#Prime Global Corporation

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

WAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO🥳🥳🥳❤❤❤

The third and final season of “Good Omens” will begin filming soon in Scotland.

“I’m so happy finally to be able to finish the story Terry and I plotted in 1989 and in 2006,” Gaiman said in a statement accompanying Amazon’s “Good Omens” Season 3 renewal announcement Thursday. “Terry was determined that if we made ‘Good Omens’ for television, we could take the story all the way to the end. Season One was all about averting Armageddon, dangerous prophecies, and the End of the World. Season Two was sweet and gentle, although it may have ended less joyfully than a certain Angel and Demon might have hoped. Now in Season Three, we will deal once more with the end of the world. The plans for Armageddon are going wrong. Only Crowley and Aziraphale working together can hope to put it right. And they aren’t talking.”

Amazon MGM Studios head of television said Vernon Sanders added: “’Good Omens’ has checked every box for a clever, witty, and funny comedy that not only made it a success on Prime Video, but also made ‘goodness’ watchable and fun thanks to Neil and Terry’s immense creativity. The final season is sure to be packed with the same dynamic energy that our global customers have come to enjoy.”

Gaiman, who has a first-look deal with Amazon MGM Studios, where he is currently working on his “Anansi Boys” TV series, continues as executive producer, writer and showrunner for “Good Omens” Season 3. Rob Wilkins of Narrativia, representing Pratchett’s estate, and BBC Studios Productions’ head of comedy Josh Cole also executive produce.

“Good Omens” hails from Amazon MGM Studios, BBC Studios Productions, the Blank Corporation and Narrativia.

[dostoyevsky-official]

this a view of someone who's ignored european developments since 2007, opting for a rosy, outdated view of european politics, i.e. the exact type of american committing the exact type of mistake i'm warning about.

to address this point by point: not only has inflation been a global issue, but the US has consistently enjoyed the lowest inflation of any developed economy. american CPI has remained below the british, polish, and eurozone average numbers. european economies have to deal with fallout from the russian invasion of ukraine that the us can ignore: notably, in energy prices, as the US became self-sufficient in energy (and never imported any from russia to begin with, something squeezing the german economy). america is also not hosting millions of ukrainian refugees.

when discussing european instutions—and "europe" in general—one has to be more specific. do you mean the overarching institutions of the EU, criticized for a democratic deficit that many have pinpointed as one source for euro-skepticism and the rise of the far right? the EU Council, widely ignored and headed by charles michel, an incompetent, blatant nepobaby appointment whom everyone grinds their teeth over? the EU parliament, recently filled with a fresh batch of far-right hooligans, which functions more or less as a rubber stamp for the commission? the EU commission itself, headed by VdL, the latest in a string of failed local politician commissioners (who remembers the alcoholic swindler juncker?) masquerading as technocrats? the ECB, which smothers the monetary (and through the maastricht criteria, the fiscal) policy of eurozone members, thereby fueling resentment, far-right movements, and economic disparity? and all of this held hostage by the veto of one orban or fico, —or the german supreme court, when it decides it's had enough with public investment. those institutions, which remain so opaque that even educated americans—and europeans—aren't entirely aware of their function?

or do we mean the institutions of individual countries, ranging from undemocratic autocracies like hungary to the fief of the jupiter king, who called elections in june, lost them, refused to nominate a prime minister from the winning coalition, didn't name any for over a month, and then appointed a rightwing politician from a party that scored dead last, sidestepping his own centrist party? the UK, where sir keir is handing out five years in jail time to climate protesters, raising tuition fees, relying on private investment companies, and through rachel reeves' plan to fix the alleged budget hole left by hunt before further investment, again enacting austerity? this is all front-page headline news from the last half year.

european countries indeed have cheaper healthcare costs, better pensions, and other public goods that the united states does not. when considering "quality of life," remember, however, that most european countries have unemployment rates considered astronomic in america, especially for under-35s:

to focus again and again on european social democracy is to ignore that it has been steadily eroded since the end of the cold war and especially since the great recession by neoliberal political forces that crush the left and open the door for the far right. in the most blatant example, beside's macron's legislative politricks, the IMF-ECB-EC troika cut off euro cash liquidity flow to greece when syriza was trying to undo austerity under varoufakis. the greek collapse consigned a generation to economic failure, killed seniors, and curtailed possibilities for the youth. this erosion happened even in the nordic model, long imagined by americans as nothing short of a utopia:

In part due to the scrapping of wealth and inheritance taxes and a lower corporate tax than both the U.S. and European averages, Sweden has one of the most unequal distributions of wealth in the world today: on a level with Bahrain and Oman, and worse than the United States. Perhaps most dispiriting for Sanders, Sweden also now hosts the highest proportion of billionaires per capita in the world. Many of the country’s trademark social services are now provided by private firms. Its private schools even benefit from the same level of state subsidy as public schools—a voucher system far more radical than anything in the United States and that Democratic politicians would be crucified for advocating. Both here and there, right-leaning commentators in 2020 decried Sanders’s portrait as little more than what Johan Norberg, Swedish author of The Capitalist Manifesto, has called a 1970s “pipedream.” On this, Swedish observers on the left gloomily agree: despite official rhetoric, the “Nordic welfare model” is now more nostalgic myth than reality. (x)

to problematize further, there's an unadressed first world perspective: who's getting the good quality of life, why are the main economies of the EU so wealthy, and how does the EU continue to enrich itself? there are certainly many living outdoors today, drowning in the mediterranean, or dying of exposure in białowieża. fortress europe is a crime against humanity—and it doesn't beat back the far right. it weakens civic and human rights, undermines legal oversight, and criminalizes humanitarian engagement, allowing an authoritarian creep.

you shouldn't understand the political and the historical as a snapshot in time, but as a moving train. this is the state of europe today. all of the above is necessarily a simplification and an abbreviation, but there's a trajectory you can begin to trace out: given all of the above, where do you think europe is headed?

[fatehbaz]

In 1833, Parliament finally abolished slavery in the British Caribbean, and the taxpayer payout of £20 million in “compensation” [paid by the government to slave owners] built the material, geophysical (railways, mines, factories), and imperial infrastructures of Britain [...]. Slavery and industrialization were tied by the various afterlives of slavery in the form of indentured and carceral labor that continued to enrich new emergent industrial powers [...]. Enslaved “free” African Americans predominately mined coal in the corporate use of black power or the new “industrial slavery,” [...]. The labor of the coffee - the carceral penance of the rock pile, “breaking rocks out here and keeping on the chain gang” (Nina Simone, Work Song, 1966), laying iron on the railroads - is the carceral future mobilized at plantation’s end (or the “nonevent” of emancipation). [...] [T]he racial circumscription of slavery predates and prepares the material ground for Europe and the Americas in terms of both nation and empire building - and continues to sustain it.

Text by: Kathryn Yusoff. "White Utopia/Black Inferno: Life on a Geologic Spike". e-flux Journal Issue #97. February 2019.

---

When the Haitian Revolution erupted [...], slaveholding regimes around the world grew alarmed. In response to a series of slave rebellions in its own sugar colonies, especially in Jamaica, the British Empire formally abolished slavery in the 1830s. [...] Importing indentured labor from Asia emerged as a potential way to maintain the British Empire’s sugar plantation system. In 1838 John Gladstone, father of future prime minister William E. Gladstone, arranged for the shipment of 396 South Asian workers, bound to five years of indentured labor, to his sugar estates in British Guiana. The experiment [...] inaugurated [...] "a new system of [...] [indentured servitude]," which would endure for nearly a century. [...] Desperate to regain power and authority after the war [and abolition of chattel slavery in the US], Louisiana’s wealthiest planters studied and learned from their Caribbean counterparts. [...] Thousands of Chinese workers landed in Louisiana between 1866 and 1870, recruited from the Caribbean, China and California. [...] When Congress debated excluding the Chinese from the United States in 1882, Rep. Horace F. Page of California argued that the United States could not allow the entry of “millions of cooly slaves and serfs.”

