#global weapon advancements

[futurefatum]

Important predictions for 2024-25 (Tone: 175)

Big shifts are coming in 2024! India enters Mars Mahadasha, with potential geopolitical changes & global tensions brewing. #Astrology #Predictions

Published January 13th, 2024 by @AbhigyaAnandAstrology Important predictions for 2024-25 | Analyze with Abhigya Anand ABOUT THIS VIDEO: The video by Abhigya Anand focuses on predictions for global and Indian geopolitics in 2024 and 2025, grounded in astrological analysis and historical cycles. Anand emphasizes that 2024 will be a significant turning point, especially for India, as it enters a…

[latestnews-now]

Iran is on the brink of a major nuclear leap, with advancements in uranium enrichment and space technology raising alarms globally. The IAEA warns of dramatic increases in Iran’s stockpile of near-weapons-grade uranium, as tensions in the Middle East soar. Watch now for a deep dive into the implications of Iran's nuclear and space programs and their impact on global security.

[forbidden-sorcery]

The devastation of nuclear colonialism, which permanently destroys Indigenous communities throughout the world, is outright ignored by some of the most devout climate justice advocates. They claim nuclear energy production is also a green solution to the climate crisis. More than 15,000 abandoned uranium mines are located within the so-called US, mostly in and around Indigenous communities, permanently poisoning sacred lands and waters with little to no action being taken to clean up their deadly toxic legacy. There are currently ninety-three operating nuclear reactors in the so-called US that supply 20% of the country’s electricity. There are 60,000 tons of highly radioactive spent nuclear waste stored in concrete dams at nuclear power plants throughout the country with the waste increasing at a rate of 2,000 tons per year. In 1987 the “US” Congress initiated a controversial project to transport and store almost all of the US’s toxic waste at Yucca Mountain located about 100 miles northwest of so-called Las Vegas, Nevada. Yucca Mountain has been held holy to the Paiute and Western Shoshone Nations since time immemorial. In January 2010 the Obama administration approved a $54 billion taxpayer loan in a guarantee program for new nuclear reactor construction, three times what Bush previously promised in 2005. In April 2022, the Biden administration announced a $6 billion government bailout to “rescue” nuclear power plants at risk of closing. A colonial government representative stated, “US nuclear power plants contribute more than half of our carbon-free electricity, and President Biden is committed to keeping these plants active to reach our clean energy goals.” They, along with Climate Justice activists cite nuclear energy as necessary to combat global warming, all while ignoring the devastating permanent impacts Indigenous Peoples have faced. There is nothing clean about energy produced from nuclear colonialism. From its weapons (including depleted uranium) to its mining and its waste; Indigenous bodies, lands, and waters continue to be sacrificed to heat water with radioactive materials which creates steam that moves generators to charge batteries made from lithium extracted from other Indigenous sacred lands so Teslas can move you forward into a “just” climate future. A green economy sustains and advances colonial progress, which means mitigated selective and ongoing destruction of Mother Earth.

Klee Benally - No Spiritual Surrender: Indigenous Anarchy In Defense of the Sacred

[paper-mario-wiki]

It only recently occurred to me that the Garden of Eden Creation Kits, or G.E.C.K. devices in Fallout, stand as a karmic opposite to the symbol of the nuclear bomb.

The nuclear bomb is effective as a weapon is a two stage attack. First there's the boom. An invention the size of a small car, in a flash so short you wouldn't even be able to think about it before being vaporized if you were anywhere within 2 miles of where it was, and you'd be lucky to live longer than 10 minutes if you weren't at least 10 miles away. An unstoppable, unhaltable fire that burns hot enough to vaporize anything even remotely alive instantly, and it's the size of a city before you have enough time to say "oh my god look at that". And then, after this devastating, all consuming flame goes out, the decay left over from that little drop of metal leaves the earth, the water, the sky, and all other physical domains completely uninhabitable for YEARS. It instantly creates a domain so remarkably dangerous that it becomes a global landmark. I'd say that it is only slightly hyperbolic in a cheesey poetic way that what a nuclear bomb does is create the closest thing to literal hell on earth that humans are currently capable (whether by scientific limitation, or by moral unwillingness) of creating.

On the other hand, the G.E.C.K., a sleek silver briefcase the size of a 2005 laptop, acts as a compact seed to create a stable, healthy environment, with enough power in a hyper-dense coal fusion battery to power a city. A succinct utopia in a box. In early depictions this was described as hyper resilient seeds, chemical mixtures to create viable soil, instructions for how to disassemble and reuse shelters to become extremely resilient and powerful new world places of safety, as well as vast documents on the details and assembly of advanced and highly efficient technologies like force fields. In later games, it was increased to something of a mythical item, capable of literally terraforming miles of earth down to the molecular level to be safe for habitation, as well as the ability to replicate anything you might need in terms of rations or supplies. In its own way, it is mankind's best attempt (at least in the Fallout universe) to create a massive-scale utopia in as small of a box, that creates as close to a heaven on earth, as possible. And it's even got a biblical tie-in right in the name. I think that's very fitting.

[metamatar]

In 1975, civilian nuclear technology was part of a worldwide strategy to bring the Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries (OPEC) to heel. That body’s power seemed unprecedented, given that most of its countries were historically impoverished or “backward” peoples. [...]

Many developing countries did adopt nuclear technologies, often with crucial parts of their national infrastructures relying on American and European expertise, equipment, and fuel. Rather than seeing liberation from nature, such countries faced renewed forms of dependence. Iran certainly never gained reliable access to uranium and did not become the economic miracle envisioned by Ansari back in 1975. Instead of lifting up the poorer nations of the world, the global nuclear order seemed structured in ways reminiscent of the colonial era. The most heated debates within the IAEA pitted the nuclear weapons states against the so-called LDCs—less developed countries. The agency never became a storehouse for fission products. Instead, one of its primary functions was to monitor an arms control treaty—the Treaty 4 on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. By the end of the century, the IAEA was referred to as a “watchdog,” known for its cadre of inspectors. In 2003, IAEA inspections were crucial talking points in public debates about the invasion of Iraq by the United States [...] evidence gathered over the years by the agency created for the peaceful atom was being interpreted by the United States government as justification for military intervention. [...]

Focusing only on arms control glosses over the domestic politics of nuclear programs, particularly the role of high technology as symbols of state power and legitimacy. But it also does not square with what scholars of the Cold War have been pointing out for decades—that governments, especially the United States, deployed science and technology as diplomatic tools, to achieve feats of prestige, to shape business arrangements, to conduct clandestine surveillance, or to bind countries together with technical assistance programs. Poorer countries’ dreams of modernization, of using advanced technology to escape hunger, poverty, and the constraints of nature—these were the stock-in-trade of US diplomacy. Why, then, should we imagine that the promises connected to peaceful uses of atomic energy were any less saturated with geopolitical maneuvers and manipulation? [...]

American officials in the late 1940s and early 1950s were very worried that commercial nuclear power would siphon off supplies of uranium and monazite needed for the weapons arsenal. So they explicitly played down the possibility of electricity generation from atomic energy and instead played up the importance of radioisotopes for medicine and agriculture—because such radioisotopes were byproducts of the US weapons arsenal and did not compete with it. The kinds of technologies promoted in the developing world by the United States, the USSR, and Europeans thus seemed neocolonial, keeping the former colonies as sites of resource extraction—a fact noticed, and resented, by government officials in India, Brazil, and elsewhere. Mutation plant breeding, irradiation for insect control or food sterilization, and radioisotope studies in fertilizer—these were oriented toward food and export commodities and public health, problems indistinguishable from those of the colonial era. These were not the same kinds of technologies embraced by the global North, which focused on electricity generation through nuclear reactors, often as a hedge against the rising political power of petroleum-producing states in the Middle East. By the mid-1960s and 1970s, the United States and Europe did offer nuclear reactors even to some of the most politically volatile nations, as part of an effort to ensure access to oil. Convincing petroleum suppliers of their dire future need for nuclear reactors was part of a strategy to regain geopolitical leverage. Despite the moniker “peaceful atom,” these technologies were often bundled in trade deals with fighter jets, tanks, and other military hardware [...]

