#militarised

[oilith]

My Head cannon for the Clawthorne sisters: They're both talented even in their teens and both think the other is the genius teen prodigy. Hear me out:

Lilith is actually a prodigy in terms of academic level. She learned to do spells in the first few tries. We can see this talent when Luz teaches them glyphs. She impressed Luz with multiple ice sculptures while Eda could only make small ice balls. She thinks Eda is the genius teen prodigy because Eda has more raw power than her in magic as seen in their fight. Thus, Lilith focused on being "sharp and crafty" as she puts it.

Eda is the prodigy in the practical sense. We saw her raw power during her fight against Lilith. We saw her survive Terra's challenge when she was young. She taught herself wild magic too. Now here's the fun part: Deep down, She thinks that Lilith is the genius teen prodigy because she saw Lilith perform spells after learning once or twice which motivates Eda to learn more spells especially wild magic (Let's be honest: I'm sure the emperor's coven sigil still seals some form of magic to avoid them getting too powerful for Belos) until Eda believes that she's "better than Lilith". These needs of trying to be better than Lilith resurfaced again on the day Luz teaches them glyphs.

Sorry for the long head cannon. Have fun with this information

This is interesting. I've always thought that they're sort of "opposites" in a way. Like you said too, Eda has raw power, but lacks in the techical area. Meanwhile Lilith, while she isn't as strong as Eda, she has the technical skills. Also, Lilith has the EC military training so it makes sense for her to be like that. It's basically something like an experienced street fighter against a military trained fighter. I really like the idea that both of them think the other is a prodigy, when in reality it's both lmao

[oifaaa]

The white knight universe really is something bc it has so many things I love like Robin Duke, red hood Jason with his own Robin, terry mcginnis, a cool as fuck art style and Bruce being questioned about if what he is doing is right plus holding himself accountable and then it's got things I absolutely hate like joker having children, cop dick grayson, the whole cops with batmobiles thing and Bruce and Harley quinn being a thing

[davrinassan]

i can’t stop thinking about that would you date irl bg3 origins poll and uh overthinking it

[communistkenobi]

I don’t know why but the uniforms in tng make their necks look very exposed

[elinaline]

[cadmusfly]

for my historical dead Frenchman magical girl au I was not brave enough to consider what if they were magical girls during the original napoleonic era and went for reincarnations

But. If I was brave enough to have them get magical girled during the original era. insert discord thonk face here

I should get back into drawing them and post the drawings I haven’t posted

[beeseverywhen]

"All political parties face a trade-off under a first-past-the-post electoral system. Governing depends on attracting a broad coalition of voters, inevitably involving compromises that leave a party’s base disgruntled.

So it is perhaps unsurprising that as we move closer to a general election, the discontent from the anti-Labour left who claim there is little to distinguish Keir Starmer from Rishi Sunak in the battle for the premiership is only getting noisier."

"The argument is threefold: there’s no meaningful difference between the Conservatives and Labour; Starmer supposedly can’t be trusted because he has dropped pledges he made in the 2020 leadership election to shift his party towards the centre; finally, the “Tories are toast” and Labour can’t lose, so disgruntled left voters can safely vote for other parties, such as the Greens.

With Labour so far ahead in the polls, the urge to debunk these sentiments may seem like an expression of paranoia. But all three aspects of this narrative are comprehensively wrong, including the reassurance that it is safe for anyone who would prefer a Labour government to vote for another party in Labour-Tory contests."

"But what this underplays is the number of Labour-Tory marginals where a relatively small vote for other left candidates could cost Labour a win. James Kanagasooriam, of the polling company Focaldata, has written about the “sandcastle” nature of Labour’s likely majority; his forecast is that there will be many more marginal seats in the 2024 parliament compared with 2019. If more than predicted numbers of those who voted Green in the locals decide they can afford to do so in the general election because Labour is so far ahead in national polls, that will boost the Conservatives.

Next up is the idea that Starmer’s dropping of some of his leadership pledges makes him dangerously untrustworthy. But this is the product of a system in which the tiny unrepresentative slice of the electorate that is a party membership pick their leader before voters choose their prime minister. Anyone hoping to be PM would have to shift position between a leadership selection and a general election: a Labour leader’s most important job is to connect with potential voters, not to coddle members with the comfort blanket of a policy platform such as the “free broadband for all” 2019 pledge that was roundly rejected.

Liz Truss provides a cautionary tale of what happens when a party leader seeks to impose a membership-endorsed platform on the country without a general election. For Starmer to have stuck to his 2020 leadership election pledges, instead of spending the past four years understanding voters, would have been fundamentally anti-democratic.

The most egregious aspect of the anti-Labour left argument is there isn’t much to choose between Starmer and Sunak. Yes, Labour’s “Ming vase” election strategy has seen it take a much more cautious fiscal approach than many of us would like: it has effectively adopted the Tory macroeconomic worldview and with it a set of spending constraints that no one sensible thinks either party could stick to in the wake of the election.

That is frustrating for anyone hoping this election campaign may illuminate some of the tough trade-offs facing Britain; but it would have been incredibly risky for one side to go it alone on this. The alternative is Labour walking into the trap and handing the Conservatives a “Labour tax bombshell” election campaign.

From a commitment to scrap the Rwanda plan to making clear that in an ideal world Labour would discard the two-child benefit cap, there are plenty of reasons that it is preposterous to think that a Starmer government would make the same trade-offs as successive Conservative governments that have financed billions of pounds worth of tax cuts for more affluent families by cutting tax credits and benefits for low-income parents. The six pledges Starmer launched two weeks ago may be incremental, but Labour needs voters to believe they are deliverable, and they are indicative of a very different set of priorities than those that animate Sunak."