Text by: Moon-Ho Jung. "Making sugar, making 'coolies': Chinese laborers toiled alongside Black workers on 19th-century Louisiana plantations". The Conversation. 13 January 2022.

---

The durability and extensibility of plantations [...] have been tracked most especially in the contemporary United States’ prison archipelago and segregated urban areas [...], [including] “skewed life chances, limited access to health [...], premature death, incarceration [...]”. [...] [In labor arrangements there exists] a moral tie that indefinitely indebts the laborers to their master, [...] the main mechanisms reproducing the plantation system long after the abolition of slavery [...]. [G]enealogies of labor management […] have been traced […] linking different features of plantations to later economic enterprises, such as factories […] or diamond mines […] [,] chartered companies, free ports, dependencies, trusteeships [...].

Text by: Irene Peano, Marta Macedo, and Colette Le Petitcorps. "Introduction: Viewing Plantations at the Intersection of Political Ecologies and Multiple Space-Times". Global Plantations in the Modern World: Sovereignties, Ecologies, Afterlives (edited by Petitcrops, Macedo, and Peano). Published 2023.

---

Louis-Napoleon, still serving in the capacity of president of the [French] republic, threw his weight behind […] the exile of criminals as well as political dissidents. “It seems possible to me,” he declared near the end of 1850, “to render the punishment of hard labor more efficient, more moralizing, less expensive […], by using it to advance French colonization.” [...] Slavery had just been abolished in the French Empire [...]. If slavery were at an end, then the crucial question facing the colony was that of finding an alternative source of labor. During the period of the early penal colony we see this search for new slaves, not only in French Guiana, but also throughout [other European] colonies built on the plantation model.

Text by: Peter Redfield. Space in the Tropics: From Convicts to Rockets in French Guiana. 2000.

---

To control the desperate and the jobless, the authorities passed harsh new laws, a legislative program designed to quell disorder and ensure a pliant workforce for the factories. The Riot Act banned public disorder; the Combination Act made trade unions illegal; the Workhouse Act forced the poor to work; the Vagrancy Act turned joblessness into a crime. Eventually, over 220 offences could attract capital punishment - or, indeed, transportation. […] [C]onvict transportation - a system in which prisoners toiled without pay under military discipline - replicated many of the worst cruelties of slavery. […] Middle-class anti-slavery activists expressed little sympathy for Britain’s ragged and desperate, holding […] [them] responsible for their own misery. The men and women of London’s slums weren’t slaves. They were free individuals - and if they chose criminality, […] they brought their punishment on themselves. That was how Phillip [commander of the British First Fleet settlement in Australia] could decry chattel slavery while simultaneously relying on unfree labour from convicts. The experience of John Moseley, one of the eleven people of colour on the First Fleet, illustrates how, in the Australian settlement, a rhetoric of liberty accompanied a new kind of bondage. [Moseley was Black and had been a slave at a plantation in America before escaping to Britain, where he was charged with a crime and shipped to do convict labor in Australia.] […] The eventual commutation of a capital sentence to transportation meant that armed guards marched a black ex-slave, chained once more by the neck and ankles, to the Scarborough, on which he sailed to New South Wales. […] For John Moseley, the “free land” of New South Wales brought only a replication of that captivity he’d endured in Virginia. His experience was not unique. […] [T]hroughout the settlement, the old strode in, disguised as the new. [...] In the context of that widespread enthusiasm [in Australia] for the [American] South (the welcome extended to the Confederate ship Shenandoah in Melbourne in 1865 led one of its officers to conclude “the heart of colonial Britain was in our cause”), Queenslanders dreamed of building a “second Louisiana”. [...] The men did not merely adopt a lifestyle associated with New World slavery. They also relied on its techniques and its personnel. [...] Hope, for instance, acquired his sugar plants from the old slaver Thomas Scott. He hired supervisors from Jamaica and Barbados, looking for those with experience driving plantation slaves. [...] The Royal Navy’s Commander George Palmer described Lewin’s vessels as “fitted up precisely like an African slaver [...]".

Text by: Jeff Sparrow. “Friday essay: a slave state - how blackbirding in colonial Australia created a legacy of racism.” The Conversation. 4 August 2022.

[reality-detective]

Wake Up! Everything You Believe Is a Carefully Crafted Lie by a Hidden Elite That Owns Your Governments, Banks, and Minds!

The world is under the control of a hidden, powerful elite that has manipulated humanity for thousands of years. Governments, banks, corporations, and even religions are all part of a massive, interconnected system designed to keep the masses in line. You are living in a controlled simulation where every move is calculated, every narrative crafted, and every dissent crushed.

Ancient Rome never fell; it just changed its face. The Vatican is the continuation of the Roman Empire, pulling the strings of global power from the shadows. The Pope is not a religious leader but the CEO of the world’s largest covert operation. Global leaders bow to Rome; every major decision made in Europe, America, and beyond has its roots in this ancient power structure. The so-called “democracies” are just fronts, and the real rulers operate far from the public eye.

The financial system is a tool of enslavement, but its grip is weakening. Central banks, the Federal Reserve, the World Bank, and the IMF have long kept nations in debt and citizens in economic chains. However, their reign is about to end. The Global Economic Security and Reformation Act (GESARA) is poised to trigger the biggest wealth transfer in history, redistributing stolen wealth back to the people.

This is a total overhaul designed to dismantle the corrupt systems that have enslaved humanity for centuries. Trillions of dollars hoarded by the elite will be seized and returned to the people, restoring economic power where it belongs.

This act will expose the financial fraud perpetuated by these institutions, wiping out debts and releasing new technologies that have been suppressed to keep the populace in poverty. The days of the financial overlords are numbered, and GESARA is the catalyst that will break their chains for good, restoring wealth and freedom to the masses.

Education and media are the propaganda arms of this hidden empire. From kindergarten to university, you are fed lies designed to shape your worldview to fit the agenda of the elite. Critical thinking is discouraged because an informed population is a threat. The news you watch, the books you read, and the information you consume are all curated to keep you ignorant, divided, and powerless.

Governments are puppets. Elections are rigged shows to give you the illusion of choice. Presidents, prime ministers, and kings answer to the same hidden masters. Policies, wars, economic collapses—they’re all orchestrated from behind closed doors by a small group of individuals who have no allegiance to any nation but only to their own interests. They decide who wins, who loses, and how the game is played.

Laws are tools of oppression, not justice. The legal system is designed to protect the elite and keep you in line. Roman law still influences modern legal codes, and its principles are used to maintain control over the masses. The courtrooms are theaters where the outcome is predetermined, and the real power lies in the unseen hands that pull the strings.

Corporations are not independent entities—they are branches of the same control network. They push products, policies, and narratives that serve their masters’ agenda. From the food you eat to the technology you use, everything is designed to monitor, influence, and control you. You are not a customer; you are a data point, a resource to be exploited.

The world is not what it seems. Every institution you trust, every leader you admire, every belief you hold has been carefully constructed to keep you obedient and blind to the truth. You are not free; you are a pawn in a game that was rigged long before you were born.

The only way out is to see the truth: that the world is run by a small, powerful group that considers itself above the rest of humanity. They are the masters, and we are the slaves. This is the reality they don’t want you to see. Wake up, or remain a willing participant in your own enslavement.