By the close of the century, two competing environmental narratives were plainly in use. One was critical of atomic energy, drawing on scientific disputes about the public health effects of radiation, the experience of nuclear accidents such as Three Mile Island (1979) and Chernobyl (1986), or the egregious stories of public health injustice—including negligence in protecting uranium miners or the wanton destruction and contamination of indigenous peoples’ homelands. In contrast was the narrative favored by most governments, depicting nuclear technology in a messianic role, promising not only abundant food, water, and electricity, but also an end to atmospheric pollution and climate change. [...]

As other scholars have noted, the IAEA tried to maintain a reputation of being primarily a technical body, devoid of politics. But it had numerous political uses. For example, it was a forum for intelligence gathering, as routinely noted by American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) documents. It also outmaneuvered the World Health Organization and Food and Agriculture Organization in the early 1960s and was able to assert an authoritative voice playing down public health dangers from atomic energy. Further, it provided a vehicle for countries to stay engaged in atomic energy affairs even if they did not sign on to the non-proliferation treaty—India, Pakistan, and Israel most notably. It provided apartheid-era South Africa with a means of participating in international affairs when other bodies ousted it because of its blatantly racist policies. By the same token, it gave the Americans and Europeans political cover for continuing to engage with South Africa, an important uranium supplier.

Introduction to The Wretched Atom, Jacob Hamlin

[ghostwarriorrrr]

🇹🇷🔥 Turkish Air Force - F-4E 2020 Terminator

The F-4E 2020 Terminator represents a significant leap forward in the capabilities of the Turkish Air Force. This comprehensive upgrade enhances the venerable F-4E Phantom II with modern Turkish-made weapons systems, showcasing Türkiye’s commitment to self-reliance and advanced military technology.

Background

With a storied history dating back to the 1960s, the F-4E Phantom II has been a pivotal player on the global stage of air combat. Serving multiple nations and seeing numerous conflicts, the Phantom carved out its place in aviation history as a versatile and rugged aircraft. Türkiye’s decision to upgrade this aircraft stems from a strategic imperative to leverage existing assets while infusing them with cutting-edge technology to maintain relevance in modern aerial warfare. The 2020 Terminator program is the Turkish Air Force’s ambitious initiative to retrofit these fighters with state-of-the-art systems.

Strategic Importance

The ability to exert air superiority and conduct precision strikes is paramount in a region marked by dynamic security challenges. The F-4E 2020 Terminator’s enhanced capabilities contribute significantly to deterrence, and the demonstration of Türkiye’s advancing aerospace industry serves both a strategic and diplomatic purpose.

Upgrade Overview

The 2020 Terminator upgrade, realized by Turkish Aerospace Industries in collaboration with ASELSAN, constitutes a multifaceted improvement over the aircraft’s original design. It touches every aspect of the aircraft’s systems, bringing its avionics, armaments, and electronic warfare systems into the 21st century.

Avionics:

The modernized multi-mode pulse Doppler radar extends the aircraft’s detection range, allowing it to lock onto and engage targets from greater distances. Integrating a Hands-On Throttle-And-Stick (HOTAS) system enhances pilot control, minimizing response time during high-stakes manoeuvres. Color Multifunctional Displays (MFDs) replace outdated gauges, providing pilots with real-time data visualization for improved situational awareness.

Armament:

The Terminator’s weapons suite has been revolutionized with a mixture of Western and indigenous munitions. Long-standing armaments like the AIM-9X Sidewinder are joined by Türkiye’s own precision-guided munitions, such as the SOM cruise missile, capable of striking strategic land and sea targets with formidable accuracy. The UAV-230, a domestic innovation, represents the pinnacle of Türkiye’s missile development, offering supersonic ballistic delivery of a range of warhead types over substantial distances. The BOZOK, MAM-C, MAM-L, and Cirit missiles exemplify Türkiye’s expertise in laser guidance and smart munition technology, enabling the Terminator to engage and defeat a broad spectrum of target profiles with unerring precision.

Electronic Warfare:

To contend with the contemporary battlefield’s electronic warfare environment, the F-4E 2020 Terminator incorporates an advanced Electronic Support Measures (ESM) system for rapid threat identification and an Electronic Countermeasures (ECM) suite to confound hostile tracking systems. Moreover, chaff and flare dispensers have been integrated to provide decoys against incoming missile threats, enhancing the aircraft’s survivability in hostile airspace.

Operational Capability:

The F-4E Phantom II, transformed by these integrated systems, emerges as a multirole platform capable of dominating beyond-visual-range air-to-air engagements and precision ground-attack missions. It can operate in complex electronic warfare environments and deliver various ordnances based on mission requirements, making it a flexible asset in the Türkiye Air Force’s inventory.

Significance:

The F-4E 2020 Terminator project is a hallmark of Türkiye’s aerospace ambition and its push toward defence autonomy. By retrofitting and modernizing its Phantoms, Türkiye maximizes the value of its existing fleet while also establishing a foundation for future indigenous aircraft development projects.

Munitions Details:

The advanced, indigenous Turkish weaponry integrated into the F-4E 2020 Terminator underlines a significant shift toward self-reliance in defence technologies. Each munition type brings unique capabilities that enhance the platform’s lethality:

UAV-230: A domestically-developed ballistic missile, this supersonic weapon delivers high-precision strikes at long ranges, challenging enemy defences with its speed and reduced radar cross-section.

BOZOK: The versatility of this laser-guided munition makes it ideal for engaging both stationary and moving targets with high precision, ideal for close air support.

MAM-C/L: These smart micro munitions are designed for tactical flexibility, allowing for precision targeting in complex engagement scenarios, from anti-armour operations to counter-insurgency roles.

Cirit: A highly accurate laser-guided missile system designed for low collateral damage, Cirit is adept at striking soft and lightly armoured targets with pinpoint accuracy.

SAGE Munitions: TUBITAK SAGE, Türkiye’s leading defence research and development institute, has contributed a range of munitions enhancing the Terminator’s operational capabilities across various domains.

Conclusion:

The upgraded F-4E 2020 Terminator is a testament to Türkiye’s determination to retain a competitive edge in aerospace and defence technologies. The integration of modern avionics, armaments, and electronic warfare capabilities ensures the aircraft’s continued relevance in modern air combat, and its presence in the skies serves as a deterrent in a strategically complex region.

[reality-detective]

Chapter 3: The Great Unmasking

They told you to look the other way. They fed you lies to keep you docile. But now, the storm brews closer, and the masks are slipping. The elites you worshipped—the politicians, the celebrities—they’re no longer untouchable. Putin has uncovered the map, a trail of blood connecting the globe, a sinister web of power, greed, and unspeakable horrors. But this isn't just about adrenochrome anymore.

Sources within the Kremlin are reporting new, explosive intelligence: biotech labs hidden within these adrenochrome farms. These aren't your average science facilities—these labs are conducting grotesque experiments, fusing human DNA with something else. Something inhuman. Hybrid creatures, bred from stolen children, designed to serve a new world order.

This is where it gets even darker: these labs are not just about adrenochrome. They’re breeding grounds for something worse—a new race, a twisted vision of humanity controlled by the elites. Engineered in secret, these hybrid children are created to be obedient slaves, designed to feed the hunger of those who seek dominion over the world. These labs are also where the strongest of the children, those who survived years of unimaginable pain, are converted into living weapons—super soldiers, molded for one purpose: to protect the very system that feeds on their suffering.

The Adrenochrome Task Force has been keeping tabs on these labs for years, but their reach didn’t go deep enough. Not until now. The recent raids revealed hidden vaults, where files on advanced genetic modifications were stored. This information is what’s driving Putin’s new offensive: a global operation to dismantle these hybrid labs and burn down the network behind them.

And here’s the shocker: it’s not just Russia on this warpath. Anonymous sources within the U.S. military confirm that a faction of high-ranking officers, disgusted by what they’ve uncovered, are preparing to join forces with Russia in a covert strike. They’re calling it “Operation Genesis.” This isn’t about geopolitics anymore—this is about reclaiming humanity from those who would twist it into something unrecognizable.

The elites are panicking. Hollywood big names are fleeing, political figureheads are vanishing overnight, leaving only cryptic resignations and suspicious accidents in their wake. Do you think these are coincidences?

The global cabal is scrambling. They know the clock is ticking. There are whispers of bunkers being filled with food, money being moved offshore, preparations for an event that could wipe the slate clean. But it’s too late for them. The world is waking up.

The final hour is almost upon us. The reckoning has begun, and no one is safe—not even those who hide in plain sight. This war is not just for land, nor for power—it’s a battle for the future of the human race. Are you ready to fight for it? 🤔

[nyarlathotep-thecrawlingchaos]

Low-effort headcanon that no one asked for.

