaja Knife Night Stripe MW - B/O 125.51
★ Falchion Knife Black Laminate WW - B/O 120.71
★ Paracord Knife Scorched BS - B/O 106.93
★ Navaja Knife Damascus Steel FT- B/O 93.68
★ Navaja Knife Stained FT- B/O 93.24
★ Navaja Knife Rust Coat BS- B/O 92.89
★ Navaja Knife Ultraviolet BS - B/O 89.87
★ Navaja Knife Safari Mesh MW - B/O 89.75
★ Driver Gloves Black Tie FT- B/O 229.61
★ Sport Gloves Bronze Morph FT- B/O 176.27
★ Broken Fang Gloves Needle Point MW - B/O 122.94
★ Hydra Gloves Case Hardened FT- B/O 82.00
★ Bloodhound Gloves Bronzed FT- B/O 79.18
★ Hydra Gloves Mangrove FT- B/O 52.28
★ Driver Gloves Racing Green FT- B/O 50.44
Sticker Ninjas in Pyjamas (Holo) DreamHack 2014 - B/O 108.25
AWP Pink DDPAT FN- B/O 142.56
AWP Asiimov FT- B/O 137.11
AWP WW - B/O 100.37
AWP Wildfire FT- B/O 57.33
AWP Redline FT- B/O 38.70
AK-47 Vulcan WW - B/O 138.42
AK-47 Bloodsport FN- B/O 131.87
StatTrak AK-47 The Empress WW - B/O 54.39
AK-47 Aquamarine Revenge MW - B/O 51.76
StatTrak AK-47 Redline FT- B/O 45.13
M4A1-S Master Piece FT - B/O 124.51
M4A1-S Golden Coil MW - B/O 79.84
StatTrak M4A1-S Golden Coil BS - B/O 62.31
StatTrak M4A1-S Guardian MW - B/O 55.18
Desert Eagle Golden Koi FN - B/O 75.45
USP-S Printstream FT- B/O 57.73
USP-S Printstream WW - B/O 52.02
Five-SeveN Berries And Cherries FN- B/O 50.44
Glock-18 Gamma Doppler (Phase 3) FN- B/O 45.27
M4A4 In Living Color FN- B/O 44.74
StatTrak M4A4 Spider Lily FN - B/O 40.61
Stickers, pins
And more…
Some prices might be outdated
My tradelink: https://steamcommunity.com/tradeoffenew/?partner=102474654&token=BH1q6eSo

Wretched screams were they that once filled this house. Horrible, blood curdling cries. The type that would pierce the ears and vibrate right through the chest. But it wasn’t just the cries themselves that scarred my existence. There were the workers too; always bumbling through the corridors, trampling around with their syringes and vials. “Help” is what they claimed to be. Yet, they deprive this house—MY house—of its serenity. I suppose some might say their sympathy and purpose was honorable, but the honor of such things is lost when they are applied to such a decrepit being. Upon such creatures, only death is honor—is mercy.
Now, only regret fills my time. Just a single recollection of the moment and it is as if my mouth were filled with ashes. It is not with ego that I say I am a man of great scholarly accomplishment. Certainly, a man of my station would never let madness cloud his mind. Surely, you will see that truth when I recount what started this all.
From the pounding of hooves in the night, I had awoken. It was a grave matter; they had said then. Only a man of standing, of academic connection could provide the aid for which they so badly wanted. How can one deny their own flesh and blood, especially when that hospitality was to be repaid? It was with the best, purest faith that I called in those resources that they lacked. A doctor in practice I am no longer, but the Hippocratic oath is still my code.
I stake my reputation on the fact that inheritances never entered my mind. How could one ever desire to take fortunes tainted by the ownership of that...that thing? I promise that it has never been said that I am unkind. Wounds never have I inflicted upon another human being. Not even to my hound I was cruel. But what kindness do we give the pests that have felled the tree? What care do we give the maggot that spoils meat? What empathy do we give the disease that rots a man’s flesh?
From the first I witnessed it enter my sight, clawing its way out the carriage and across the road to my halls all garbed in black shawls, my heart grew cold. At that instant, it became clear that the only action—the only rational action—was to cry that the agreement was voided, and that my doors would be shut to them, until it was once again corralled in a wayward carriage. But with my reputation, I had already drawn the finest of those in practice to my secluded home, and I would be breaking a vow to my own flesh and blood.
My life I would stake into the hands of every specialist who undertook this work. Perhaps, in the most fantastic of circumstances, a single physician of caliber could find themselves unwittingly misguided in their intuition. Within a league of such caliber, an already extraordinary possibility becomes so miniscule that it is rendered entirely impossible. Of course, as utmost professionals with a healthy level of respect—even admiration—of my work coloring their disposition towards me, they danced around it, never landing on the coarse truth at the heart of the matter. However, I could see it in their eyes—yes, I could see it—as clearly as I tell this tale to you now. A revulsion so all-consuming, that it was as if something of the soul had wasted away during their time in that room. With the most artful eye and mute foot, I observed them when they thought themselves out of my sight, their lips trembling with a truth unspoken.
One by one, they all left my house. Always, there was some polite excuse. Something or other about some important work they must return to. Like a sheet over a corpse, the real truth was obvious. In time, only a scant few of their interns were left with me, poor fools stumbling around the corridors of the house, trying to forget each breath they had taken from the sickening air of the room it had burrowed itself in to.