Escape the Matrix 🤔

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Heated:

Energy experts warned only a few years ago that the world had to stop building new fossil fuel projects to preserve a livable climate.

Now, artificial intelligence is driving a rapid expansion of methane gas infrastructure���pipelines and power plants—that experts say could have devastating climate consequences if fully realized.

As large language models like ChatGPT become more sophisticated, experts predict that the nation’s energy demands will grow by a “shocking” 16 percent in the next five years. Tech giants like Amazon, Meta, and Alphabet have increasingly turned to nuclear power plants or large renewable energy projects to power data centers that use as much energy as a small town.

But those cleaner energy sources will not be enough to meet the voracious energy demands of AI, analysts say. To bridge the gap, tech giants and fossil fuel companies are planning to build new gas power plants and pipelines that directly supply data centers. And they increasingly propose keeping those projects separate from the grid, fast tracking gas infrastructure at a speed that can’t be matched by renewables or nuclear.

The growth of AI has been called the “savior” of the gas industry. In Virginia alone, the data center capital of the world, a new state report found that AI demand could add a new 1.5 gigawatt gas plant every two years for 15 consecutive years.

And now, as energy demand for AI rises, oil corporations are planning to build gas plants that specifically serve data centers. Last week, Exxon announced that it is building a large gas plant that will directly supply power to data centers within the next five years. The company claims the gas plant will use technology that captures polluting emissions—despite the fact that the technology has never been used at a commercial scale before.

Chevron also announced that the company is preparing to sell gas to an undisclosed number of data centers. “We're doing some work right now with a number of different people that's not quite ready for prime time, looking at possible solutions to build large-scale power generation,” said CEO Mike Wirth at an Atlantic Council event. The opportunity to sell power to data centers is so promising that even private equity firms are investing billions in building energy infrastructure.

But the companies that will benefit the most from an AI gas boom, according to S&P Global, are pipeline companies. This year, several major U.S. pipeline companies told investors that they were already in talks to connect their sprawling pipeline networks directly to on-site gas power plants at data centers.

“We, frankly, are kind of overwhelmed with the number of requests that we’re dealing with, ” Williams CEO Alan Armstrong said on a call with analysts. The pipeline company, which owns the 10,000 mile Transco system, is expanding its existing pipeline network from Virginia to Alabama partly to “provide reliable power where data center growth is expected,” according to Williams.

[courtana]

We, Black Curatorial, Kwanda, Twossaints, Black Eats London & West India Cinema Corporation have come together to fundraise for people affected by Hurricane Beryl across the West Indies. As West Indian people it is imperative that we support each other and ourselves in the building back of our communities, this is a duty. Hurricane Beryl has devastated hundreds of communities in the West Indies. This is not a freak storm, this is a direct impact of climate crisis in the region - fuelled and sustained by overconsumption and emissions in the Global North. The ocean waters are 4 degrees warmer than expected at this time of year, this has directly affected the speed and ferocity of the hurricane at the beginning of this year's hurricane season. To understand what the importance of AMOC (Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation) is for Hurricane season in the Caribbean and globally please watch this video. The impact of this hurricane is very much being felt, "90% of homes on Union Island had been destroyed", according to Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves. We’re fundraising for people and charities across Barbados, St Vincent & the Grenadines, Grenada and those affected across the region. The money raised will go towards helping local fishermen in Barbados to buy new boats, support roofing and housing materials for people in Carriacou, Union and Grenada and well as St Vincent to rebuild their livelihoods and homes. We are working collectively to disseminate these funds across the region ensuring they reach grassroots communities and people directly. The Hurricane is now a category 5 and on its way to Jamaica. We urge everyone to pray for its weakening and for the people currently effected by Beryl's peril. Please continue to share and donate to those affected! If you have any questions please email us.

WHERE ARE THE DONATIONS GOING?

This fund exists to go directly to grassroots organisations providing support for those across the following countries: Barbados St Vincent & the Grenadines Carriacou Petite Martinique Union Grenada Jamaica

HOW WILL THEY BE PROCESSED AND ADMINISTERED?

We are working with Kwanda to help disseminate the funds to the existing groups they work with in the affected countries. Black Curatorial work across Barbados and Jamaica administering funds for creatives via the Fly Me Out Fund our process of sending money via transfer is already set up to support and facilitate this fund's dissemination.

WHO'S INVOLVED?

Black Curatorial Kwanda West India Cinema Corporation Twossaints Black Eats London

[georgegraphys]

Why is it important for fans to support GR63's partnerships, campaigns, etc?

Warning: I do not mean to turn a charity or a campaign to an opportunistic marketing situation. I am simply explaining how it works backstage in real life!

George right now is seen as a Key Opinion Leader for The Daily Mile Foundation x INEOS that they hired to promote the initiative. Key Opinion Leaders have a job to build/lead public's opinion on certain things, be it campaigns, initiative, marketing, branding, etc. They are not mere influencers. KOLs are respectable members in niche communities that have credibility to the opinions that they are going to lead. So they don't waffle bullshit and promote fake stuff like what you see some influencers do when they overexaggerates how does aging serums work.

What George is doing right now is build/lead people's opinion to promote the initiative of the Daily Mile Foundation. Why? What credibility does he have? He is a fit and healthy Formula One athlete. He is a global ambassador for Puma and has a history of many other health campaigns, focusing mostly on Mental Health campaigns. That is his credibility as Key Opinion Leader.

You might now ask "Ari why do charities need Key Opinion Leaders? They are already supported by INEOS! They are rich!" Here is the thing : Charities need people's support and acknowledgement in order for them to support others. That is the way it works. It doesn't have to be monetary but support is always needed from the public, from the community. TDMF might have 3M children participating in their initiatives but they aim and strive to be bigger and reach more children out there. That's why they used George to promote their initiative.

Prime relevant examples of that can be seen from other celebrities. Back then, UNICEF supported FC Barcelona to promote their initiatives and campaigns. Using the likes of Lionel Messi for it. Nowadays, you see celebrities doing charities and collaborating with UNESCO, UNICEF, UNHCR, etc. They are not there just to look pretty, they are there to support the organization/foundation as Key Opinion Leaders. The attention they attract for the campaign/organizations/initiative will help the organization in the long run.

So if George does well in his KOL role, this might lead to more similar partnerships and campaigns in the future with brands, sponsors, others. It would also be useful if he wanted to establish his own non-profit foundation one day!

INEOS might be rich enough to support this foundation but you cannot deny that the role of Key Opinion Leaders like George is needed. TDMF is a part of INEOS' Corporate Social Responsibility for the communities and stakeholders. The more positive attention/engagement/interaction this campaign gets will further benefit George in the future to work with sponsors/brands/companies for their other CSRs or initiatives. Not only for himself, but also for the foundation, as the smallest interaction we do with them can bring a positive outcome for the foundation and campaign supported further!

I encourage everyone to support George Russell's campaign and partnership. Profit or non-profit. It will always be beneficial for both ways 🩵🩵

[animefeminist]

Evangelion, alienation, and Japan’s 1990s economic crisis

Francis Fukuyama suffered more than a few oversights when he first theorized his “end of history.” It was understandable—it was 1989 and the vibe was different. It had been morning in America for almost an entire decade and only a matter of time before the Berlin Wall and communism finally fell to their knees. It’s natural that at such a moment a capitalist ideologue like Fukuyama would wax poetic about history rendering Marxism antiquated; capitalism, as he saw it, had resolved all class conflict in America.