But laughter is the best medicine and I need lots of laughter right now.

So here's the boys as comedic tropes.

Stand-Up Swashbucklers

OPLA! Sanji, Zoro, Shanks, Mihawk, Buggy

SFW

Stupid af, sorry in advance

Sanji

Corny Pick-Up Lines

"Just blinded by your beauty."

"Love, I hope you have a license for those eyes, because I've never encountered a deadlier weapon."

"I've been dabbling in interior design lately, and I think you'd make a fine addition to my bedroom."

"I haven't been a pirate for long, but I'm certain you have to be the greatest treasure in all the seas."

"Do you believe in love at first sight, or should I walk by a few more times?"

Zoro

Dry One-Liners

"Don't like what you see, look away."

"Did you take lessons on being an asshole or is it a natural talent?"

"If I promise I'll miss you, will you leave me alone?"

"You should write a book. How To Be A Miserable Failure: For Dummies."

"Your ass must be jealous of how much shit comes out of your mouth."

Shanks

Bad Puns and Dad-Jokes

"I could take you...with one arm tied behind my back."

"What's wrong with me? Well, you could say I'm not all there."

*pointing at a keg of ale* "I'd tap that."

"I used to shave every day, but this beard, well, it sort of...grew on me."

"I'd offer you a hand, but I really haven't got one to spare."

Mihawk

The Lord of the Roasts

"Oh, come now Vice Admiral, I don't take orders—even from the likes of you."

"There truly isn't a single thought behind those eyes, is there?"

"Have you ever wondered how different your life would be, had you been born with even one single ounce of common sense?"

"I'd tell you to reconsider that statement, but that would require you to actually think, and I'm not sure you possess such a talent."

"Were idiocy contagious, you could singlehandedly bring about a global pandemic."

Buggy

Chop-Chop Slapstick

"Surprise, shithead!"

"That deserves a round of applause—" *drops both hands into a beer stein, actively clapping*

"Yeah, I'll lend you an ear, just give it back when you're done."

"I'm a little, shall we say, detached from reality."

"I'd give an arm and a leg to see that. In fact, here, take them."

[smytherines]

[This was supposed to be a joke post, but it turned into an essay on the Cold War and nuclear brinksmanship in Spies Are Forever. Sorry]

Once again thinking about Tatiana Slozhno-- who for all intents and purposes would be considered a rogue KGB agent working with the Americans-- unilaterally detonating a hydrogen bomb on an island in the Pacific ocean. The geopolitical implications would be off the fucking charts

Hydrogen bombs are hundreds of times more powerful than the standard atomic bomb. For comparison, an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 people died when the US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima (and hundreds of thousands died from radiation-related illnesses in the years following WWII). It killed everyone within a 1 mile radius of the blast

For a hydrogen bomb, the blast radius is more like 5 to 10 miles, depending on the yield. A 15 megaton yield (they range from 10 to 50) hydrogen bomb test performed by the US (code name Bravo) vaporized two entire islands, part of a third island, and left a 6,000 ft wide, 240ft deep crater in the fucking ocean. It was 1,000 times more powerful than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.

Now clearly, in the show, this is not considered a big deal. Tatiana doesn't seem to be on the run, Cynthia says that relations with Russia are the best they've been in ages. But in the real world it would be absolute global pandemonium with the potential to escalate the Cold War into a full scale nuclear war

Just to give some context here-- one year after the 1961 portion of Spies, the Cuban Missile Crisis happens. Here's a very very condensed version: Cuba has a communist revolution, the USSR finally has a staging area for nukes that could easily hit the US and tries to bring nukes to Cuba on ships, there's a tense 13 day standoff between the US and USSR that very nearly results in WWIII and complete nuclear annihilation. Most historians consider this the height of the Cold War. This is the incident that led to the phrase "Mutually Assured Destruction"

So imagine that a hydrogen bomb explodes in the Pacific ocean. There is no way to hide that after the fact, so both nuclear superpowers would know about it fairly quickly. In October of 1961 the Soviets detonated Tsar Bomba, a 50MT yield hydrogen bomb and the most powerful nuclear weapon ever tested, and US intelligence knew about it well in advance. They had spy planes close enough to the detonation that the protective plating on the plane was damaged.

Assuming they are able to connect it to Tatiana (lots of questions about how she was able to send a rocket shoe from far enough away to not get incinerated but oh well), the US would see it as a hostile act from a Russian agent. The Russians would consider her a traitor working with the Americans. Relations between the two countries would most likely deteriorate, not improve.

And this is more of a tangent, but I also think this era of nuclear brinksmanship (both countries having their hand hovering over the button, so to speak) is potentially a big motivation for Owen. I think he is clearly making irrational, emotional choices post-fall, BUT I also think he is the sort of man who needs to believe his decisions are based in logic and pragmatism.

So what logical justification can Owen find? Well, there's the idea that mass surveillance is already happening, already escalating, that this is the way the world is headed and if Chimera wants to succeed they need to get out ahead of it.

But I think the initial buy-in, how Chimera gets Owen ideologically committed to their organization and plan, is by using this constant looming threat of nuclear annihilation. By saying "these two countries and their little spy games are going to turn the world to ash if we let them. We need one neutral, central power to hold all the cards if we want to survive as a species." I think that would be a very powerful argument to a man who was just left for dead by his own agency and his American partner, who is presumably severely injured in a Soviet prison. A man who has a keen interest in foreign policy.

Because one of many things I find fascinating about Owen Carvour is that his/Chimera's plan is actually pretty rational, especially in comparison to a Bond villain. The Bond universe version of Chimera is called Spectre, and their plans are absolutely batshit stuff like "blow up the moon," and 10 variations of "giant space laser to kill everybody." Shit that doesn't even seem like it would benefit the villains because it's so over the top.

Chimera's plan is vile, but not outlandish. It is essentially just taking an idea that is already in development for the global superpowers, and finishing it first so they have all the power. It's a plan grounded in real world events. A big news story in 2013-2014 was the National Security Agency's PRISM program, which revealed how absolutely massive the US surveillance state had become, how the US was essentially turning everybody into spies (they just weren't aware of it).

I do sometimes wonder if someone in TCB read Glenn Greenwald's book (the reporter who broke the story), because Chimera's plan feels very specific to that late Obama era of the surveillance state

Holy shit this got so long.

Anyways Spies Are Forever 2 should follow Tatiana as she goes on the run to avoid trial at The Hague (I'm joking please don't kill me)

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Keith Edwards at No Lies Detected:

Since Election Day, I’ve felt an eerie quiet fall over America.  Liberals are showing little of the defiant energy that marked their preparation for Trump’s presidency after his shock 2016 win. Americans are reporting exhaustion and coping by hopping onto planes or into unreality. Stories of Americans deciding to flee abroad have become common, an ironic turn for the greatest hub of migration in human history. Some billionaires are even telling themselves that maybe Trump won’t be so bad. Checking out surely is easier.  In the closing days of World War II, people on the ruined streets of eastern Europe hailed passing Soviet tanks as their deliverers from decades of war, dictatorship, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. As it became clear that they had merely traded one totalitarian dictator for another, people coped not only by retreating inward, but even by giving themselves over to the regime mind, body, and soul. During the Soviet occupation of Poland, anti-communist writer and poet Czesław Miłosz likened the phenomenon to a patient taking a pill in his book The Captive Mind:

[Despite [the intellectual’s] resistance and despair, the crisis approaches. It can come in the middle of the night, at his breakfast table, or on the street. It comes with a metallic click as of engaged gears. But there is no other way. That much is clear. There is no other salvation on the face of the earth. This revelation lasts a second; but from that second on, the patient begins to recover. For the first time in a long while, he eats with relish, his movements take on vigor, his color returns. He sits down and writes a "positive" article, marveling at the ease with which he writes it. In the last analysis, there was no reason for raising such a fuss. Everything is in order. He is past the "crisis." ]

Miłosz fancifully called it the “pill of Murti-Bing” after a character from a then-current science fiction novel. But as we can see today, liberal public figures are taking the pill, they are “writing the positive article.” Taunting conservatives as they deluded themselves about Trump – from my own friends and family to the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal – was a common experience after his first victory; looking on as liberals lie to themselves after his second is a new and bewildering one. This is exactly the wrong time to check out.  Not only does it amount to “obeying in advance,” it emboldens would-be autocrats to proceed with their plans. As if aware of their guilty consciences, history’s dictators have always been profoundly afraid of the people they seek to oppress, especially before they solidified their grip on power. Even the most cunning of them won’t make a play for absolute power without a hand so strong and the opposition’s so weak that victory is assured: It took Vladimir Putin twenty years fully to establish personal rule in Russia, and only then when fear of a global pandemic kept people confined inside.