Ask anyone with which I’ve made contact, my word is my bond. Not a SINGLE stain is painted upon my history. Betrayal is a sin so horrible, that I endured months of this torment praying that nature would do my labor for me. It was with terrible weight of obligation pounding through my practiced hands that I arranged the right course—the only course—for full satisfaction of my promise. How many of those with not a third of the experience, utterly repugnant of any medicinal sense, would slander me as a quack, while they stand behind their little desks in clean linen? HA! Would a quack’s hand move with a maestro’s grace, divining the exact formulation to silence the beast? To those who would call me inhumane, do we not lance a boil? Cauterize a wound with searing flame? Slice through the bone of a decaying limb? As you can see, my methods were so merciful, so virtuous, that it is a credit to my character that I chose them in the first place.
With passionate clarity reserved only for those desperate times when a man must complete his task to live, I set upon my work with a meticulousness that surely couldn’t be considered anything less than logical. There were only 3 hours of the day in which it creeped back under its lair in the covers, the shrill shrieking traded for an unsettling wheezing moan. In only one of those three hours was it not under watch by the exhausted, empty eyes of whichever of the few attendants left who could bear it that night. Thus, I ascended the stairs only when I was absolutely certain the assistant unlucky enough to be on watch had retired to an uneasy slumber; stepping in time with the howling wind that battered the exterior of the house with a precision almost unnatural. Upon reaching the top of the creaking staircase, I paused with a soundless breath. I felt like a shadow gliding soundlessly towards the door, as if guided by the movement of some divine hand. There, I rested my handle gently—oh so gently—upon the iron knob of the door, preparing myself for the sight to come. I dared not peek through the glass opening in the door, not wishing to see any more of the thing than necessary. With a motion so slight it was barely perceptible; my fingers turned the heavy knob. The process was so painstakingly done that I couldn’t help but feel a small surge of pride at my composure.
Finally, the door lurched slowly forward, but I dared not move it more than an inch. A seeping stench invaded my nostrils, so moist it felt like it had left a dew inside me. It took all the fortitude I had to not be repelled backwards from the sensation. I lurched, stifling gags for what felt like an hour as I—ever so slowly—poked my head through the opening of the door. Mustering all the tolerance humanly possible, I gradually pushed the door open, the low grind of its movement against the wood floor masked by the raging storm outside.
Having numbed my senses to the room, I crept forward. My steps were slow and methodical, calculated for complete silence. As I approached the bed, I was unshaken about the deed before me. And why should I be? I was a veteran of countless surgeries. Balancing life and death at the tip of my finger was nothing new to me, nor was staking my livelihood on my capacity to do it successfully. If anything, this should have been easier. There was no tightrope to walk here—none indeed. I only needed to drip a few drops from my vial, and the whole operation would be over.
At the same moment as I hunched over to the bedside, a sudden spree of lightning bathed the windows pale blue. With the room momentarily lit, my destination took on a discernibility both terrible and ugly. Its fat lips quivered in a wheeze, surrounded by mottled flesh and blighted features. Every pore in sight spoke its putrefaction soundlessly. My eyes I kept locked in place—singularly focused. Even physicians have limits; Mine was taking in anymore of this deformity than necessary. Thankfully—oh so thankfully—muscle memory jolted in. The contents of the vial were dispensed in the creature before I could even consciously register it.
It was there that I thought my ordeal over, but before I could breathe a foolhardy sigh of relief, bony, calloused fingers wrapped tight around my wrist—tight with animal desperation. Instinctually, I drew my arm back in surprise, yet I only helped it rise to chest level. With its claws still digging deep into my wrist, it fought against my escape from its death bed. I dared not glance back, unfortunately, there was nothing I could do to protect my ears.
The last ounce of its strength was driven into a shattering scream, the most violent attack on my senses in all its time infesting my manor. Before that night, I had borne witness to many dying patients. Death was rarely a peaceful visitor, but this was something different—entirely different. What the thing produced in death, as in life, grouped it in its own class. The screech seemed to drill through my ears and then rattle across the caverns of my skull. It was not just heard—it was felt—and I speak not only of volume when I relay this to you. A wet spattering sprayed upon my head in enough bulk that beads of it oozed down my neck. Perhaps even worse than the physical assault was the spiritual; the cry was filled with an unfathomably deep anguish and venom. It was as if the thing, in its final revenge on life, had poured out every drop of darkness it had gathered from it.
Finally, the assault was alleviated by the silence of death’s departure, although I was so thoroughly shell shocked by the creature’s calamitous final act that several moments passed before I realized it. My ears still rung with an unheard echo as I finally glanced over and noticed the attendant at my side. For the slightest moment, I stared blankly, feeling my plans exposed, but I quickly regained my composure, despite the growing concern on his face as he continued to repeat his questioning. There was a certain authority I had, as not just a member of a respected field, but a distinguished one. I had the leverage here. Even so, the ease with which I evaded and disarmed the attendant’s concerns proved to myself that my sanity had not transpired with the creature.
By the time I—at last—departed from the room, the attendant was a willing—perhaps even eager—participant in removing the body. We wrapped its corpse in sheets—several layers deep—and delivered it for incineration with pace. The disposal was finished by the morning, and within days, my home was returned to its prior state. It felt as if I had awoken from a nightmare to serenity that seemed so long past it was almost forgotten. In my ignorance, I began to fall into an unearned sense of comfort. If only I could have remained in that ignorant bliss, but my mind was too active—my eye too discerning.
From what I’ve recounted thus far, it must be clear that I was stressed, but even clearer that I kept my faculties intact to complete the necessary cruelties a doctor cannot shrink from. Even with all that accepted—even with what trust has been earned—I expect doubt to overwhelm your reading as I confess my part in the tragedy that consumed this town. Lend your ear, for just a moment longer, and you’ll find I have saved lives—not taken them.