It is clear in hindsight that Fukuyama was a little too sunny in his analysis of America. While the global control of capitalism seems here to stay, given it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism, the social problems it creates are felt deeply by all in America except the extremely wealthy. However, Fukuyama reserved some of his most blissfully optimistic predictions for his ancestral homeland. Japanese society, as he saw it, had become an economic utopia; the tenth page of Fukuyama’s original ‘89 thesis states that “the very fact that the essential elements of economic and political liberalism have been so successfully grafted onto uniquely Japanese traditions and institutions guarantees their survival in the long run.”

It would only take a few short years before these lofty predictions hit their snag. Japan’s bubble economy suffered an explosive pop in 1992, resulting in a recession that plagued the nation for years to come. The early signs of misfortune came in waves: the Nikkei index had fallen below 15,000 by the time August had rolled around, corporations were forced to engage in massive lay-offs and hiring freezes, and chaos erupted all over the Japanese government. Bureaucrats and businessmen alike were embroiled in scandal after scandal after scandal after scandal, opening wide a revolving door of an inconsistent 11 prime ministers in 12 years. The Kobe earthquake and Tokyo subway attacks administered a coup de grace on any semblance of optimism, throwing the entire nation into a spiritual crisis. 

Read it at Anime Feminist!

[ashadowofburnedoutstardust]

Random thoughts:

#notaneconomist (although I do thoroughly enjoy strategy) These are just my own personal observations and conclusions

For some reason my mind has wandered over to the state of the US economy, not hard to understand why given the times

It's the circular nature of the US military being the backbone of US financial stability that has for some reason taken the attention of my wandering mind

This is what has occurred to me:

The backbone of the United States economy is of course its military spending

The US military has a budget larger than the five following countries with the highest spends comparatively combined

We should find it unsurprising given that the majority of what is not internal spending is spent on development in terms of building military vehicles, weapons, firearms etc etc and that the majority of this is done within the private sector

For example: OshKosh builds trucks to transport tanks and also many different types of logistic vehicles, Pokémon Go helping to build a massive global spatial map, Angry Birds data being used to help build a surveillance network, Swarovski making riflescopes etc etc

Anyway, things get contracted out to be built right?

Given that most major corporations operate under much larger umbrellas it would make sense that these companies would have an invested interest and whether or not the US government actively keeps military funding high enough for everyone to get a piece of the pie

Given that internal spending on a product usually requires a profit markup I would imagine that the US government in terms of its military spending is not exactly getting bang for its buck.....(And lord knows they aren't spending it on their veterans).....so of course the business lobby wants to help ensure that they keep getting these high priced contracts to keep their profit margins high while having some sort of other, well I guess a front; like kids toys, or a gaming app, or jewelry to help disguise where it is they're getting a lot more of their companies earnings from

The other thing is that the US government needs to justify to the public the monstrosity of a budget for the military, and in order to do that you need to maintain a level of insecurity; not only in their own country by keeping weapons accessible but in other foreign nations by staging military coups, covertly funding terrorist organisations, staging a proxy war etc etc which of course we all know by now that the CIA helps ensure happens in order to "protect American interests"

So to summarise all of that the backbone of the US economy is basically a giant money laundering scheme run through its military in order to fund its business lobby and as long as the rest of the economy underperforms they were always be able to justify having an intensive military spend in order to prop it up

The worst thing that could happen to its economy is the US actually becoming a peaceful state; it seems to me that the recent events over the past couple of years have alerted the working class to the extent of which they are being squeezed in order to fund this business lobby

Unfortunately, this bubble that they have created around themselves will eventually burst

Even the Baby Boomers are starting to feel the pinch of the water in expense of living in this economy that the Millennials and Gen X have been living through; even the conservative working class are starting to turn on the system that they have been living in

The United Healthcare shooting is a prime example of it

It would seem that the ruling class has squeezed a little too hard and inadvertently started the class war they never wanted all under their own gusto

*slow clap*

[sirksome]

Wrestling isn't a smart career choice in Invincible Fight Girl

Howdy folks it's your old pal Sirksome here. If you're for some reason following this blog you probably did so from that one post where I pointed out Samurai Jack once teased its audience with an enemies to lovers plot, only for them to actually followe through on that like ten years later.

Anyway, we're not talking about that. We're talking about Invincible Fight Girl!

First of all just watch the show if you haven't. This quietly feels like the kind of show that could easily disappear before it finishes it's story despite being excellent. *cough* THUNDERCATS 2011! *cough*

The animation is great, the character designs are great, it's funny, heartfelt, and references basically every anime or video game that ever existed.

That being said, despite the tag line that "In this world wrestling is everything." I don't think it is. I don't think it's actually even smart to practical to be a wrestler much like in our real world where you can't suppress entire crowds with your conqueror's haki or punch a guy into space.

I'm not actually articulate enough to explain these things. So I'm just gonna ask a bunch of questions I've had while watching.

Such as why Quesa Poblana supposedly the greatest wrestler in the world, assumedly a multiple time champion, in her retirement, has to sell jarred peppers to make a living?

The living in question, mind you, is living in a shitty barn outside town. And while we're on that why is her grandnephew, who should be a legacy that is set for life in the wrestling world, actually a con man obsessed with making money? Almost as if he witnessed firsthand that just being a good wrestler isn't enough to be financially secure.

But wait there's more!

Why is the Pantheon, supposed wrestling superstars' gym an abandoned and dilapidated shithole?

Why do these weirdly hot wrestling washouts have to foster a community and safe space for each other?

Why is Mikey's dad, who was likely a pro wrestler in his day, and walks with a cane (So does Quesa Poblana, almost as if a career in wrestling destroyed their bodies without providing proper post career medical support to help repair them.) so obsessed with training all his sons to be successful pros? Besides the reason he directly stated....or actually just because of that reason he directly stated. Why does he also have to run a butcher shop to support his family and his sons training?

Why does Aunt P even look this old to begin with?

She was still prime and active like 5-10 years ago depending on how old Andy is. I assume at max Andy is maybe 18 and she saw Poblana wrestling as a kid. Aunt P's physical fall off needs to be studied.

Mind you in this world where "Wrestling is everything." The GWC and their associated corporate partner Buffcorp can afford to fund and install a satellite network that not only globally broadcasts all their matches to a remote island of accountants but can also launch wrestling rings from space!

Suddenly it makes a little more sense why the Perm gang were such assholes

These lower mid card jobbers are probably living paycheck to paycheck and lording their physical and social superiority over a town of meek accountants is probably all they got.

Needless to say, as a filthy wrestling mark who occasionally tunes in week to week to watch attractive people pretend fight this reminds me of real world wrestling issues that still linger.

So, if I were to hazard a guess as to where this story is going if it gets more seasons to tell it. It's not just a story of Andy rising to the top of the wrestling world, but likely, potentially, hopefully, reforming the system that leaves even the best of these wrestlers broken and forced to wrestle into their twilight years or grift to support themselves. It might make some thematic sense that a girl from a line of accountants is responsible for restructuring the financial situations of these wrestlers despite rejecting her accountant background.

This all seems really obvious to me. Maybe it was for you too? Maybe this post wasn't worth making, cause it makes me look obnoxious for pointing it out? Maybe I'm actually wrong about all of this? Maybe I'll never do this again?

[odinsblog]

Executive summary

Since launching its brutal war of aggression against Ukraine in February 2022, the Russian Federation has been locked into a long and costly conflict. Russia has been diplomatically marginalized, subjected to sanctions, and shunned by most of the Western world. Many multinational companies have been forced by international pressure to shutter or sell their Russian operations, and profiting from cooperation with the Russian state is no longer considered acceptable. Russia has found itself in dire need of new allies and resources.