Fortunately for us, our country is not the Russia of the 2010s, which had only a short experience of democracy and even shorter experience of democratic institutions. Unfortunately for us, Donald Trump was seemingly designed in a lab to overwhelm our capacity for outrage and benumb us to his ever more brazen violations of our norms and laws. As Tom Nichols has written, Trump is counting on this. His firehose strategy of obnoxious cabinet nominations is a small taste of his planned war of attrition on the American psyche. 

Trump will not be invincible in his second term. The good guys scored a major victory in forcing accused sex-pest Matt Gaetz to withdraw before his nomination even came before the Senate for a vote. This has the double effect of taking this (hatefully coiffed) piece off the board, but it exposes the next most vulnerable picks – say, the increasingly tragicomic Pete Hegseth or the cartoonishly villainous Kash Patel – to media, public, and ultimately Senate scrutiny. It seems likely others will share Gaetz’s fate.

Keith Edwards has a perfect article in his Substack that liberals should not check out of the political process, because fighting Donald Trump and Trumpism is importing.

[latestnews-now]

Russia's hypersonic Oreshnik missile has made headlines after its first test in combat against Ukraine. Capable of speeds over 13,000 kph and carrying multiple warheads, the missile is reportedly unstoppable by any current defense system. President Vladimir Putin has confirmed plans for expanded testing and production. What does this mean for global security? Watch this detailed analysis to understand the implications of this advanced weapon system on the Ukraine-Russia conflict and beyond. Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more updates on global security and military technology

Subscribe now to stay informed and never miss a beat on what’s happening around the globe!

[mariacallous]

Ukraine faces a precarious future amid waning Western support. The immediate peril comes from the 2024 US presidential election, but the fundamental problem has been the failure of Europe to commit to the defeat of Putin’s invasion.

The new NATO Secretary General, Mark Rutte, lost no time in visiting Kyiv after he assumed office, where he ‘pledged continued support for Ukraine in its war with Russia’. Doubtless his words were sincerely intended, but he knows there are serious political headwinds across Europe and the US.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky senses this too as he briefs his ‘Victory Plan’ around European capitals following a mixed reception in Washington.

The forthcoming presidential election in the US represents the point of maximum danger. A win by Donald Trump could see him placing a phone call to Russian President Vladimir Putin as early as 6 November. Any such call would set expectations of a negotiated settlement, with discussions possibly beginning in the early months of 2025. 

Nobody should want this war of ‘meat grinder’ savagery to continue a day longer than necessary. However, Zelensky would have much to fear from a deal negotiated by Trump. The 2020 Doha Accords with the Afghan Taliban have been described as the worst diplomatic agreement since Munich in 1938. Fortunately, Trump was prevented from reaching a similarly disastrous deal with Kim Jong-un of North Korea. 

In any such deal, Zelensky would be unlikely to secure the recovery of Crimea and the Donbas, reparations for the massive damage to his country, war crimes trials or membership of NATO. He might be able to bargain the Kursk salient in return for control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. But, without NATO membership and its Article 5 guarantee, there would be nothing to stop Putin from continuing the war after a couple of years of recovery and rearmament. 

For Europe, too, there would be peril. Both Georgia and Moldova look particularly fragile and vulnerable to Russian active measures or hybrid warfare. Even the Baltics would be justifiably nervous, in spite of their NATO status.

However, it would be misleading to blame everything on Trump. There have been plenty of prior indications of trouble ahead.

US support has always been too little, too late. Given the sheer scale of Washington’s military support this might sound absurd, but President Joe Biden’s hesitancy in allowing Storm Shadow missiles to be used against targets inside Russia is indicative of a general trend. As the head of a global superpower, Biden has always had one eye on ensuring that the war does not get out of hand and become nuclear. The result has been that Ukraine feels it has been given enough not to lose but not enough to win. 

In Europe the support has been varied. Some countries, such as the Baltics, the Scandinavian states, the UK and Poland, have done better than others. Hungary has been hostile, and may soon be joined by Slovakia and Austria. Germany has provided the most weapons but has been politically unreliable. Its refusal to supply Taurus missiles and its public debate about reducing its defence budget have sent all the wrong messages. German companies continue to retain significant interests in Russia, and the advance of Alternative for Germany in elections in Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg reminded Chancellor Olaf Scholz that there is little support for the war in Eastern Germany. President Emmanuel Macron of France, having been mercurial about Ukraine from the outset, received a similar jolt from the far left and far right in legislative elections in July. 

The most visible sign of a failure of collective determination to defeat Russia was the decision not to seize Russian financial assets frozen in Western banks, but instead to use them as collateral to raise a much smaller loan. Yes, there would have been a theoretical risk of undermining faith in the Western-dominated financial system, but few countries are yet ready to entrust their savings to Chinese or Indian banks. Furthermore, it would have sent a message to Putin not to invade other countries. 

Meanwhile, the crisis in the Middle East has diverted foreign policy and public attention. In Iraq and Afghanistan 20 years ago, the West demonstrated that it does not have the policy bandwidth to cope with two simultaneous campaigns. The events since 7 October 2023 have done untold damage to Ukraine’s prospects and to the West’s much-vaunted rules-based international order.

A newly elected President Trump would rightly claim that, once again, the US has shouldered the main burden of Western interests with inadequate support from its NATO allies. He would point (correctly again) to the mounting military pressure on Ukraine, its difficulties in replacing front-line soldiers, and the effects on global food and fuel prices. With the war raging in the Levant, he would refer to the US being over-extended once again in ‘forever wars’.

A newly elected President Kamala Harris could be expected to follow the path trodden by Biden. She would inherit his caution at unduly provoking Putin and his reticence about Ukraine joining NATO. Furthermore, her freedom to supply Ukraine with additional weaponry could be restricted by the make-up of the two houses of Congress. 

There could be a third outcome to the election: a Harris victory that is contested by Trump. In such circumstances, we could see an absence of US foreign policy for a period of weeks or months. 

Barring a mutiny by Russian forces or a crisis in Moscow, the prospects for Ukraine (and therefore Europe) look grim. The irony is that Putin would claim victory in spite of his campaign having been a costly disaster.

What would a betrayed Ukraine look like? At least it would retain some 82% of its territory. A guilty West would doubtless provide aid to rebuild infrastructure. It might be given a pathway to eventual EU membership (unless that option had been bargained away at the negotiating table), but joining the Western club may have lost its appeal at that point. Ukraine’s corrupt oligarchs would re-emerge from hibernation. The old post-Soviet cynicism would replace the youthful enthusiasm of the Maidan generation. There would be antagonism towards those returning from abroad after avoiding the fight, and – of course – thousands of grieving families.

This should have been Europe’s war to manage. In spite of decades of discussion about European defence, it proved too convenient to rely on US largesse. This made Europe a prisoner of US electoral factors. It also caused Europe to shirk the difficult decisions that helping win the war entailed: the big increases in defence expenditure, the 24-hour working in ammunition factories, the hikes in food and energy costs and the political risks such as seizing frozen assets. What remains now for Europe is to secure a place at the negotiating table and to argue for NATO membership for Ukraine as part of any settlement.

Failing that, the West will have years to repent the betrayal of the courageous Ukrainians, whose only crime was their wish to join the Western democratic order.

[fatehbaz]

imperialism and science reading list

edited: by popular demand, now with much longer list of books

Of course Katherine McKittrick and Kathryn Yusoff.

People like Achille Mbembe, Pratik Chakrabarti, Rohan Deb Roy, Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert, and Elizabeth Povinelli have written some “classics” and they track the history/historiography of US/European scientific institutions and their origins in extraction, plantations, race/slavery, etc.

Two articles I��d recommend as a summary/primer:

Zaheer Baber. “The Plants of Empire: Botanic Gardens, Colonial Power and Botanical Knowledge.” Journal of Contemporary Asia. May 2016.

Kathryn Yusoff. “The Inhumanities.” Annals of the American Association of Geographers. 2020.

Then probably:

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. 2023.