It was from within that my all too brief respite was broken. A gnawing sense of malaise, both of the body and mind, grew in such strength that it overwhelmed the peace I had rediscovered. Even with my acute perception and training, its source I could not immediately place. Only with the irritation and congestion did I finally come to the terrible realization—as a subtle wheeze began to creep into each breath I took. Surely, some who read this will think I am mistaken. That alternative explanations exist and what I read into the symptom was simply a delusion of paranoia. Were they privy to its breathing day and night? Do they have the rattled burned in their memory? No…this connection was not coincidental. As terrifying as it was to consider my own infection, worse yet were my thoughts when I began to consider the extent of its exposure beyond myself.
An awful, crushing weight had fallen on my shoulders. Undoubtably, many will say my response was criminal. You may feel the urge to join their ranks—to cry out damning the madman that destroyed your town. Yet, once you can see the whole story—see it from my eyes, you will find there was not a sliver of madness painting my actions. I had to make the ultimate sacrifice, and under this burden, I locked myself in my chamber for hours—perhaps days. No man—inside which self-preservation is natural instinct—could ever take my course without bone grating internal conflict. Only with the confidence uniquely obtained by suffering through meticulous consideration, did I finally move back into waking life.
Intervention was the only course to prevent an even bleaker fate, and I set upon it with scientific efficiency. I hired local stage drivers to help me enter into correspondence with all who had moved on from my manor out of town, then I drew up a route to hand deliver, from my personal stagecoach, an invitation to all who remained locally. While on that journey, I employed several former assistants. I made sure those I used were in the early stages—if sick at all. They were sent to secure accommodation for a feast while I secured its occupants.
It was the wait to complete this second task that created a wave of anxiousness in me. It rose to such an extent that it threatened to crack the stoic veneer I had learned to maintain from professional experience. Stress ate at me as much or more than sickness, as I awaited confirmation of attendance from those I invited and hoped I could continue to be convincing in my communications with them. It was imperative my net reach as far as possible, and despite the creeping doubt in the pit of my stomach, I soon learned my efforts were not in vain.
At last, the night came. My fears were unfounded, as the vast majority of those I invited were in attendance. The spread could still be contained. Surely, it will be suspected by doubters that I operated without discernment; that I went about my operation indiscriminately—WRONG! Every single invitee was admitted to the hall only after deliberate inspection—nobody’s eye is as sharply tuned to this affliction as I. Sadly, scarce few escaped the quarantine. Nearly all those invited were in the structure when I slipped out—having already addressed the crowd with a few perfunctory remarks on the value of their work and set them forward to enjoy the banquet free of expense. So cleverly had I set the attendees at ease, that they hardly noticed my disappearance, remaining entirely absorbed in the event as I barred the exits.
Most died happy as a silent cleanser passed to them via cup and plate. The few stragglers that remained met a less tranquil end via the chemical ignition of the entire building. All met a fate better than what the untreated progression of their illness would have achieved. As I prepare to join them and put an end to this procedure, I leave this letter to remain as a testament that my judgement never faltered.

I've been stuck in my head since January. For added context, I met this girl on FetLife who for legal reasons we will call Terra, back in 2021. I was in South Bend during Ramencon looking for a hook up. I was lonely, and before you judge, my spouse at the time and I were swingers but going through a rough patch. My spouse at the time had asked me to be in an open relationship and up until that moment at the convention, I hadn't explored it.
Terra, who this story is about, ignored me at first because she was married and I respected that. I told her if she ever changed her mind to seek me out. Fast forward a few months later she starts commenting on my photos, liking and sharing my post. There was a Star Wars convention coming up in South Bend and I told her I would be in town. We met on March 26th, 2022. She was pregnant but wanted to hook up. It was only supposed to be a one night stand, I had not intentions of catching feelings. However when she came into the room, I felt an instant connection with her. My soul recognized hers. We sat on the bed, I gave her a massage and I asked her questions about herself to see if we were compatible. The sex was amazing, and we went a few rounds.
When we were done, I sat away from her for a bit. I asked when was the last time she was held? She paused and told me never. She told me her ex had abused her and that she was going to raise her son on her own. I respected this and stayed in my lane because I had a daughter at home. My daughter's mom and I were having a lot of issues. I spent time with my daughter throughout the week until I went to work. Some nights my child's mother would not come home until 5 AM the next morning. My child's mother allowed her mother, child's grandmother, to live with us for what was only supposed to be 3 to 6 months but this turned into almost 2 years until I finally had enough.
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I would drive to South Bend every weekend starting from March 26th to see Terra. I was with her on her birthday April 4th, and wanted to surprise her, so I laid out flowers, went and got us food even though she refused to eat at first, and I got her a birthday Balloon. I had access to Daily Pay so I would withdraw part of my check to rent us a room and hang out. I was gentle with her because of the baby but she brought out this side of me I never knew I had. My bills were paid so I didn't think much of it.
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I enjoyed our time together. It was like an escape from reality, but during one of our visits, I noticed she told me..."he's nice...I can use him."
I was put off by this statement, and I hesitated being around her because I didn't want her to think I was just some lonely sucker who would give her everything...except that was exactly what I was to her. She called me her dog who she could whistle and I would come running to. I feel sick to my stomach just thinking about it. Yet...despite everything I was falling in love with her.
