Headband of miner intellect:
Forged by a dwarven artificer who lost too many colleagues due to their lax attitude around safety.
Anyone wearing this headband becomes aware of the quality of air and props for whatever tunnel they're currently in.
Wearers possess an intrusive urge to find proper protective equipment before attempting a task.
Also it's blunt as a butter knife because none of its past users wanted to try to sharpen something that is always on fire.
Immovable Rod:
Not actually a magical rod.
Actually just a bloke called Roderick, or Rodney, or something to that effect.
Won't move out of your way.
Not even if you ask politely.
Everything being made in China is a bit of a hyperbole but...
stream of consciousness rant ahead
The rise of neoliberalism involved the deindustrialisation of the imperial core, partly as a way to cheapen costs by relying on a pool of labour with lower minimum wages and worse safety regulations, partly to kneecap labour unions that were forming an effective political bloc against neoliberal social policies, partly to obfuscate the environmental impact of consumerism by shunting all the environmentally hazardous part of the process of producing consumer goods abroad, and partly to complete the transition of imperial core economies entirely into extraction and finance.
At the time China which was liberalising under Dengist reforms and also cosying up to the west, was a perfect target as one of the places to offload industry.
As for why none of this industrial capacity is being moved out of China despite deteriorating relations between them a the imperial core...
Industrialising a country takes a lot of planning and is expensive, (especially in countries like the UK where most of the factories and former supply line infrastructure has been torn up and the land sold off, and what remains is too dilapidated to support a renewed heavy industry), so it's unappealing to a capitalist hegemon that's in favour of austerity and low government spending.
What's the source of that last image? I'm really hoping that's one of the examples from the 80s and not a recent one...
Yeah, that's an 80's one. Here it is in the Tory Party's online archive.
I'm hoping this is just me dooming but having grown up in the dying days of section 28, I'm genuinely scared for this next generation of queer people.
Section 28 of the 1988 local government act (often just referred to colloquially as section 28), was a law that made it illegal to discuss queer identities in schools.
here's the relevant excerpt of the act
2A
Prohibition on promoting homosexuality by teaching or by publishing material
(1)A local authority shall not—
(a)intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality;
(b)promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship.
(2)Nothing in subsection (1) above shall be taken to prohibit the doing of anything for the purpose of treating or preventing the spread of disease.
(3)In any proceedings in connection with the application of this section a court shall draw such inferences as to the intention of the local authority as may reasonably be drawn from the evidence before it.
(4)In subsection (1)(b) above “maintained school” means,—
(a)in England and Wales, a county school, voluntary school, nursery school or special school, within the meaning of the Education Act 1944; and
(b)in Scotland, a public school, nursery school or special school, within the meaning of the Education (Scotland) Act 1980.”
It was repealed in 2003, but the recent resurgence of homophobia in parliament is using a similar language around "protecting children" is identical to the shit Thatcher and her cronies were throwing around in the 80's.
for example (CW: homophobia)
Yeah, and they've jumped the "protect our kids" wankery into overdrive as well.
Complete doomer mode: I think they're also gonna re-establish section 28 soon.
It's been this kind of shit hole surveillance state for a long time. Look at the snooper's charter/investigatory powers act, for example.
Fuck yeah! My "Bigfoot is actually a big cellar spider and that's why it's always blurry in pictures" theory is gonna be broadcast to everyone's grandmother!
During the state mandated mourning, a man was arrested for carrying a piece of blank paper because the police thought he might write a protest slogan on it later.
It turns out I'm wrong, they can get that fluffy.
"If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next." By the Manic Street Preachers.