"Starmer is not without weaknesses, as shown by the days he took to clarify an interview last October in which he gave the impression he thought Israel had the right to withhold power and food from Gaza. But there is no doubt whatsoever he would make a vastly more compassionate and competent prime minister than Sunak. To encourage people to put that outcome at risk by casting a protest vote against a Labour government that does not yet exist is perhaps the ultimate form of luxury belief campaigning."

[thoughtlessarse]

An Israeli drone company is proselytizing to American police departments about an autonomous drone system that can automatically launch police drones to fly to the sites of suspected crimes. One sheriff’s department in Louisiana has repeatedly tested the system, called Orion, which is already in use by the Israeli national police and, since October 7, many Israeli settlements, according to the company’s founder. Created by the Israeli company High Lander, Orion allows users to direct hundreds of drones at once by automating them to navigate and perform actions without user input. The software system turns drones into “next-generation security guards,” according to an Orion brochure. In February, High Lander held a demo event in Baton Rouge to showcase the “drone-in-a-box solution,” which the East Baton Rouge Sherrif’s Office first tested out last June. “The system will be a game changer for the fight against crime in Baton Rouge,” High Lander wrote in a LinkedIn post about the event, which was attended by officers from around the country. The company has used its pilot program in Louisiana to encourage other police agencies to check out Orion, and its February event in Louisiana was just one part of a tour that included stops in San Diego, Phoenix, and Miami, according to LinkedIn posts. Orion’s capabilities are startling. A police force could have drones automatically launch from charging stations when triggered by “events like gunshots, burglaries, and car accidents.” Once they deploy, the drones can perform pre-set tasks: releasing cargo; relaying live video feeds; identifying and searching for people, objects, or vehicles using AI and thermal sensors; and making announcements over loudspeaker. If the system gets multiple calls, Orion can automatically choose which to prioritize. A High Lander blog post about the project adds “new capabilities are being discovered all the time.” The East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office held “mock scenario testing” with High Lander’s system “approximately 5 times,” Casey Hicks, the department’s public information director, told The Intercept. Hicks added that the demos were conducted at the sheriff’s range facility and that they “are not aware of any use out in the community at any time.” High Lander did not respond to a request for comment.

continue reading

[ranger-kellyn]

looked at the global peace index to better read through the whole document, and honestly just laughing my ass off at the usa being 132/163

[mosswolf]

Shell is by far the largest foreign stakeholder in the Nigerian economy, owning 47 percent of the oil industry. Its joint venture partner in the petroleum business during Nigeria's most draconian years was the Abacha regime. Yet Shell representatives have repeatedly declared that they exercise no influence over Nigeria's rulers; Europe's largest oil corporation has thereby ducked behind the brutalities of its militaristic financial partners. Such an arrangement means that Shell and other foreign oil corporations can maintain their desired technological presence while, under cover of deference for national sovereignty, they continue to act as ethical absentees.

This arrangement has also enabled Shell to ignore appeals by the Ogoni, the Ijaw, the Ikwerre and other neighboring micro-minorities for a share of oil revenues, a measure of environmental self-determination, and economic redress for their devastated environment. For Shell, Chevron, and the other oil majors operating in the delta, these are internal, Nigerian matters that belong to a sovereign realm inaccessible to corporate influence. But the record suggests otherwise: Chevron, for example, has acknowledged transporting Nigerian forces to quell uprisings in the oil camps of Rivers State. Shell has imported arms for the Nigerian police, paid retainers to Nigerian military personnel, and made boats and helicopters available to them in assaults against protestors. This is all integral to what one former Shell scientist has dubbed "the militarization of commerce" - an apt designation, if ever there was one, of resource extraction procedures under neoliberalism across the global South.

slow violence and the environmentalism of the poor, rob nixon

[malewifehenrycooldown]

Anti-facism, anti-captialism, community action and class solidarity IN MY FAIRY TAIL?!Surprisingly much more likely than you think or remembered!

[carbone14]

Recrue militaire allemande au rapport devant un sergent – Berlin – Allemagne – 19 octobre 1936

©Bundesarchiv - Bild 183-S21437

[touchlikethesun]

why is the mobile game team giving them guns? i don’t think they should have guns i don’t trust them with guns- okay maybe i trust iwa with a gun w/e that says about me sue me if you wanna — but i really don’t trust suna with a sniper rifle (his aim is too good) and i EXTRA don’t trust hoshiumi with anyyyy kind of weapon wtf were they thinking?????

[thepixiediaries]

good to know that cops across the pond are also as evil /s

[apothekaries]

germany is turning into an autoritarian state as we're watching and the media are completely ignoring the police's power and violence. they are actively ignoring democratic rights and criminalizing activism goddamn even the UN issued a warning about that

[unhonestlymirror]

If real Latvia got isekaied to hetalia, I feel like, first of all, he would scare Belarus. a lot. Maybe promise to break russia's fingers before her eyes if she dares to touch Lithuania ever again.

Hetalia world would be a terrible blow for him - a world in which Lithuania says, "Mr. Russia" with fear, in which Belarus wants to marry russia, and Ukraine is blonde and stupid russia's sister (who also loves russia), in which Poland is stupid and capricious and doesn't care about his government and his people, in which Estonia is indifferent to all of that, and everyone behave like USSR never happened. But it did. A world in which russia is praised, in which russia is an axis power. A world in which Latvia is a "young nation." A world without history. A world in which Latvia can't rely on anyone.