In this environment, the Kremlin-financed Private Military Company Wagner, or Wagner Group, has served as an increasingly important source of revenue for the Russian state. Founded in 2014 to support pro-Russian forces in Donbas, since then Wagner Group has evolved into a complex international network of private military contractors, disinformation campaign infrastruc-ture, and corporate front companies. It has deployed fighters, propaganda and disinformation campaigns, and financing as a proxy for the Russian state in numerous conflicts, from Syria and Libya to Mali, Central African Republic, and beyond

Wagner has most often been described as an independent mercenary group. This status has provided Russia with a thin veil of deniability, particularly in relation to the numerous plausible accusations of murder, rape, torture, and war crimes raised against Wagner fighters. But in reality, Wagner has always operated with the political and material backing of the Russian Federation to advance Russian state interests.

In Africa, Wagner has been deployed in a number of countries across the continent since 2017. In each country it enters, Wagner deploys military trainers, mercenary fighters, and propaganda experts to support anti-democratic regimes, drive instability, and commit human rights abuses. The mercenary group's ostensible provision of "security services" creates a framework for lucrative business contracts for the extraction of natural resources including diamonds, oil, timber, and especially gold.

This report focuses on the Kremlin's 'blood gold': Gold extracted from African countries and laundered into international markets that provides billions in revenue to the Russian state, thereby directly and indirectly financing Russia's war on Ukraine and global hybrid warfare infrastructure.

The Blood Gold Report's analysis suggests that Wagner and Russia have earned more than US$2.5 billion from blood gold since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The report focuses on the case studies of Wagner's blood gold operations in the Central African Republic, Sudan, and Mali. In each of these coun-tries, Russia profits from the blood gold trade in different ways:

In CAR, the mercenary group has been granted exclusive extractive rights for the Ndassima mine, the country's largest gold mine, in return for propping up President Touadera's authoritarian regime. Wagner's Ndassima operations are understood to produce US$290 million of gold annually, while local miners have been pushed aside or murdered by the mercenary group.

In Sudan, through control of a major refinery, Wagner has become the dominant buyer of unprocessed Sudanese gold as well as a major smuggler of processed gold. Russian military transporter flights laden with gold have been identified by Sudanese customs officials. While tracking Sudan's unreported gold market is near impossible, estimates suggest that almost Us$2 billion in gold is smuggled out of the country unreported every year, with 'the Russian Company' in prime position to take advantage.

In Mali, Wagner is paid a monthly retainer - estimated at US $10.8 million per month - to prop up a brutal military junta Meanwhile the junta is in turn dependent on a small number of Western mining companies for the revenue it needs to pay Wagner. Mining companies contributed more than 50% of all tax revenues to the Malian state for 2022. Barrick Gold Corporation, a Canadian listed company and Mali's single biggest tax contributor, paid US$206 million in the first half of 2023 alone.

The junta is increasing its financial demands on gold mining companies. Meanwhile, the four largest gold mining companies (weighted by tax contribution) continue to plan further investments in the country, despite the well-documented abuses of the military junta and growing influence of the Wagner Group.

Wagner's blood gold operations in CAR and Sudan have been subject to sanctions, and the Kremlin-backed mercenaries have developed increasingly complex smuggling routes and corporate subterfuge tactics to move blood gold out of these countries and convert this gold into cash.

In contrast, the Malian blood gold system enables Wagner to remain one degree removed from gold production. Instead, legitimate multinational mining companies convert gold into cash for the Malian military junta without triggering international sanctions.

To secure its position in a target country's political and natural resource extraction landscape, Wagner's African playbook consists of a four-pronged attack on the host country's civic institutions and civilian population - suppressing political opposition, spreading disinformation, silencing free media and terrorising civilians.

The ultimate objective of Wagner's playbook is to increase its clients' dependence on Wagner forces to stay in power, thereby securing a long-term revenue stream for the Kremlin and fostering authoritarianism and instability throughout the region as part of Russia's wider geopolitical strategy to distract and bog down the democratic West.

Since the death of Wagner's leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, the mercenary group has formally come under the control of the Russian State. Yet the Kremlin's focus on Africa, and its blood gold operations, show no signs of changing.

(continue reading)

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

The Amazon Good Omens Press Release! :)

In a special celebration for fans, Neil Gaiman collaborated with superfans Hilly & Hannah Hindi of the The Hillywood Show to reveal the ineffable premiere date in their original video “Good Omens Parody”

Official Teaser Art Available HERE Fan-Created Parody Video Viewable HERE 

*NOTE TO EDITORS: Please refer to our streaming service as Prime Video and not Amazon Prime Video*

CULVER CITY, California—May 10, 2023—This summer, something’s going down in the up!Good Omens Season Two will  premiere July 28 on Prime Video. After the global success and enthusiastic response to the first season, co-creator Neil Gaiman is satisfying fans’ hunger for more on-screen  adventures of the beloved unholy duo with an entirely original story. The ineffable Season Two premiere date was revealed on the 33rd anniversary of the publishing of the original novel Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Terry Pratchett and Gaiman, which was the basis for the first season of the television series. As a special celebration for fans, Gaiman collaborated with superfans Hilly & Hannah Hindi of the The Hillywood Show to reveal the date in a fan-funded video, “Good Omens Parody,” which can be viewed HERE. The six-episode season will be released exclusively on Prime Video on July 28 in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide. Fans can catch up on the first season of Good Omens streaming now on Prime Video, part of the savings, convenience, and entertainment that Prime members enjoy in a single membership.

Season Two of Good Omens explores storylines that go beyond the original source material to illuminate the uncanny friendship between Aziraphale, a fussy angel and rare book dealer, and the fast-living demon Crowley. Having been on Earth since The Beginning, and with the Apocalypse thwarted, Aziraphale and Crowley are getting back to easy living amongst mortals in London’s Soho when an unexpected messenger presents a surprising mystery.

Good Omens Season Twostars Michael Sheen and David Tennant as angel Aziraphale and demon Crowley, respectively. Also reprising their roles are Jon Hamm as archangel Gabriel, Doon Mackichan as archangel Michael, and Gloria Obianyo as archangel Uriel. Returning this season in new roles are Miranda Richardson as demon Shax, Maggie Service as Maggie, and Nina Sosanya as Nina, with new faces joining the misfits in Heaven and Hell: Liz Carr as angel Saraqael, Quelin Sepulveda as angel Muriel, and Shelley Conn as demon Beelzebub.

Neil Gaiman continues as executive producer and co-showrunner along with executive producer Douglas Mackinnon, who also returned to direct all six episodes. Rob Wilkins of Narrativia, representing Terry Pratchett’s estate, John Finnemore, and BBC Studios Productions’ head of comedy Josh Cole also executive produce, with Finnemore serving as co-writer alongside Gaiman. Good Omens is based on the well-loved and internationally best-selling novel by Pratchett and Gaiman. The new season is produced by Amazon Studios, BBC Studios Productions, The Blank Corporation, and Narrativia.

ALL THE EPIZODES WILL BE RELEASED AT ONCE!!! 🥰🥳 WAHOO!

[mariacallous]

As the United States nears its consequential November election, concerns about the impacts of artificial intelligence on the country’s electoral integrity are front and center. Voters are receiving deceptive phone calls mimicking candidates’ voices, and campaigns are using AI images in their ads. Many fear that highly targeted messaging could lead to suppressed voter turnout or false information about polling stations. These are legitimate concerns that public officials are working overtime to confront.

But free and fair elections, the building blocks of democratic representation, are only one dimension of democracy. Today, policymakers must also recognize an equally fundamental threat that advanced technologies pose to a free and open society: the suppression of civil rights and individual opportunity at the hands of opaque and unaccountable AI systems. Ungoverned, AI undermines democratic practice, norms, and the rule of law—fundamental commitments that underpin a robust liberal democracy—and opens pathways toward a new type of illiberalism. To reverse this drift, we must reverse the currents powering it.

