Bjorn Klein 📖✒️

Cool! Es soll ja nicht langweilig werden :)

Of course, that’s just a prediction. But realistically, I think the barriers would be overwhelming.
I vividly remember, as a young adult, how Bayer Pharma gave in to pressure from the US gov to lower the price of its anthrax drug. And that was “just” an anthrax med
4/

for the gov to allow it to move freely. I would expect substantial pressure to be applied, potentially including sanctions targeting the company, its leadership, or even the countries willing to host it. Given that level of leverage, I find it hard to imagine such a move being allowed to proceed.
3/

My worriers aren’t about the practical challenges of setting up elsewhere. Those difficulties could be managed. The issue, imo, is strategic importance. I suspect a company or industry of that scale & significance would be considered too critical to U.S. national interests ...
2/

Oh, I agree with you. If I owned a company like that, I would also look for ways to relocate it. I wouldn’t want it to be forcibly taken over or used for purposes I consider ethically unacceptable. I completely understand, and share, the desire to protect it.
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Credit cards cancelled, Google accounts closed: ICC judges on life under Trump sanctions Kimberly Prost and Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza vow US reprisals will not affect work of international criminal court

And it's also not unheard of that individuals credit cards, google accounts, etc have been canceled recently, is it? Because Trump and Co. just decided to sanction them:
www.theguardian.com/law/2026/feb...

U.S. jurisdiction doesn't just disappear, now does it? Tons of problems: Most investors are U.S.-based, U.S. cloud infrastructure, GPU supply chains, stricter EU AI regulation, taxes and regulations in general, U.S. talent & ecosystem, freezing of assets before they move, the list seems endless.
1/

Du lebst dort, Dominique? Unfassbar schön! You lucky duck :)

“This caustic satire takes you into the seedy underbelly of modern-day politics, brimming with foul play, conspiracies, ruthlessness, outsized ideologies & even bigger egos who are screwing each other with blasphemous abandon at every opportunity. Get ready for a wild ride!”
— Matthew G. Hackman
4/4

The story?

It’s a god-eat-god world.
One misstep in the dysfunctional Senate of Gods on Olympic Hill triggers disaster. Desperate to save his career, fire god & Senator Eldur Vanstone joins the Divine Modernist Party—and steps into a web of pacts, deceit, and divine ambition.

3/4 ⬇️

BLACK TIES is an epic 230-page graphic novel set inside a divine order—where belief is currency, power is absolute, and corruption is law.

Political satire, dark humor, and social commentary dissecting the absurdities we politely call normal.

2/4 ⬇️

Meet Congressman Black from my upcoming #graphicnovel BLACK TIES.
The ideal politician. Slick, spineless, industry standard-issue. A grey vacancy with a featureless face. Loyal to whoever holds the leash. Undead proof that in politics, individuality is a design flaw.
#WritingCommunity

Read on⬇️ 1/4

The ‘handsome weeping boys’ paid to wipe away your tears Japanese companies are paying for employees to attend

Wanna hire a handsome weeping boy instead? As if there weren’t already enough bizarre human services for anyone allergic to real relationships. No need for AI :D

www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazin...

Good Lord! Zoidberg's mouthparts definitely look very ... well... "sermony"... :D
(btw, some German folks say I was born in Sermony. It might be a pronunciation thing ;) ).

Look what I found, Mr. Bender :) Teehee!

b) The Vietnamese might have misheard or reinterpreted the Chinese word for rabbit (mao) as sounding like the Vietnamese word for cat (meo), and that’s how the cat ended up replacing the rabbit.

No clue how accurate that actually is, but that’s what I’ve been told!

2/2

Oh that’s interesting. I hadn’t heard that part of the Zodiac story before. The explanations I’ve heard for why the Viet zodiac has different animals are:
a) The water buffalo makes way more sense in VN since it’s central to Vietnamese agriculture, whereas the ox isn’t really common here
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Thank you. I hope you always have a full, wholesome moon of imagination, inner peace and belief to munch on. Keep trusting in your abilities. They’ll take you far :)

Interstingly though, the Viet system uses two different animals: Cat instead of Rabbit and Water Buffalo instead of Ox :D

Yeesh, also Fire Horse Year in Vietnam.

One of the underrated joys of having a Vietnamese wife is getting to celebrate New Year twice 😊
Happy Lunar New Year (Year of the Horse) to my fellow scribes worldwide.
May your sentences run wild as horses, your muses arrive wine-kissed & your drafts need only minor exorcisms! 🐎🐎🐎
#WritingCommunity

Cheesus Christ! 🧀
Where does all of this lead?
Me running for the trees, and someone killing the pancake maker...

Nice article! :)

Happy New Year!

Fair, fair!
I personally liked the pod racing, especially as a nod to the obvious Ben-Hur reference. Sure, it could’ve been shortened. Most things in life can be, haha 🤣 But overall, I enjoyed it!

The main thing that comes to mind is prestige and credibility. A lot of readers might still equate trad publishing with quality, assuming that if an author hasn’t landed a traditional deal (or chose not to), they’re somehow not good enough. Perception bias at work.

I've always thought it was a fine movie. Jar Jar was annoying, sure, but otherwise I liked it.

That’s devastating beyond words :'(

One of the best books I read lately: Beautiful Mrs Seidenman by Szczypiorski (a name my brain won’t keep). Some parts make me stop reading & just stare into space.
Older books do this to me more than new ones. Maybe less hurry. Less plot-obsessed. Anyone else felt this w/ a recent read?
#amreading

I would say, "hmm, turtle soup", wishing I weren't an android.

I hope no one is taking these posts seriously 😂😂😂

Suffering recreationally (is this a word??), eh? Cheaper than therapy :)