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It came to a time where I told my child's mother the truth. Even though she knew about the other woman, I admitted that I had fallen out of love with her and I was in love with this new woman who I felt completed me in ways she couldn't. I got very tired of the verbal and sometimes physical abuse from my child's mother, and I found comfort in this other woman who was always there, even getting to the point where while I was at Exxxotica for my birthday in 2022, all I could think about was Terra. She even surprised me and drove out to see me on my birthday.
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My child's mother and I separated in June. I ended up on child support but Terra was there. It scared me to be this close to someone, because my intuition told me to keep my guard up. Then one day she told me she was only using me to speed up her birthing process and that she planned to ghost me once the baby was here...but that changed and she started to actually like me.
Feeling like this was too good to be true, I blocked her on everything, Facebook, Twitter, FetLife, Instagram...any means of contact she was gone. She text me and asked why? I told her I didn't want to get hurt. If she didn't want me in her life, I would leave to save us both the trouble. She told me she started to care so I gave her another chance. I was hesitant...we met up a few more times and she took me to see Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness in theaters. We went to a buffet and I felt this connection I had never felt before. It scared me...I felt like she would hurt me again and she admitted to being invited to a gangbang but left because she didn't want to hurt me.
I wanted to leave but I stayed. I told myself and her we could work it out so long as communication was open. I stopped entertaining other women, and aside from my daughter, she was the only woman who had my complete attention. I was never the only man. She went to Tennessee and we started binging Future Diary together. She told me she had another man she was into. Again I walked away believing I was a burden on her life. She told me...she didn't want to be in a relationship but she didn't want the sex to stop. I told her I was not ready for a relationship but despite the protest we were in some way still committed to one another for a period of time.
When she came back in town from Tennessee, I allowed Terra and her to stay with me. I enjoyed having her there despite the way she treated me at times. I didn't expect to come home to a clean house, or food on the counter. I asked why she did it? Bragged about her to my coworkers, and had nothing but love and respect for her. Except...the respect wasn't mutual. I would see her talking trash about me on social media and I would confront her. She told me it was nothing to worry about yet...I kept forgiving her. I knew I could find better but I only wanted her. We broke up on Christmas, she told me she didn't want to be together and I said okay. I stopped communicating with her, blocked contact, but she created another account and reached out to me. We agreed to just be friends and have sex but she was with another man. I refused to be second place to any man. I started noticing she post pictures in my apartment naked on my furniture. I asked her to remove them. She refused and stated if I posted them she would sue me for defamation of character despite constantly bashing me online when she swore up and down she didn't want people to know we were together. Terra had shown her true colors and it made me sick...yet I still had love for her. I remembered the good in her and believed she only acted out because of her environment. I was wrong.
I returned her things to her and in February, I saw Terra face to face. She asked if we could hang out still, and I told her she was welcomed as I retrieved my keys from her, when I came back for Valentine's Day, she laughed at me stating she didn't want to be seen with me. I felt I had wasted my time, money and energy and left her be. I woke up one morning to threats of a restraining order and she'd even threatened my life if I had tried to contact her again. I thought to myself how could I have been so stupid? I almost lost everything trying to hold on to her. When she left my life slowly got better but I still missed Terra. It was like Teen Titans, no matter what I said...no matter how often I tried I couldn't get through to her until I eventually just had to give up on her and move on which has been hard because a part of me still misses her.

I have a few colorful bike greeting cards stuffed with new/vintage postcards, stickers and/or ephemera to send to RAOAers worldwide. Simply comment with "Stuff it!" and I will contact winners for addresses. Once again, your comment should look like this: Stuff it!
Nothing more, nothing less.
Please have a RAOA intro prior to May 28 and as this is a giveaway no mentions of exchange, trade or swap. Closes at some point tomorrow.
Good luck!

I’m not from the US, I’m currently at a very strict campus in NY that does room inspections. What does a room inspection entail? Is it just visual or do they open my bags?

please read the article in full here:
https://www.propublica.org/article/toxmap-poison-in-the-air
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The EPA allows polluters to turn neighborhoods into “sacrifice zones” where residents breathe carcinogens. ProPublica reveals where these places are in a first-of-its-kind map and data analysis.
by Lylla Younes, Ava Kofman, Al Shaw and Lisa Song, with additional reporting by Maya Miller, photography by Kathleen Flynn for ProPublica Nov. 2, 2021, 5 a.m. EDT
Leer en español.
From the urban sprawl of Houston to the riverways of Virginia, air pollution from industrial plants is elevating the cancer risk of an estimated quarter of a million Americans to a level the federal government considers unacceptable.
Some of these hot spots of toxic air are infamous. An 85-mile stretch of the Mississippi River in Louisiana that’s thronged with oil refineries and chemical plants has earned the nickname Cancer Alley. Many other such areas remain unknown, even to residents breathing in the contaminated air.
Until now.
ProPublica undertook an analysis that has never been done before. Using advanced data processing software and a modeling tool developed by the Environmental Protection Agency, we mapped the spread of cancer-causing chemicals from thousands of sources of hazardous air pollution across the country between 2014 and 2018. The result is an unparalleled view of how toxic air blooms around industrial facilities and spreads into nearby neighborhoods.
📷 The Most Detailed Map of Cancer-Causing Industrial Air Pollution in the U.S.
At the map’s intimate scale, it’s possible to see up close how a massive chemical plant near a high school in Port Neches, Texas, laces the air with benzene, an aromatic gas that can cause leukemia. Or how a manufacturing facility in New Castle, Delaware, for years blanketed a day care playground with ethylene oxide, a highly toxic chemical that can lead to lymphoma and breast cancer. Our analysis found that ethylene oxide is the biggest contributor to excess industrial cancer risk from air pollutants nationwide. Corporations across the United States, but especially in Texas and Louisiana, manufacture the colorless, odorless gas, which lingers in the air for months and is highly mutagenic, meaning it can alter DNA.