Sharae Deckard. “Paradise Discourse, Imperialism, and Globalization: Exploiting Eden.” 2010. (Chornological overview of development of knowledge/institutions in relationship with race, slavery, profit as European empires encountered new lands and peoples.)

Gregg Mitman. “Forgotten Paths of Empire: Ecology, Disease, and Commerce in the Making of Liberia’s Plantation Economy.” Environmental History. 2017, (Interesting case study. US corporations were building fruit plantations in Latin America and rubber plantations in West Africa during the 1920s. Medical doctors, researchers, and academics made a strong alliance these corporations to advance their careers and solidify their institutions. By 1914, the director of Harvard’s Department of Tropical Medicine was also simultaneously the director of the Laboratories of the Hospitals of the United Fruit Company, which infamously and brutally occupied Central America. This same Harvard doctor was also a shareholder in rubber plantations, and had a close personal relationship with the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, which occupied West Africa.)

Elizabeth DeLoughrey. “Globalizing the Routes of Breadfruit and Other Bounties.”  2008. (Case study of how British wealth and industrial development built on botany. Examines Joseph Banks; Kew Gardens; breadfruit; British fear of labor revolts; and the simultaneous colonizing of the Caribbean and the South Pacific.)

Elizabeth DeLoughrey. “Satellite Planetarity and the Ends of the Earth.” 2014. (Indigenous knowledge systems; “nuclear colonialism”; US empire in the Pacific; space/satellites; the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.)

Fahim Amir. “Cloudy Swords.” e-flux Journal #115, February 2021. (”Pest control”; termites; mosquitoes; fear of malaria and other diseases during German colonization of Africa and US occupations of Panama and the wider Caribbean; origins of some US institutions and the evolution of these institutions into colonial, nationalist, and then NGO forms over twentieth century.)

Some of the earlier generalist classic books that explicitly looked at science as a weapon of empires:

Schiebinger’s Plants and Empire: Colonial Bioprospecting in the Atlantic World; Delbourgo’s and Dew’s Science and Empire in the Atlantic World; the anthology Colonial Botany: Science, Commerce, and Politics in the Early Modern World; Canzares-Esquerra’s Nature, Empire, and Nation: Explorations of the History of Science in the Iberian World.

One of the quintessential case studies of science in the service of empire is the British pursuit of quinine and the inoculation of their soldiers and colonial administrators to safeguard against malaria in Africa, India, and Southeast Asia at the height of their power. But there are so many other exemplary cases: Britain trying to domesticate and transplant breadfruit from the South Pacific to the Caribbean to feed laborers to prevent slave uprisings during the age of the Haitian Revolution. British colonial administrators smuggling knowledge of tea cultivation out of China in order to set up tea plantations in Assam. Eugenics, race science, biological essentialism, etc. in the early twentieth century. With my interests, my little corner of exposure/experience has to do mostly with conceptions of space/place; interspecies/multispecies relationships; borderlands and frontiers; Caribbean; Latin America; islands. So, a lot of these recs are focused there. But someone else would have better recs, especially depending on your interests. For example, Chakrabarti writes about history of medicine/healthcare. Paravisini-Gebert about extinction and Caribbean relationship to animals/landscape. Deb Roy focuses on insects and colonial administration in South Asia. Some scholars focus on the historiography and chronological trajectory of “modernity” or “botany” or “universities/academia,”, while some focus on Early Modern Spain or Victorian Britain or twentieth-century United States by region. With so much to cover, that’s why I’d recommend the articles above, since they’re kinda like overviews.Generally I read more from articles, essays, and anthologies, rather than full-length books.

Some other nice articles:

(On my blog, I’ve got excerpts from all of these articles/essays, if you want to search for or read them.)

Katherine McKittrick. “Dear April: The Aesthetics of Black Miscellanea.” Antipode. First published September 2021.

Katherine McKittrick. “Plantation Futures.” Small Axe. 2013.

Antonio Lafuente and Nuria Valverde. “Linnaean Botany and Spanish Imperial Biopolitics.” A chapter in: Colonial Botany: Science, Commerce, and Politics in the Early Modern World. 2004.

Kathleen Susan Murphy. “A Slaving Surgeon’s Collection: The Pursuit of Natural History through the British Slave Trade to Spanish America.” 2019. And also: “The Slave Trade and Natural Science.” In: Oxford Bibliographies in Atlantic History. 2016.

Timothy J. Yamamura. “Fictions of Science, American Orientalism, and the Alien/Asian of Percival Lowell.” 2017.

Elizabeth Bentley. “Between Extinction and Dispossession: A Rhetorical Historiography of the Last Palestinian Crocodile (1870-1935).” 2021.

Pratik Chakrabarti. “Gondwana and the Politics of Deep Past.” Past & Present 242:1. 2019.

Jonathan Saha. “Colonizing elephants: animal agency, undead capital and imperial science in British Burma.” BJHS Themes. British Society for the History of Science. 2017.

Zoe Chadwick. “Perilous plants, botanical monsters, and (reverse) imperialism in fin-de-siecle literature.” The Victorianist: BAVS Postgraduates. 2017.

Dante Furioso: “Sanitary Imperialism.” Jeremy Lee Wolin: “The Finest Immigration Station in the World.” Serubiri Moses. “A Useful Landscape.” Andrew Herscher and Ana Maria Leon. “At the Border of Decolonization.” All from e-flux.

William Voinot-Baron. “Inescapable Temporalities: Chinook Salmon and the Non-Sovereignty of Co-Management in Southwest Alaska.” 2019.

Rohan Deb Roy. “White ants, empire, and entomo-politics in South Asia.” The Historical Journal. 2 October 2019.  

Rohan Deb Roy. “Introduction: Nonhuman Empires.” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 35 (1). May 2015.

Lawrence H. Kessler. “Entomology and Empire: Settler Colonial Science  and the Campaign for Hawaiian Annexation.” Arcadia (Spring 2017).

Sasha Litvintseva and Beny Wagner. “Monster as Medium: Experiments in Perception in Early Modern Science and Film.” e-flux. March 2021.

Lesley Green. “The Changing of the Gods of Reason: Cecil John Rhodes, Karoo Fracking, and the Decolonizing of the Anthropocene.” e-flux Journal Issue #65. May 2015.

Martin Mahony. “The Enemy is Nature: Military Machines and Technological Bricolage in Britain’s ‘Great Agricultural Experiment.’“ Environment and Society Portal, Arcadia. Spring 2021. 

Anna Boswell. “Anamorphic Ecology, or the Return of the Possum.” 2018. And; “Climates of Change: A Tuatara’s-Eye View.”2020. And: “Settler Sanctuaries and the Stoat-Free State." 2017.

Katherine Arnold. “Hydnora Africana: The ‘Hieroglyphic Key’ to Plant Parasitism.” Journal of the History of Ideas - JHI Blog - Dispatches from the Archives. 21 July 2021.

Helen F. Wilson. “Contact zones: Multispecies scholarship through Imperial Eyes.” Environment and Planning. July 2019.

Tom Brooking and Eric Pawson. “Silences of Grass: Retrieving the Role of Pasture Plants in the Development of New Zealand and the British Empire.” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History. August 2007.

Kirsten Greer. “Zoogeography and imperial defence: Tracing the contours of the Neactic region in  the temperate North Atlantic, 1838-1880s.” Geoforum Volume 65. October 2015. And: “Geopolitics and the Avian Imperial Archive: The Zoogeography of Region-Making in the Nineteenth-Century British Mediterranean.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers. 2013,

Marco Chivalan Carrillo and Silvia Posocco. “Against Extraction in Guatemala: Multispecies Strategies in Vampiric Times.” International Journal of Postcolonial Studies. April 2020.

Laura Rademaker. “60,000 years is not forever: ‘time revolutions’ and Indigenous pasts.” Postcolonial Studies. September 2021.

Paulo Tavares. “The Geological Imperative: On the Political Ecology of the Amazon’s Deep History.” Architecture in the Anthropocene. Edited by Etienne Turpin. 2013.

Kathryn Yusoff. “Geologic Realism: On the Beach of Geologic Time.” Social Text. 2019. And: “The Anthropocene and Geographies of Geopower.” Handbook on the Geographies of Power. 2018. And: “Climates of sight: Mistaken visbilities, mirages and ‘seeing beyond’ in Antarctica.” In: High Places: Cultural Geographies of Mountains, Ice and Science. 2008. And:“Geosocial Formations and the Anthropocene.” 2017. And: “An Interview with Elizabeth Grosz: Geopower, Inhumanism and the Biopolitical.” 2017.