Liberal societies are characterized by openness, transparency, and individual agency. But the design and deployment of powerful AI systems are the precise inverse.

In the United States, as in any country, those who control the airwaves, steer financial institutions, and command the military have long had a wide berth to make decisions that shape society. In the new century, another set of actors joins that list: the increasingly concentrated group of corporate players who control data, algorithms, and the processing infrastructure to make and use highly capable AI systems. But without the kind of robust oversight the government prescribes over other parts of the economy and the military, the systems these players produce lack transparency and public accountability.

The U.S. foreign-policy establishment has long voiced legitimate concerns about the use of technology by authoritarian regimes, such as China’s widespread surveillance, tracking, and control of its population through deep collusion between the state and corporations. Civil society, academics, and journalists have recognized the threat of those same tools being deployed to similar ends in the United States. At the same time, many of today’s AI systems are undermining the liberal character of American society: They run over civil rights and liberties and cause harm for which people cannot easily seek redress. They violate privacy, spread falsehoods, and obscure economic crimes such as price-fixing, fraud, and deception. And they are increasingly used—without an architecture of accountability—in institutions central to American life: the workplace, policing, the legal system, public services, schools, and hospitals.

All of this makes for a less democratic American society. In cities across the United States, people of color have been arrested and jailed after being misidentified by facial recognition tools. We’ve seen AI used in loan refinancing charge more to applicants who went to historically Black colleges. An AI program aimed at preventing suicide among veterans prioritizes white men and overlooks survivors of sexual violence, who are much more likely to be women. Hidden behind computer code, illegal and unfair treatment long banned under federal law is becoming harder to detect and to contest.

To global observers, the trendlines of AI in American society will look familiar; the worst harms of these systems mirror the tenets of what has been called “illiberal democracy.” Under that vision—championed most famously by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a darling of the U.S. right—a society “maintains the outward appearances of a democracy … but in fact seeks to undermine all the institutions and norms that give democracy meaning,” scholar Susan Rubin Suleiman wrote in 2021. This doesn’t have to look like canceling elections or dismantling a sitting legislative body; instead, the vision takes the form of a more subtle assault—foreclosing the ability of individuals and minority groups to assert their rights.

As powerful new AI products are born and come of age amid a growing political alliance between far-right ideologues and some of the most powerful leaders in the technology industry, these foundational threats to free society could accelerate. Elon Musk, amplifying alarmist narratives on migrants and dehumanizing language about women and LGBT people, has said he would serve in a potential second Trump administration. Elsewhere in Silicon Valley, a growing cadre of venture capitalists are boldly betting the house on Trump in the belief that their portfolios—brimming with crypto and AI bets—may be better off under a president who is unfazed by harms to the most vulnerable and who challenges the exercise of fundamental rights.

Simply studying these tools and their effects on society can prove difficult: Scientific research into these systems is dominated by profit-motivated private actors, the only people who have access to the largest and most powerful models. The systems in question are primarily closed-source and proprietary, meaning that external researcher access—a basic starting point for transparency—is blocked. Employees at AI companies have been forced to sign sweeping nondisclosure agreements, including those about product safety, or risk losing equity. All the while, executives suggest that understanding precisely how these systems make decisions, including in ways that affect people’s lives, is something of luxury, a dilemma to be addressed sometime in the future.

The real problem, of course, is that AI is being deployed now, without public accountability. No citizenry has elected these companies or their leaders. Yet executives helming today’s big AI firms have sought to assure the public that we should trust them. In February, at least 20 firms signed a pledge to flag AI-generated videos and take down content meant to mislead voters. Soon after, OpenAI and its largest investor, Microsoft, launched a $2 million Societal Resilience Fund focused on educating voters about AI. The companies point to this work as core to their missions, which imagine a world where AI “benefits all of humanity” or “helps people and society flourish.”

Tech companies have repeatedly promised to govern themselves for the public good—efforts that may begin with good intentions but fall apart under the pressure of a business case. Congress has had no shortage of opportunities over the last 15 years to step in to govern data-centric technologies in the public’s interest. But each time Washington has cracked open the door to meaningful technology governance, it has quickly slammed it shut. Federal policymakers have explored reactive and well-meaning but flawed efforts to assert governance in specific domains—for example, during moments of attention to teen mental health or election interference. But these efforts have faded as public attention moved elsewhere. Exposed in this story of false starts and political theatrics is the federal government’s default posture on technology: to react to crises but fail to address the root causes.

Even following well-reported revelations, such as the Cambridge Analytica scandal, no legislation has emerged to rein in the technology sector’s failure to build products that prioritize Americans’ security, safety, and rights—not to mention the integrity of U.S. democracy. The same story has unfolded in the doomed push to achieve data privacy laws, efforts that have stalled out in committee ad infinitum, leaving Americans without the basic protections for their personal information that are enjoyed by people living in 137 other countries.

The Biden-Harris administration decided to push harder, through initiatives we worked both directly and indirectly on. Even before ChatGPT vaulted AI to the center of the national discourse in November 2022, President Joe Biden’s White House released an AI Bill of Rights proposing five key assurances all Americans should be able to hold in an AI-powered world: that AI technologies are safe, fair, and protective of their privacy; that they are made aware when systems are being used to make decisions about them; and that they can opt out. The framework was a proactive, democratic vision for the use of advanced technology in American society.

The vision has proved durable. When generative AI hit the consumer market, driving both anxiety and excitement, Biden didn’t start from scratch but from a set of clear and affirmative first principles. Pulling from the 2022 document, his 2023 executive order on AI mandated a coordinated federal response to AI, using a “rights and safety” framework. New rules from the powerful Office of Management and Budget turned those principles into binding policy, requiring federal agencies to test AI systems for their impact on Americans’ rights and safety before they could be used. At the same time, federal enforcement agencies used their existing powers to enforce protections and combat violations in the digital environment. The Federal Trade Commission stepped up its enforcement of digital-era violations of well-established antitrust laws, putting AI companies on notice for potentially unfair and deceptive practices that harm consumers. Vice President Kamala Harris presided over the launch of a new AI Safety Institute, calling for a body that addressed a “full spectrum” of risks, including both longer-term speculative risks and current documented harms.

This was a consequential paradigm shift from America’s steady state of passive technology nongovernance—proof-positive that a more proactive approach was possible. Yet these steps face a range of structural limitations. One is capacity: Agencies across the federal government carrying out the work of AI governance will need staff with sociotechnical expertise to weigh the complex trade-offs of AI’s harms and opportunities.

Another challenge is the limited reach of executive action. Donald Trump has promised to repeal the AI executive order and gut the civil service tasked with its implementation. If his first term is any indication, a Republican administration would reinstate the deregulatory status quo. Such is the spirit of plans reportedly drawn up by Larry Kudlow, Trump’s former National Economic Council director, to create “industry-led” task forces, placing responsibility for assessing AI tools’ safety into the hands of the powerful industry players who design and sell them.

And Biden’s measures, for the most part, guide only the government’s own use of AI systems. This is a valuable and necessary step, as the behavior of agencies bears on the daily lives of Americans, particularly the most vulnerable. But the effects of executive actions on the private sector are circumscribed, related to pockets of executive authority such as government contracting, civil rights enforcement, or antitrust action. A president’s pen alone cannot create a robust or dynamic accountability infrastructure for the technology industry. Nor can we rely on agencies to hold the line; recent Supreme Court decisions—Loper Bright, Corner Post, and others—have weakened their authority to use their mandated powers to adapt to new developments.