In all, ProPublica identified more than a thousand hot spots of cancer-causing air. They are not equally distributed across the country. A quarter of the 20 hot spots with the highest levels of excess risk are in Texas, and almost all of them are in Southern states known for having weaker environmental regulations. Census tracts where the majority of residents are people of color experience about 40% more cancer-causing industrial air pollution on average than tracts where the residents are mostly white. In predominantly Black census tracts, the estimated cancer risk from toxic air pollution is more than double that of majority-white tracts.
After reviewing ProPublica’s map, Wayne Davis, an environmental scientist formerly with the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, said, “The public is going to learn that EPA allows a hell of a lot of pollution to occur that the public does not think is occurring.”
Our analysis comes at a critical juncture for the fate of America’s air. After decades of improvement, air quality has, by some metrics, begun to decline. In the last four years, the Trump administration rolled back more than a hundred environmental protections, including two dozen air pollution and emissions policies.
The EPA says it “strives to protect the greatest number of people possible” from an excess cancer risk worse than 1 in a million. That risk level means that if a million people in an area are continuously exposed to toxic air pollutants over a presumed lifetime of 70 years, there would likely be at least one case of cancer on top of those from other risks people already face. According to ProPublica’s analysis, 74 million Americans — more than a fifth of the population — are being exposed to estimated levels of risk higher than this.
EPA policy sets the upper limit of acceptable excess cancer risk at 1 in 10,000 — 100 times more than the EPA’s more aspirational goal and a level of exposure that numerous experts told ProPublica is too high. ProPublica found that an estimated 256,000 people are being exposed to risks beyond this threshold and that an estimated 43,000 people are being subjected to at least triple this level of risk. Still, the EPA sees crossing its risk threshold as more of a warning sign than a mandate for action: The law doesn’t require the agency to penalize polluters that, alone or in combination, raise the cancer risk in an area above the acceptable level.
In response to ProPublica’s findings, Joe Goffman, acting assistant administrator for the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, said in an emailed statement, “Toxic air emissions from industrial facilities are a problem that must be addressed.” Under President Joe Biden’s administration, “the EPA has reinvigorated its commitment to protect public health from toxic air emissions from industrial facilities — especially in communities that have already suffered disproportionately from air pollution and other environmental burdens.”
ProPublica’s reporting exposes flaws with EPA’s implementation of the Clean Air Act, a landmark law that dramatically reduced air pollution across America but provided less protection to those who live closest to industrial polluters.
The 1970 law resulted in outdoor air quality standards for a handful of widespread “criteria” pollutants, including sulfur dioxide and particulate matter, which could be traced to exhaust pipes and smokestacks all over the country and were proven to aggravate asthma and lead to early deaths. But 187 other dangerous chemicals, now known as hazardous air pollutants or air toxics, never got this level of attention. At the time, the science demonstrating the harms of these compounds, which primarily impact people in neighborhoods that border industrial facilities — so-called fence line communities — was still in its early stages. The EPA did not receive enough funding to set the same strict limits, and industry lobbying weakened the agency’s emerging regulations.
In 1990, Congress settled on a different approach to regulating air toxics. Since then, the EPA has made companies install equipment to reduce their pollution and studied the remaining emissions to see if they pose an unacceptable health risk.
The way the agency assesses this risk vastly underestimates residents’ exposure, according to our analysis. Instead of looking at how cancer risk adds up when polluters are clustered together in a neighborhood, the EPA examines certain types of facilities and equipment in isolation. When the agency studies refineries, for example, it ignores a community’s exposure to pollution from nearby metal foundries or shipyards.
Matthew Tejada, director of the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice, told ProPublica that tackling hot spots of toxic air will require “working back through 50 years of environmental regulation in the United States, and unpacking and untying a whole series of knots.”
Top Polluters
T​​he cancer-causing air emissions from these five corporations cover more populated square miles than the emissions from any other companies, according to our analysis.

• The Dow Chemical Company
• Huntsman Corp.
• Eastman Chemical Co.
• BASF
• LyondellBasell Industries

Most of these companies did not comment; Eastman said, “Not all risk is due to industrial activity, however, we continue to do our part to reduce risk and emissions to ensure the safety of our local community.”
“The environmental regulatory system wasn’t set up to deal with these things,” he said. “All of the parts of the system have to be re-thought to address hot spots or places where we know there’s a disproportionate burden.”
The Clean Air Act rarely requires industry or the EPA to monitor for air toxics, leaving residents near these plants chronically uninformed about what they’re breathing in. And when companies report their emissions to the EPA, they’re allowed to estimate them using flawed formulas and monitoring methods.
“These fence line communities are sacrifice zones,” said Jane Williams, executive director of California Communities Against Toxics. “Before there was climate denial, there was cancer denial. We release millions of pounds of carcinogens into our air, water and food and act mystified when people start getting sick.”
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please read the full article here:
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The cancer risks from industrial pollution can be compounded by factors like age, diet, genetic predisposition and exposure to radiation; the knock-on effect of inhaling toxic air for decades might, for example, mean the difference between merely having a family history of breast cancer and actually developing the disease yourself. While the cancer and asthma rates in Houston’s Harris County are comparable with those in the rest of the state, Texas officials have identified cancer clusters in several of the city’s neighborhoods.