Mara Dicenta. “The Beavercene: Eradication and Settler-Colonialism in Tierra del Fuego.” Arcadia. Spring 2020.

And then here are some books:

Frontiers of Science: Imperialism and Natural Knowledge in the Gulf South Borderlands, 1500-1850 (Cameron B. Strang); Plants and Empire: Colonial Bioprospecting in the Atlantic World (Londa Schiebinger, 2004);

Africa as a Living Laboratory: Empire, Development, and the Problem of Scientific Knowledge, 1870-1950 (Helen Tilley, 2011); Colonizing Animals: Interspecies Empire in Myanmar (Jonathan Saha); Fluid Geographies: Water, Science and Settler Colonialism in New Mexico (K. Maria D. Lane, 2024);  Geopolitics, Culture, and the Scientific Imaginary in Latin America (Edited by del Pilar Blanco and Page, 2020)

Red Coats and Wild Birds: How Military Ornithologists and Migrant Birds Shaped Empire (Kirsten A. Greer); The Black Geographic: Praxis, Resistance, Futurity (Hawthorne and Lewis, 2022); Fugitive Science: Empiricism and Freedom in Early African American Culture (Britt Rusert, 2017)

The Empirical Empire: Spanish Colonial Rule and the Politics of Knowledge (Arndt Brendecke, 2016); In the Museum of Man: Race, Anthropology, and Empire in France, 1850-1960 (Alice Conklin, 2013); Unfreezing the Arctic: Science, Colonialism, and the Transformation of Inuit Lands (Andrew Stuhl)

Anglo-European Science and the Rhetoric of Empire: Malaria, Opium, and British Rule in India, 1756-1895 (Paul Winther); Peoples on Parade: Exhibitions, Empire, and Anthropology in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Sadiah Qureshi, 2011); Practical Matter: Newton’s Science in the Service of Industry and Empire, 1687-1851 (Margaret Jacob and Larry Stewart)

Pasteur’s Empire: Bacteriology and Politics in France, Its Colonies, and the World (Aro Velmet, 2022); Medicine and Empire, 1600-1960 (Pratik Chakrabarti, 2014); Colonial Geography: Race and Space in German East Africa, 1884-1905 (Matthew Unangst, 2022);

The Nature of German Imperialism: Conservation and the Politics of Wildlife in Colonial East Africa (Bernhard Gissibl, 2019); Curious Encounters: Voyaging, Collecting, and Making Knowledge in the Long Eighteenth Century (Edited by Adriana Craciun and Mary Terrall, 2019)

The Ends of Paradise: Race, Extraction, and the Struggle for Black Life in Honduras (Chirstopher A. Loperena, 2022); Mining Language: Racial Thinking, Indigenous Knowledge, and Colonial Metallurgy in the Early Modern Iberian World (Allison Bigelow, 2020); The Herds Shot Round the World: Native Breeds and the British Empire, 1800-1900 (Rebecca J.H. Woods); American Tropics: The Caribbean Roots of Biodiversity Science (Megan Raby, 2017); Producing Mayaland: Colonial Legacies, Urbanization, and the Unfolding of Global Capitalism (Claudia Fonseca Alfaro, 2023); Unnsettling Utopia: The Making and Unmaking of French India (Jessica Namakkal, 2021)

Domingos Alvares, African Healing, and the Intellectual History of the Atlantic World (James Sweet, 2011); A Temperate Empire: Making Climate Change in Early America (Anya Zilberstein, 2016); Educating the Empire: American Teachers and Contested Colonization in the Philippines (Sarah Steinbock-Pratt, 2019); Soundings and Crossings: Doing Science at Sea, 1800-1970 (Edited by Anderson, Rozwadowski, et al, 2016)

Possessing Polynesians: The Science of Settler Colonial Whiteness in Hawai’i and Oceania (Maile Arvin); Overcoming Niagara: Canals, Commerce, and Tourism in the Niagara-Great Lakes Borderland Region, 1792-1837 (Janet Dorothy Larkin, 2018); A Great and Rising Nation: Naval Exploration and Global Empire in the Early US Republic (Michael A. Verney, 2022)

Visible Empire: Botanical Expeditions and Visual Culture in the Hispanic Enlightenment (Daniela Cleichmar, 2012); Tea Environments and Plantation Culture: Imperial Disarray in Eastern India (Arnab Dey, 2022); Drugs on the Page: Pharmacopoeias and Healing Knowledge in the Early Modern Atlantic World (Edited by Crawford and Gabriel, 2019)

Cooling the Tropics: Ice, Indigeneity, and Hawaiian Refreshment (Hi’ilei Kawehipuaakahaopulani Hobart, 2022); In Asian Waters: Oceanic Worlds from Yemen to Yokkohama (Eric Tagliacozzo); Yellow Fever, Race, and Ecology in Nineteenth-Century New Orleans (Urmi Engineer Willoughby, 2017); Turning Land into Capital: Development and Dispossession in the Mekong Region (Edited by Hirsch, et al, 2022); Mining the Borderlands: Industry, Capital, and the Emergence of Engineers in the Southwest Territories, 1855-1910 (Sarah E.M. Grossman, 2018)

Knowing Manchuria: Environments, the Senses, and Natural Knowledge on an Asian Borderland (Ruth Rogaski); Colonial Fantasies, Imperial Realities: Race Science and the Making of Polishness on the Fringes of the German Empire, 1840-1920 (Lenny A. Urena Valerio); Against the Map: The Politics of Geography in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Adam Sills, 2021)

Under Osman’s Tree: The Ottoman Empire, Egypt, and Environmental History (Alan Mikhail, 2017); Imperial Nature: Joseph Hooker and the Practices of Victorian Science (Jim Endersby); Proving Grounds: Militarized Landscapes, Weapons Testing, and the Environmental Impact of U.S. Bases (Edited by Edwin Martini, 2015)

Colonial Botany: Science, Commerce, and Politics in the Early Modern World (Multiple authors, 2007); Space in the Tropics: From Convicts to Rockets in French Guiana (Peter Redfield); Seeds of Empire: Cotton, Slavery, and the Transformation of the Texas Borderlands, 1800-1850 (Andrew Togert, 2015); Dust Bowls of Empire: Imperialism, Environmental Politics, and the Injustice of ‘Green’ Capitalism (Hannah Holleman, 2016); Postnormal Conservation: Botanic Gardens and the Reordering of Biodiversity Governance (Katja Grotzner Neves, 2019)

Botanical Entanglements: Women, Natural Science, and the Arts in Eighteenth-Century England (Anna K. Sagal, 2022); The Platypus and the Mermaid and Other Figments of the Classifying Imagination (Harriet Ritvo); Rubber and the Making of Vietnam: An Ecological History, 1897-1975 (Michitake Aso); A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None (Kathryn Yusoff, 2018); Staple Security: Bread and Wheat in Egypt (Jessica Barnes, 2023); No Wood, No Kingdom: Political Ecology in the English Atlantic (Keith Pluymers); Planting Empire, Cultivating Subjects: British Malaya, 1768-1941 (Lynn Hollen Lees, 2017); Fish, Law, and Colonialism: The Legal Capture of Salmon in British Columbia (Douglas C. Harris, 2001); Everywhen: Australia and the Language of Deep Time (Edited by Ann McGrath, Laura Rademaker, and Jakelin Troy)

Subject Matter: Technology, the Body, and Science on the Anglo-American Frontier, 1500-1676 (Joyce Chaplin, 2001); Mapping the Amazon: The Making and Unmaking of French India (Jessica Namakkal, 2021)

American Lucifers: The Dark History of Artificial Light, 1750-1865 (Jeremy Zallen); Ruling Minds: Psychology in the British Empire (Erik Linstrum, 2016); Lakes and Empires in Macedonian History: Contesting the Water (James Pettifer and Mirancda Vickers, 2021); Inscriptions of Nature: Geology and the Naturalization of Antiquity (Pratik Chakrabarti); Seeds of Control: Japan’s Empire of Forestry in Colonial Korea (David Fedman)