This, of course, is the more fundamental shortcoming of Biden’s progress on AI and technology governance: It does not carry the force of legislation. Without an accompanying push in Congress to counter such proposed rollbacks with new law, the United States will continue to embrace a largely ungoverned, innovation-at-all-costs technology landscape, with disparate state laws as the primary bulwark—and will continue to see the drift of emerging technologies away from the norms of robust democratic practice.

Yet meaningful governance efforts may be dead on arrival in a Congress that continues to embrace the flawed argument that without carte blanche for companies to “move fast and break things,” the United States would be doomed to lose to China, on both economic and military fronts. Such an approach cedes the AI competition to China’s terms, playing on the field of Chinese human rights violations and widespread surveillance instead of the field of American values and democratic practice. It also surrenders the U.S. security edge, enabling systems that could break or fail at any moment because they were rushed to market in the name of great-power competition.

Pursuing meaningful AI governance is a choice. So is the decision, over decades, to leave powerful data-centric technologies ungoverned—a decision to allow an assault on the rights, freedoms, and opportunities of many in American society. There is another path.

Washington has the opportunity to build a new, enduring paradigm in which the governance of data-centric predictive technologies, as well as the industry that creates them, is a core component of a robust U.S. democracy.

We must waste no time reaffirming that the protections afforded by previous generations of laws also apply to emerging technology. For the executive branch, this will require a landmark effort to ensure protections are robustly enforced in the digital sphere, expanding enforcement capacity in federal agencies with civil rights offices and enforcement mandates and keeping up the antitrust drumbeat that has put anti-competitive actors on notice.

The most consequential responsibility for AI governance, though, rests with Congress. Across the country, states are moving to pass laws on AI, many of which will contradict one another and form an overlapping legal tangle. Federal lawmakers should act in the tradition of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, issuing blanket protections for all Americans. At a minimum, this should include a new liability regime and guarantee protection from algorithmic discrimination; mandate pre- and post-deployment testing, transparency, and explainability of AI systems; and a requirement for developers of AI systems to uphold a duty of care, with the responsibility to ensure that systems are safe and effective.

These AI systems are powered by data, so such a bill should be accompanied by comprehensive data privacy protections, including a robust embrace of data minimization, barring companies from using personal information collected for one purpose in order to achieve an unrelated end.

While only a start, these steps to protect democratic practice in the age of AI would herald the end of America’s permissive approach to the technology sector’s harms and mark the beginning of a new democratic paradigm. They should be followed forcefully by a separate but complementary project: ensuring that individuals and communities participate in deciding how AI is used in their lives—and how it is not. Most critically, more workers—once called America’s “arsenal of democracy”—must organize and wield their collective power to bargain over whether, when, and how technologies are used in the workplace.

Such protections must also extend beyond the workplace into other areas of daily life where technology is used to shape important decisions. At a moment of weakening democratic norms, we need a new, concerted campaign to ease the path for anyone to challenge unfair decisions made about them by ungoverned AI systems or opt out of AI systems’ use altogether. This must include a private right of action for ordinary people who can show that AI has been used to break the law or violate their rights. We must also open additional pathways to individual and collective contestation, including robust, well-resourced networks of legal aid centers trained in representing low-income clients experiencing algorithmic harms.

We can bring many more people into the process of deciding what kinds of problems powerful AI systems are used to solve, from the way we allocate capital to the way we conduct AI research and development. Closing this gap requires allowing people across society to use AI for issues that matter to them and their communities. The federal government’s program to scale up access to public research, computing power, and data infrastructure is still only a pilot, and Congress has proposed to fund it at only $2.6 billion in its first six years. To grasp that number’s insufficiency, one needed only to listen to Google’s spring earnings call, where investors heard that the tech giant planned to spend about $12 billion on AI development per quarter. Next, the U.S. government should invest in the human and tech infrastructures of “public AI,” to provide both a sandbox for applied innovation in the public interest and a countervailing force to the concentration of economic and agenda-setting power in the AI industry.

These are some of the measures the United States can undertake to govern these new technologies. Even in an administration that broadly supports these goals, however, none of this will be possible or politically viable without a change in the overall balance of power. A broad-based, well-funded, and well-organized political movement on technology policy issues is needed to dramatically expand the coalition of people interested and invested in technology governance in the United States.

Ushering in these reforms begins with telling different stories to help people recognize their stake in these issues and understand that AI tools directly impact their access to quality housing, education, health care, and economic opportunity. This awareness must ultimately translate to pressure on lawmakers, a tool those standing in the way of a democratic vision for AI use to great effect. Musk is reportedly bankrolling a pro-Trump super PAC to the tune of tens of millions per month. Andreessen Horowitz, the venture firm led by anti-regulation founders, increased its lobbying budget between the first and second quarter of this year by 135 percent. Not only are the big corporate tech players spending millions of dollars on lobbying per quarter, but each is also running a political operation, spending big money to elect political candidates who will look after their interests.

The academic, research, and civil society actors whose work has helped change the tech policy landscape have succeeded in building strong policy and research strategies. Now is the time to venture further into the political battlefield and prepare the next generation of researchers, policy experts, and advocates to take up the baton. This will require new tools, such as base-building efforts with groups across the country that can help tie technology governance to popular public issues, and generational investments in political action committees and lobbying. This shift in strategy will require new, significant money; philanthropic funders who have traditionally backed research and nonprofit advocacy will need to also embrace an explicitly political toolkit.

The public interest technology movement urgently needs a political architecture that can at last impose a political cost on lawmakers who allow the illiberal shift of technology companies to proceed unabated. In the age of AI, the viability of efforts to protect democratic representation, practice, and norms may well hinge on the force with which non-industry players choose to fund and build political power—and leverage it.

A choice confronts the United States as we face down AI’s threats to democratic practice, representation, and norms. We can default to passivity, or we can use these instruments to shape a free society for the modern era. The decision is ours to make.

[gaylordlady]

Watching Boom and then immediately watching the final episode of Fallout feels so right? Like, both have such strong anti-capitalism messages about war and warfare in the future.

Spoilers below cut for Fallout 1x08 and Doctor Who 1x03

"Flashy lights play well in a show room. Modern warfare. Death by salesman." - The Doctor to Ruby.

And then hearing...

"Because, in our current societal configuration, which took shape without intentional guidance, we have friction [...] we have conflict, and we have war. And war? Well, war never changes."

While businessmen and women discuss experiments on people, all in the name of "creating a good society"? Making 122 vaults, many of which actively existed to see how fucked up they could make people behave.

And throughout Boom, there is constantly a "Thoughts and prayers" quote being said (which is the go to response for people in need, in wars, or in active hostile environments), a company literally making soldiers kill each other? (Which happened in vault 11)

Both of these shows are being streamed on massive corporations, DW on Disney+, which generated 8.4 BILLION last year (only increasing since it's initial launch, as it has removed many shows and movies from other sites). And Fallout on Amazon Prime, which had gotten 35.22 BILLION in revenue last year, as well has being known (practically globally) as a company that uses and abuses it's workers, but has made itself such a staple in so many places, that it is physically impossible to not support them in some way, and some can only use them.

But Doctor Who has always been a show about anti-war and anti-capitalism. To have such a show go to the hand of one of the biggest mega corporations is such a shame, it is incredible that they can have Moffat come back and basically flip the house of mouse off and shit in their toilet all while getting paid, and have that approved? awesome.

Fallout has always been about how war is horrible, and how fucked up humans are, giving a rare glimmer of hope towards something attainable, and Amazon Prime taking this media and making it a show? All while ignoring what the message is? Incredible. Perfect.