Large swaths of the Greater Houston area make up the third-biggest hot spot of cancer-causing air in the country, according to our analysis, after Louisiana’s Cancer Alley and an area around Port Arthur, Texas, which is on the Louisiana border. For many homes closest to the fence lines of petrochemical plants in cities like La Porte and Port Neches, Texas, the estimated excess risk of cancer ranges from three to six times the level that the EPA considers acceptable.
But because of the way that the EPA underestimates risk, the true dangers of living in a toxic hot spot are often invisible to regulators and residents.
The agency breaks things down into the smallest possible categories “to avoid addressing what we call cumulative risk,” said John Walke, an attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council who formerly worked as an EPA lawyer advising the Office of Air and Radiation. “But our bodies do not parse out air pollution according to rule labels or industrial equipment or industrial source categories.” The cancer risk from each facility or type of equipment may be at levels the agency considers “acceptable,” but taken together, the potential harms can be substantial.
The EPA initially sent ProPublica a statement saying that it “ensures that risks from individual source categories are acceptable and that the standards provide an ample margin of safety to protect public health.”
In another statement sent after an interview, the agency added, “We understand that communities often confront multiple sources of toxic air pollution and face cumulative risks greater than the risk from a single source.” The EPA added that it was working both to better harness the science on cumulative risks and “to better understand risks for communities who are overburdened by numerous sources of multiple pollutants.”
Madison can’t help but notice that when her family travels, K’ryah’s asthma improves. “The first chance I get, I’m moving far away from Texas and never looking back,” she said. “I love being outside. I love seeing the stars. I don’t want to feel like someone is pumping gas onto our front porch.”
The locations of the hot spots identified by ProPublica are anything but random. Industrial giants tend to favor areas that confer strategic advantages: On the Gulf Coast, for instance, oil rigs abound, so it’s more convenient to build refineries along the shoreline. Corporations also favor places where land is cheap and regulations are few.
Under federal law, the EPA delegates the majority of its enforcement powers to state and local authorities, which means that the environmental protections afforded to Americans vary widely between states. Texas, which is home to some of the largest hot spots in the nation, has notoriously lax regulations.
Between 2008 and 2018, lawmakers cut funding for state pollution-control programs by 35% while boosting the state’s overall budget by 41%, according to a report by the Environmental Integrity Project, an advocacy group founded by former EPA staffers. A Texas Tribune story from 2017 found that during the prior year, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality had levied fines in fewer than 1% of the cases in which polluters exceeded emission limits. Even when penalties are issued, many polluters see these fines as part of the cost of doing business, said Craig Johnston, a former lawyer at the EPA and a professor of environmental law at Lewis and Clark Law School.
Gary Rasp, a TCEQ spokesperson, told ProPublica that the agency “has taken actions to monitor, mitigate, and improve the air quality in fence line communities.” The agency runs dozens of stationary air toxics monitors across the state, he added, and “by continuously evaluating air monitoring data, which is more accurate than modeling, TCEQ can identify issues.” The agency also inspects industrial facilities and “has an active enforcement program, referring particularly egregious cases to the Texas Office of the Attorney General.”
That the people living inside these hot spots are disproportionately Black is not a coincidence. Our findings build on decades of evidence demonstrating that pollution is segregated: People of color are exposed to far greater levels of air pollution than whites — a pattern that persists across income levels. These disparities are rooted in racist real estate practices like redlining and the designation of low-income neighborhoods and communities of color as mixed residential-industrial zones. In cities like Houston, for example, all-white zoning boards targeted Black neighborhoods for the siting of noxious facilities, like landfills, incinerators and garbage dumps. Robert Bullard, a professor of urban planning and environmental policy at Texas Southern University, has called the practice “PIBBY” or “Place In Blacks’ Back Yard” — a spin on the acronym “NIMBY” (“Not In My Back Yard”).
📷 How We Created the Most Detailed Map Ever of Cancer-Causing Industrial Air Pollution
Many of the neighborhoods that border chemical plants are low-income and lack the same resources, access to health care and political capital that wealthier neighborhoods can bring to fights against intrusive commercial activities. In places like Baytown, working-class people depend on the very companies that sicken them to earn a living. Over the years, the shadow of industry can permanently impair not just a neighborhood’s health but also its economic prospects and property values, fueling a cycle of disinvestment. “Industries rely on having these sinks — these sacrifice zones — for polluting,” said Ana Baptista, an environmental policy professor at The New School. “That political calculus has kept in place a regulatory system that allows for the continued concentration of industry. We sacrifice these low-income, African American, Indigenous communities for the economic benefit of the region or state or country.”
Tejada, the EPA’s director of environmental justice, said that the Biden administration and the EPA are focused on confronting these disparities. “These places didn’t happen by accident. The disproportionality of the impacts that they face, the generations of disinvestment and lack of access are not coincidences. These places were created. And it is the responsibility of everyone, including the government — chiefly the government — to do something about it.”
The federal government has long had the information it would need to take on these hot spots. The EPA collects emissions data from more than 20,000 industrial facilities across the country and has even developed its own state-of-the-art tool — the Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators model — to estimate the impact of toxic emissions on human health. The model, known as RSEI, was designed to help regulators and lawmakers pinpoint where to target further air-monitoring efforts, data-quality inspections or, if necessary, enforcement actions. Researchers and journalists have used this model for various investigations over the years, including this one.
And yet the agency’s own use of its powerful modeling tool has been limited. There’s been a lack of funding for and a dearth of interest in RSEI’s more ambitious applications, according to several former and current EPA employees. Wayne Davis, the former EPA scientist, managed the RSEI program under the Trump administration. He said that some of his supervisors were hesitant about publishing information that would directly implicate a facility. “They always told us, ‘Don’t make a big deal of it, don’t market it, and hopefully you’ll continue to get funding next year.’ They didn’t want to make anything public that would raise questions about why the EPA hadn’t done anything to regulate that facility.”