Do Glaciers Listen?: Local Knowledge, Colonial Encounters, and Social Imagination (Julie Cruikshank); The Fishmeal Revolution: The Industrialization of the Humboldt Current Ecosystem (Kristin A. Wintersteen, 2021); The Earth on Show: Fossils and the Poetics of Popular Science, 1802-1856 (Ralph O’Connor); An Imperial Disaster: The Bengal Cyclone of 1876 (Benjamin Kingsbury, 2018); Geographies of City Science: Urban Life and Origin Debates in Late Victorian Dublin (Tanya O’Sullivan, 2019)

American Hegemony and the Postwar Reconstruction of Science in Europe (John Krige, 2006); Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Race and the Intimate in Colonial Rule (Ann Laura Stoler, 2002); Rivers of the Sultan: The Tigris and Euphrates in the Ottoman Empire (Faisal H. Husain, 2021)

The Sanitation of Brazil: Nation, State, and Public Health, 1889-1930 (Gilberto Hochman, 2016); The Imperial Security State: British Colonial Knowledge and Empire-Building in Asia (James Hevia); Japan’s Empire of Birds: Aristocrats, Anglo-Americans, and Transwar Ornithology (Annika A. Culver, 2022)

Moral Ecology of a Forest: The Nature Industry and Maya Post-Conservation (Jose E. Martinez, 2021); Sound Relations: Native Ways of Doing Music History in Alaska (Jessica Bissette Perea, 2021); Citizens and Rulers of the World: The American Child and the Cartographic Pedagogies of Empire (Mashid Mayar); Anthropology and Antihumanism in Imperial Germany (Andrew Zimmerman, 2001)

The Botany of Empire in the Long Eighteenth Century (Multiple authors, 2016); The Nature of Slavery: Environment and Plantation Labor in the Anglo-Atlantic World (Katherine Johnston, 2022); Seeking the American Tropics: South Florida’s Early Naturalists (James A. Kushlan, 2020)

The Colonial Life of Pharmaceuticals: Medicines and Modernity in Vietnam (Laurence Monnais); Quinoa: Food Politics and Agrarian Life in the Andean Highlands (Linda J. Seligmann, 2023) ; Critical Animal Geographies: Politics, intersections and hierarchies in a multispecies world (Edited by Kathryn Gillespie and Rosemary-Claire Collard, 2017); Spawning Modern Fish: Transnational Comparison in the Making of Japanese Salmon (Heather Ann Swanson, 2022); Imperial Visions: Nationalist Imagination and Geographical Expansion in the Russian Far East, 1840-1865 (Mark Bassin, 2000); The Usufructuary Ethos: Power, Politics, and Environment in the Long Eighteenth Century (Erin Drew, 2022)

Intimate Eating: Racialized Spaces and Radical Futures (Anita Mannur, 2022); On the Frontiers of the Indian Ocean World: A History of Lake Tanganyika, 1830-1890 (Philip Gooding, 2022); All Things Harmless, Useful, and Ornamental: Environmental Transformation Through Species Acclimitization, from Colonial Australia to the World (Pete Minard, 2019)

Visions of Nature: How Landscape Photography Shaped Setller Colonialism (Jarrod Hore, 2022); Timber and Forestry in Qing China: Sustaining the Market (Meng Zhang, 2021); The World and All the Things upon It: Native Hawaiian Geographies of Exploration (David A. Chang);

Deep Cut: Science, Power, and the Unbuilt Interoceanic Canal (Christine Keiner); Writing the New World: The Politics of Natural History in the Early Spanish Empire (Mauro Jose Caraccioli); Two Years below the Horn: Operation Tabarin, Field Science, and Antarctic Sovereignty, 1944-1946 (Andrew Taylor, 2017); Mapping Water in Dominica: Enslavement and Environment under Colonialism (Mark W. Hauser, 2021)

To Master the Boundless Sea: The US Navy, the Marine Environment, and the Cartography of Empire (Jason Smith, 2018); Fir and Empire: The Transformation of Forests in Early Modern China (Ian Matthew Miller, 2020); Breeds of Empire: The ‘Invention’ of the Horse in Southeast Asia and Southern Africa 1500-1950 (Sandra Swart and Greg Bankoff, 2007)

Science on the Roof of the World: Empire and the Remaking of the Himalaya (Lachlan Fleetwood, 2022); Cattle Colonialism: An Environmental History of the Conquest of California and Hawai’i (John Ryan Fisher, 2017); Imperial Creatures: Humans and Other Animals in Colonial Singapore, 1819-1942 (Timothy P. Barnard, 2019)

An Ecology of Knowledges: Fear, Love, and Technoscience in Guatemalan Forest Conservation (Micha Rahder, 2020); Empire and Ecology in the Bengal Delta: The Making of Calcutta (Debjani Bhattacharyya, 2018);  Imperial Bodies in London: Empire, Mobility, and the Making of British Medicine, 1880-1914 (Kristen Hussey, 2021)

Biotic Borders: Transpacific Plant and Insect Migration and the Rise of Anti-Asian Racism in America, 1890-1950 (Jeannie N. Shinozuka); Coral Empire: Underwater Oceans, Colonial Tropics, Visual Modernity (Ann Elias, 2019); Hunting Africa: British Sport, African Knowledge and the Nature of Empire (Angela Thompsell, 2015)

[kaurwreck]

not to be back on my shit but fyodor hasn't used the one order yet, and I still don't think he can. fukuchi programmed it to respond to fukuzawa. if fukuzawa used it too immediately, everyone beneath his authority would lose their autonomy; the agency is a guerilla force, they encircle like in go, they don't rigidly advance like in chess.

fukuzawa's skill is such that he grants his litter independence through self possession of their skills. so it's against his nature to use the one order where his unruly kittens might be caught in its influence. it's also impractical: he canonically does not have a devious nature + he is their pillar so that they can wreak havoc. commanding them is liable to kill them.

but! ranpo says in chapter 92 that all they need to win is to stop fukuchi from receiving the one order.

this was a thousand years ago, and so much has happened, but ranpo doesn't condition their solution path. if they can just stop the enemy from receiving the one order, they win, hard stop. in game theory, a dominant strategy is a strategy that is better than any other strategy for one player, no matter how that player's opponent will play.

I mentioned that the agency plays go above. go is super technical, but essentially: the goal is to control more of the board than your opponent by surrounding vacant spaces with your stones. Connecting stones keeps them secure, so an important offensive tactic is to prevent the opponent from connecting their stones while at the same time keeping one's own stones connected. 

Fukuzawa secured the One Order, and thus the military. Bram had to "die" or otherwise be cut from his kin; he can't control the vampires if someone else has the seal/holy sword. He died, his kin were released, removing the vampires from Fyodor's disposal. Akutagawa and Bram seem to be tossing control over Akutagawa's body back and forth, based on their dialogue and Akutagawa's clear eyes when Bram "died." This is relevant because Bram can't be killed by ordinary means, and Akutagawa has an immensely powerful offensive skill. The armor, sword, and shield ensure that Bram has a weapon in hand when Akutagawa relinquishes his will and thus Rashomon, and Akutagawa, who is weaker and does best at mid range, isn't immediately cut down at such close range. Fyodor is wholly ignorant of any of this.

(In other words, it was Akutagawa who cut Fukuchi's hand before he could behead Atsushi since Rashomon struck.)

Since Bram released his kin, Mori likely just had the entire Port Mafia returned to him.

Aya's dad was at the airport, but we haven't seen him; she was there to bring him an item he'd forgotten. He's a cop with some form of leadership position based on Aya's mental image of him, so he is likely somewhere on the board coordinating relief.

Francis is watching, and he and Louisa are connected with a group that Francis seemed to deploy in his most recent scene. They have helicopters on scene, so they're monitoring the airspace.

Chuuya and Dazai are in France. They are in Europe. Ranpo called Europe the center of skill warfare and that if the UK, Germany, and France were to mobilize, they could reign in the global vampirism outbreak within six months. Chuuya and Dazai are the most equipped to coordinate Europe, even with only the two of them. Skills can't touch Dazai, and Dazai can nullify the ones aimed at Japan, and Chuuya can become a nuclear bomb black hole. (Also, Adam!) In other words, they can petition Europe to mobilize rather than incinerate the shit out Yokohama, and although they're alone, they're nearly unkillable. If they can wake up Sigma, then Sigma would be an invaluable resource for negotiating with the Europeans. He can give them information while receiving the same from them, a mutual enough exchange to maintain their shared interests, but none of the information he has to give would compromise the Port Mafia or Agency since he's an outsider.