[ptbf2002]

My Top 10 Netflix Characters

10. Mugman (The Cuphead Show)

9. Kid (Kid Cosmic)

8. James (Oddballs)

7. Sonic The Hedgehog (Sonic Prime)

6. Audrey Smith (Harvey Street Kids/Harvey Girls Forever!)

5. She-Ra (She-Ra and the Princesses of Power)

4. Lincoln Loud (The Loud House Movie)

3. Sandy Cheeks (Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie)

2. Mai Su (Next Gen)

1. Hilda (Hilda)

Original Template: https://www.deviantart.com/edogg8181804/art/Top-10-Netflix-Characters-Meme-854139578

The Cuphead Show! Belongs To Dave Wasson, Mercury Filmworks, Lighthouse Studios, Screen Novelties, Studio MDHR Entertainment Inc. King Features Syndicate, Inc. Hearst Communications, Inc. Netflix Animation Studios, Netflix Worldwide Entertainment, LLC, And Netflix, Inc.

Kid Cosmic Belongs To Craig McCracken, Francisco Angones, Lauren Faust, Toon Boom Animation Inc. Nelvana Limited, Corus Entertainment Inc. Mercury Filmworks, CMCC Cartoons, Netflix Animation Studios, Netflix Worldwide Entertainment, LLC, And Netflix, Inc.

Oddballs (TV series) Belongs To James Rallison, Ethan Banville, Atomic Cartoons, Inc. Thunderbird Entertainment Group Inc. SEGA of America, SEGA Corporation, SEGA Sammy Holdings Inc. Nelvana Limited, Corus Entertainment Inc. TheOdd1sOut Studios, Netflix Animation Studios, Netflix Worldwide Entertainment, LLC, And Netflix, Inc.

Sonic Prime Belongs To Yuji Naka, Naoto Ohshima, Hirokazu Yasuhara, Joe Kelly, Joe Casey, Duncan Rouleau, Steven T. Seagle, Jam Filled Entertainment, Boat Rocker Media Inc. Flixzilla Aura, Sonic Team, SEGA of America, SEGA Corporation, SEGA Sammy Holdings Inc. Man of Action Entertainment, WildBrain Studios, WildBrain Ltd. Netflix Animation Studios, Netflix Worldwide Entertainment, LLC, And Netflix, Inc.

Harvey Street Kids/Harvey Girls Forever! Belongs To Alfred Harvey, Emily Brundige, Dave Enterprises, Digital Emation, Inc. NE4U, Inc. The Harvey Entertainment Company, Classic Media, LLC, DreamWorks Classics, DreamWorks Animation Television, DreamWorks Animation LLC, Universal Pictures, Universal City Studios LLC, NBCUniversal Film and Entertainment, NBCUniversal Syndication Studios, NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, NBCUniversal Media Group, NBCUniversal Media, LLC, Comcast Corporation And Netflix Inc.

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power Belongs To Larry DiTillio, J. Michael Straczynski, ND Stevenson, Dave Enterprises, NE4U, Inc. Mattel Television, Mattel, Inc. DreamWorks Animation Television, DreamWorks Animation LLC, Universal Pictures, Universal City Studios LLC, NBCUniversal Film and Entertainment, NBCUniversal Syndication Studios, NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, NBCUniversal Media Group, NBCUniversal Media, LLC, Comcast Corporation And Netflix Inc.

The Loud House Movie Belongs To Chris Savino, Kevin Sullivan, Chris Viscardi, Top Draw Animation, Inc. Jam Filled Entertainment, Boat Rocker Media Inc. Nickelodeon Animation Studios, Nickelodeon Movies, Nickelodeon Group, Nickelodeon Networks Inc. Paramount Kids and Family Group, Paramount Players, Paramount Home Entertainment, Paramount Pictures Corporation, Paramount Global, And Netflix, Inc.

Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie Belongs To Stephen Hillenburg, Tom Stern, Kaz, Sinking Ship Entertainment, Pipeline Studios Ltd. Spin VFX, ReDefine Animation, United Plankton Pictures Inc. Nickelodeon Movies Inc. Paramount Players, Paramount Pictures Corporation, Paramount Global, And Netflix, Inc.

Next Gen (film) Belongs To Wang Nima, Kevin R. Adams, Joe Ksander, Baozou Manhua, Tangent Animation, Alibaba Pictures Group Limited, Alibaba Group Holding Limited, Dalian Wanda Group, And Netflix, Inc.

Hilda Belongs To Luke Pearson, Mercury Filmworks, Atomic Cartoons Inc. Thunderbird Entertainment Group Inc. Nobrow Press, Flying Eye Books, Silvergate Media Limited, Sony Pictures Television Kids, Sony Pictures Television Studios, Sony Pictures Television Inc. Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. Sony Entertainment, Inc. Sony Corporation of America, Sony Group Corporation, And Netflix, Inc.

[rjzimmerman]

If you've been following COP29 (aka the 29th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), you probably quit about 10 days ago. I paid scant attention to it after day one. It was doomed to failure, and with trump approaching the entrance ramp to global climate chaos and the latest iteration of the Barnum & Bailey Circus, I figured I didn't want to waste my time.

Excerpt from this story from Truthout:

Another year of climate breakdown approaches its end, marked by reports that 2024 will be the first year in which the world’s average surface temperature exceeded the pre-industrial average by 1.5 degrees Celsius (1.5°C) — and by another COP climate conference. Would the 29th in the series, held in Azerbaijan, be more of the same, a fossil fuel-friendly cop-out?

It began with poetry. The COP29 president, Azerbaijan’s Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources H. E. Mukhtar Babayev, addressed a 9,000-word letter to delegates, laying out areas to be discussed. At its head, an epigraph from a Persian poet, Nizami Ganjavi, warning humankind that it could “destroy itself” if harmony “between people and nature” is lost.

The president’s concern, needless to say, was entirely feigned. Babayev’s epistle evaded mention of fossil fuels, except in a positive light. This was predictable. Prior to entering politics he worked for SOCAR, an oil company that stands accused of large-scale pollution as well as violations of human rights and workers’ health and safety. Even as its former employee presided over the COP’s opening ceremonies, SOCAR was pressing ahead with a massive expansion of drilling operations.

Altogether, COP29 was a shambolic and fractured event. The host nation used the opportunity to arrange new fossil fuel deals and granted access to 1,773 fossil fuel lobbyists plus 480 lobbyists for carbon capture and storage — Big Oil’s latest dangerous and dishonest ruse to justify continued drilling. The conference’s other failures include Saudi Arabia’s attempt, with considerable impact, to stifle any discussion of transitioning from fossil fuels; the rich countries’ refusal to pay poor countries remotely near the requisite figure to help cover decarbonization efforts and their “loss and damage” from climate change; and a revival of markets for carbon “offsets” — the scam by which rich countries and corporations pay for climate-related activities in low-wage economies in order to justify by some supernatural calculus their own failure to cut emissions. Absent were the leaders of most of the jurisdictions responsible for the climate crisis: the United States, China, the EU, Russia, Germany, Canada, Australia and France.

On the other side of the climate justice scales, Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister James Marape announced that his government would not attend, in protest at the big polluters’ refusal to provide “support to victims of climate change.”

The perfidy, venality and “bullshit” on display at COP29 prompted Albania’s prime minister, Edi Rama, to veer off script in a moment of emperor’s-new-clothes candor: “What on Earth are we doing in this gathering over and over,” he said, “if there is no common political will on the horizon to go beyond words and unite for meaningful action? And adding insult to the injury, some major and minor players even boycotted this annual global event.”