Nicolaas Bouwes, a former senior analyst at the EPA and a chief architect of the RSEI model, recalled the occasional battle to get colleagues to accept the screening tool, let alone share its findings with the public. “There’s often been pushback from having this rich data sheet too readily available because it could make headlines,” he said. “What I find annoying is that the EPA has the same information at their disposal and they don’t use it. If ProPublica can do this, so can the EPA.”
In its statement, the EPA said that it plans to improve its approach for sharing air toxics data faster and more regularly with the public. “EPA has not published calculated cancer risks using RSEI modeled results,” it continued. “RSEI results are not designed as a substitute for more comprehensive, inclusive, or site specific risk assessments,” but as a potential starting point that should only be used “to identify situations of potential concern that may warrant further investigation.”
Indeed, our map works as a screening tool, not as a site-specific risk assessment. It cannot be used to tie individual cancer cases to emissions from specific industrial facilities, but it can be used to diagnose what the EPA calls “situations of potential concern.”
Our analysis arrives as America faces new threats to its air quality. The downstream effects of climate change, like warmer temperatures and massive wildfires, have created more smoke and smog. The Trump administration diluted, scuttled or reversed dozens of air pollution protections — actions estimated to lead to thousands of additional premature deaths. In 2018, then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt created a massive air toxics loophole when he rolled back a key provision of the Clean Air Act, known as “Once In, Always In,” allowing thousands of large polluters to relax their use of pollution-controlling equipment.
Biden has yet to close this loophole, but he has signaled plans to alleviate the disproportionate impacts borne by the people who live in these hot spots. Within his first few days in office, he established two White House councils to address environmental injustice. And in March, Congress confirmed his appointment of EPA administrator Michael Regan, who has directed the agency to strengthen its enforcement of violations “in communities overburdened by pollution.”
https://www.propublica.org/article/toxmap-poison-in-the-air
Over the years, Sullivan Ramirez herself has struggled with nerve degeneration and scleroderma, a rare condition that involves the tightening of the skin and connective tissues. While it can be difficult to link specific cases of disease to pollution exposure, the evidence in Mossville has accumulated: In a 1998 health survey conducted by the University of Texas, 84% of Mossville residents reported having headaches, dizziness, tremors and seizures. An EPA study from the same year found that the average level of dioxins in the blood of Mossville residents was dangerously high — triple that of the general U.S. population. Even small amounts of dioxin, one of the most poisonous chemicals released by facilities, can cause developmental problems, damage the immune system and lead to cancer. A 2007 report found that the types of dioxin compounds in the blood of Mossville residents matched those emitted by local industrial facilities.
In an emailed statement, Sasol noted that its property buyout stemmed from direct requests from Mossville residents and that the company offered owners more than the appraised value of their homes. “Sasol and its predecessor have produced or handled chemicals at our Lake Charles complex for more than 60 years. We understand the science and have controls in place to ensure our operations are safe, protective of the environment, compliant with regulations and sustainable over the long term,” wrote Sarah Hughes, a spokesperson for Sasol. “Sasol is proud of our engagement with our neighbors in Mossville and the positive impact it has had on many of its residents.”
📷 Can Air Pollution Cause Cancer? What You Need to Know About the Risks.
Sullivan Ramirez is wary of too much talk. She knows that the new administration has promised something more for communities like hers, but she doesn’t want to get her hopes up. The presentations from captains of industry, the listening sessions with earnest bureaucrats, the proposals from slick attorneys, the promises tossed off by politicians — over the years, she’s heard it all.
The people of Mossville are right to be skeptical, the EPA’s Tejada acknowledged. “I would be skeptical if I was from Mossville,” he added. “They should be skeptical until we actually show up and do the things that they’ve been asking us to do for a long time. But there’s now a level of commitment to actually tangling with these issues in a really serious, substantive way.”
After years of activism in Mossville, Sullivan Ramirez moved to Lake Charles, just a short drive away. But she worries the industrial sprawl will one day overtake her new home. To Sullivan Ramirez, Mossville is “the key” — a warning of what the future holds for America’s other hot spots if business continues as usual.
“This is the 21st century,” she said. “The act of polluting our lands and robbing our communities — when will enough be enough?”
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please read this article in full here:
https://www.propublica.org/article/toxmap-poison-in-the-air

My partner and I live in a rural part of the Hudson Valley in upstate NY and are looking at buying a used Prius as a second car (current car is an '09 Honda Civic). In looking at the options in our area that are around $25K and have no more than 50k miles on them, we're having a difficult time figuring out which is the best way to go, and would be grateful for any advice. All are single-owner, clean title, no accidents. The main contenders are:
A 2014 Prius Four with 41k miles for $19,990 A 2016 Prius 5dr HB Three with 32k miles for $22,850 A 2019 Prius LE AWD-e with 36k miles for $25,129 A 2022 Prius L Eco with 42k miles for $25,645
In this position, what would you do? Are there particular years' models to avoid? Is the money saved by buying one of the older cars worth it, given that we would like to try and keep this car for as long as we can (preferably the next decade at least)? Is the AWD option worth it? Are the Gen 4 models significantly better than the Gen 3 ones (or vice versa)? We really only care about basic functionality and longevity, and a little bit about how it feels to drive, but cosmetic factors aren't important at all. And we also tend to be bothered by too many fancy bells and whistles -- for example, we ruled out the XLE trim because of the obnoxiously large touch screen.