Fukuzawa ordered Atsushi to run. It was an order Atsushi understood, I'm not sure if we're privy to the details. Not from the airport— the other Agency members were a weaker group, but Atsushi can't be lost because he's nigh unkillable and can likely kill Fyodor. Kunikida signaled Atsushi with two flares. His arms were raised; instead of protecting himself, he called Atsushi. He might have also called Bram (and thus Akutagawa) since Bram and Ranpo spoke prior to Fyodor bursting on scene. In other words, they sacrificed a plum to save the peach tree — Kunikida and Junichiro were taken, but they connected Akutagawa, Atsushi, and Bram. Fyodor tried to leave, but Fukuzawa was there, prepared to block his path. This is appropriate: Fyodor is physically weaker, so is Fukuzawa. The deuteragonists can handle god, Fukuzawa can prevent Fyodor from absconding while the other groups close in.

(Also, for whatever it's worth, anyone liquefied and currently swirling in Fukuchi's closed space is almost surely only unsettled, not dead. It's a fundamental principle in fluid mechanics that a the total mass of a fluid within a closed system remains constant, meaning that no matter how the fluid flows or changes form, the total amount of mass stays the same; it can neither be created nor destroyed, only rearranged within the system.)

anyway! all of this to say: Fyodor thought he was playing 4d chess, but it's go. now a little sun tzu, as a treat:

If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.

Atsushi isn't passive, but he's scarcely raised a hand to defend himself or fight. He agitated Fyodor by pleading and clinging and despairing, thereby ensuring Fyodor would reject him. They are keeping Fyodor from leaving; Akutagawa did not come until others had gone, maintaining the illusion that they are the smaller, more exposed force.

It would be very funny if Poe booksnatched him; Meursault pt. 2, but without his skill, and while making him deliriously angry.

Maybe that's why Atsushi and Akutagawa were the only ones remaining in the S5 finale.

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

🔴 Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine exalts the great national Arab leader, the Secretary-General of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, who passed on Friday 27/9/2024, as a result of a treacherous zionist raid on the southern suburb of Beirut after he carried out his duties of struggle toward our Arab nation in defense of Lebanon and Palestine.

The banner of resistance will not be broken, and the martyrdom of the Master of Resistance marks the beginning of a new phase of greater strength and determination to continue on the same path.

The Popular Front mourns the Master of Resistance, the Secretary-General of Hezbollah, and a group of Hezbollah's brave leaders, martyrs on the path to Al-Quds.

In the name of its Secretary-General, his deputy, its Political Bureau, Central Committee, and all its cadres and members at home and in the diaspora, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine mourns to our people, the nation, the Axis of Resistance, and the liberation movement, the leader of the resistance, the master of martyrs, and the inspiration of an entire generation, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah "Abu Hadi," the Secretary-General of Lebanese Hezbollah, and a group of heroic leaders of the resistance who were martyred in a cowardly zionist assassination in the southern suburb of Beirut, coordinated and planned with the criminal American enemy.

The Front expresses its deep solidarity with the brothers in Hezbollah—leadership, cadres, and fighters—and the Lebanese people, and the Axis of Resistance, in this great and significant loss. We send them a clear message: Your wound is our wound, the blood of your leaders is our blood, and the martyrdom of the Master of Resistance, Hassan Nasrallah, represents the beginning of a new phase of resistance, more powerful and determined to continue on the same path.

Palestine, Lebanon, the entire nation, and indeed the global liberation movement have lost an exceptional leader and a symbol of Arab and revolutionary resistance worldwide. The great martyr was a unique leadership figure in every sense of the word, enjoying a high stature in the struggle against occupation and the American enemy. He was distinguished by his steadfast positions supporting the rights of Arab peoples, foremost among them the Palestinian cause. He was characterized by rare courage in facing threats and by political acumen that enabled him to anticipate regional and international developments, making him capable of dealing with the most complex challenges that faced the resistance, whether militarily or politically. He had clear fingerprints on the victories achieved by the resistance in Lebanon, foremost among them the July victory and the expulsion of the zionist occupation from southern Lebanon in 2000.

The great martyr dedicated his life to serving the cause of resistance, sacrificing the precious and dear, most notably the loss of his eldest son, Hadi, who was martyred in a heroic battle against the occupation, setting an exemplary model in sacrifice and loyalty to the cause.

The impact of martyr Nasrallah was not limited to the Lebanese arena alone but transcended borders to become a symbol of resistance throughout the region and a pivotal leader in supporting Palestinian resistance factions, providing them with all the logistical support, military training, and weapons they needed. His historic decision to support the resistance in Gaza during the Al-Aqsa Flood battle had a great impact in enhancing the capabilities of the Palestinian resistance. Since the founding of Hezbollah, the Palestinian cause was strongly present in its doctrine, and the martyr always emphasized that the liberation of Al-Quds is a legal and moral duty. Through his role in developing the party's arsenal of advanced rockets and weapons, he managed to create a balance of horror with the zionist entity, contributing to protecting Lebanon from repeated attacks.

The Master of Resistance departed to join his fellow martyrs, never abandoning his position in the front lines, resisting until the last moment. While we today feel the bitterness of loss, we stand tall in facing this enemy who thought that targeting the leaders of the resistance, foremost among them the great martyr Hassan Nasrallah and his fellow leaders, would break the will of the resistance.

The martyrdom of the Master of Resistance represents a grave loss, but it will not weaken the resolve of the resistance nor diminish its determination; on the contrary, the ranks of the resistance in Lebanon and everywhere will increase in insistence on continuing the confrontation with this tyrannical enemy who understands only the language of force. The blood of these martyrs will form new fuel for the fire of resistance, which will not die down until the liberation of Palestine and all occupied Arab lands.

We pledge to the martyr leader and all the free resistance fighters that the response to this zionist crime will be commensurate with the crime itself. The resistance continues, stronger and more united on all fronts of support like one body, armed with the will of the peoples and their rallying around the legitimate option of resistance in defending our occupied lands and our dignity until achieving victory over this usurping zionist entity and its allies and agents in the region.

Glory and eternity to the soul of the martyr leader and the martyr leaders, and we will certainly be victorious.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine

Political Bureau

28 September 2024

[reality-detective]

ALERT! Antarctica’s Hidden Labs EXPOSED: Elite Trafficking Humans for Brutal Mind Control Experiments and Total Mass Control!

Antarctica is the epicenter of a dark global agenda, more sinister than anyone imagined. Beneath the ice lies a network of underground facilities where the world’s elites conduct mass manipulation, human trafficking, and experiments beyond comprehension. The public is misled to believe Antarctica is an untouched wilderness. But it’s a smokescreen. Access is restricted to protect secret projects, guarded not by scientists, but military forces from multiple nations working together.

These hidden labs are testing technologies meant to control human behavior on a global scale. Psychological warfare tools perfected over years are ready for use, designed to influence thoughts and emotions invisibly. But the most chilling aspect? Thousands of trafficked people, especially children, are taken to Antarctica as subjects for the elites’ disturbing experiments, with many never seen again. It’s a modern black site, where human minds and bodies are exploited to create a system of absolute control.

These brutal tests push psychological limits, using sensory deprivation, chemicals, and electromagnetic tools to break human will, creating obedient, mindless subjects. The agenda is global—methods designed to manipulate mass populations, keeping them unaware of their loss of freedom. Advanced psychotronic weapons are capable of influencing emotions, planting thoughts, and even erasing memories.

Proof of this manipulation is all around us, as the world becomes distracted, manipulated, and divided. Media, entertainment, and politics are weaponized to keep us blind to the real agenda in Antarctica.

In addition to psychological control, these facilities conduct horrific medical trials. Human subjects are used in deadly experiments with unknown pathogens, while others endure chemical exposure to test mass control or sterilization methods. Certain populations are targeted, deemed expendable, as the elites perfect techniques to reduce the global population without uprising.

Antarctica’s dark role goes deeper. It’s a hub in a global trafficking network, fueling black markets worldwide. Vulnerable people vanish, trafficked into a frozen wasteland, used as fuel for brutal experimentation and energy extraction. The elites have discovered how to harness psychic energy from extreme fear, using it to power their technology in ways unimaginable.

Shielded by the world’s most powerful governments, these Antarctic facilities operate with impunity. Whistleblowers, journalists, and researchers who get too close are silenced or worse. In 2024, the elites are moving fast. The tech is nearly perfected, the experiments refined, and the next phase of global control is about to go live. 🤔