Thanks for any help you might be able to give, and apologies if any of these are stupid questions!

Hi all,
We bought a house in the Midwest November of 2022 and moved in on January 1st, 2023. About a month ago, we've noticed a putrid, mildew smell in our bedroom as our days get warmer, meaning we had only lived here 4-5 months at the time. Absolutely unnoticeable prior to the first few days of warm days in Spring.
I wrote it off as a few people, one being a toddler, sleeping in a closed room in our new humid environment that is the Midwest. It got so bad one day, I had to investigate. I go in our half finished basement (the unfinished other side has a sealed slab and exposed but waterproofed cinder walls) and I peek into a vent on our only false basement wall covered in painted and trimmed beadboard. I assumed it was a circulation vent that linked our basement to our bedroom directly upstairs but what I found instead was a very dark, very damp, very unfinished basement spanning the lenght of the front of our home by maybe 2' in. I stick my hand in and take pictures with my phones flash in all directions. I see a hole on the bottom of the wall I could crawl into and a horizontal crack maybe 6 feet wide - the gap between maybe half an inch. It wasn't until yesterday I found out it's not just separating up and down but also forward about a half and inch to an inch.
I had someone come out from a very reputable company to give me a quote yesterday and though he was kind and educational, after his hour long powerpoint and inspection, gave me an estimate of $32,000 which is discounted down from around $45,000, but I'd have to commit before this Monday. I'm not going to do that.
As per our inspection prior to home purchase, the basement seemed structurally sound. Other than average moisture in our exposed basement walls and minute cracks on the exterior which we were told were fine and to just caulk eventually, all looked good. Looking yesterday, our inspection does list in the foundation section, it was a "visible-only" inspection, we weren't given any other options. A more thorough inspection was never brought up to be something we could purchase. Might I add, it's two wood screws to peek through our false wall into the flawed basement but it's 8 screws to remove the face plates from our two electrical panels, which were inspected thoroughly. I've put a humidity reader on the vent that leads to our flawed basement partition and it easily reads 20% higher than the rest of the basement, this wasn't caught. On their website it says a full inspection is expected. When the more serious findings were brought up to our realtor then, (i.e. a powerline had slack and was slightly sitting on our deck), he told us, "consider this just a manual to your house" and that nothing seemed too serious. Additional note, we did this inspection while I was across the country where we moved from.
So, we agreed to our inspection as they said all looked good. Moisture is average, we can call the electrical company and get the wire slack fixed, probably for free. Why not accept? We were then sent a few more forms including one that stated the prior owners of two years had no knowledge of foundation issues. I personally find hard to believe as the smell in theiour bedroom is almost unbarable in weather warmer than 70°+. I'm not an engineer but I don't think a home can shift two axis, to that extent in 6 months. This has also been one of the most dry and warm winters our city has had in years so to say ground water surrounding our foundation caused that much damage in such a short time is also fairly unrealistic in my mind.
I haven't sent this information and quote to our home insurance company, and though I will, I can't imagine it being covered.
All being said, I feel like there was a lot of information withheld from us to make this sell. The prior sellers were supposed to stay until we moved in, it was talked about with our realtor via both parties up until we received a signable form later in the purchasing process that claimed this was no longer the situation. They had a few days old baby and we agreed they could stay to take their time as we couldn't make it there any earlier than the date we verbally agreed to prior. I'm sure this happens a lot in home purchase agreements but it does certainly add to my suspision. We too have a child of 19 months and I now feel insecure living in our new home of less than half a year as all was said to be fine.
Am i being too emotional in this situation? Is anyone BUT me liable in this situation? We're in the state of Ohio and I know laws differ from state to state. Any questions will be answered!
TLDR: We've been in a house for less than 6 months and found out our house has major foundation issues via strong mildew smell in our bedroom above, not found in our inspection. Previous owners claimed they had no knowledge of foundation issues, but it's unlikely these issues happened in the last 6 months, let alone a years time. We weren't aware of any in-depth inspection as it wasn't offered to us. Our basement walls were considered of safe moisture but all four walls read 95%+ per our foundation consultation yesterday, May 27th, 2023. We were quoted just over $32,000 to fix our situation - about a 1/5th what we paid for this move-in ready house.

Platform(s): Windows (.exe archive)
Genre: Third-person, shooter, 3D
Estimated year of release: Between 2000-2011
Graphics/art style: Trying to be realistic, not very good graphics, sunny, not colorful or vibrant
Notable characters: You can't leave the buggy, but a military officer speaks to you through something similar to Metal Gear's codec.
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The game starts with a cutscene of your buggy going downhill and being chased by two other buggies (all equipped with mounted machine guns), but one enemy crashes into something, flips over and explodes.
From there, you can take control and start shooting at the enemy, but there was a fortress shortly ahead with automated weapons that automatically shoot at enemies. So, I would just drive there and the other buggy would chase me and enter the fortress as well, but quickly explode.
You leave the fortress and soon a military officer would appear on screan (very similar to Metal Gear's codec) and say something, but young me didn't understand English. Driving a bit further, you reach a more open area with more enemies (buggies with mounted weapons). I remember there were some concrete pipes which the buggy could enter.
My PC had a cheap processor, 2GB of RAM, no graphics card. I also remember the game being just an executable file, with no need for installation.
(https://gamerview.uai.com.bwp-content/uploads/2022/02/rage-03.jpg) This image of Rage reminds me a lot of the game, but Rage is not the game I'm looking for.