Don’t worry, we’re bringing in a bunch of C-levels from AI companies and giving them Lt. Colonel rank so they can approve a “Move Fast And Break Things” approach to Pentagon IT investment.

I predict “billions over budget” will look absolutely quaint in another five years.

Also, incidentally, check out the ADE 651

A bunch of left-leaning Democrats in 2020: “We should abolish ICE. It does not appear to serve a useful purpose and is staffed with people hell bent on doing irreparable harm to the public.”

DC Leadership: “SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! You’re destroying America with your extremist Tankie pro-terrorist propaganda!”

A bunch of far-right eugenicists in 2024: “We should abolish FEMA. Natural disasters aren’t a big deal anyway and it’ll help thin the herd if only the strong are able to survive.”

DC Leadership: “Shrug Let’s put it to a vote.”

Rich White People: “Humans are simply incapable of self-governance. They are too violent, too prone to conflict, too hell bent on self-obliteration. I suppose we are doomed as a species to exterminate ourselves and all other life surrounding us.”

Every Other Socio-Economic Group: “STAHP! PLEASE STAHP!!!”

This is literally the argument behind our indefinite occupation of South Korea. We’ve been doing a limited policing action for over 70 years. And every two years, the Congress gets a chance to vote on the NDAA that authorizes us to continue deploying troops over there. Every two years, Congress gives it a big old rubber stamp.

Same with the Philippines. Same with Thailand. Same with Cuba. Same with Iraq. Same with… well… easier to just show the picture.

I asked Merrick Garland if Trump had done anything wrong and he just shrugged and said “There’s no way for us to know for sure so we didn’t want to take any chances by pressing charges.”

Four years later, I feel like he made the right call. Imagine if the Biden DOJ had actually tried to press charges on Trump. Just imagine… I think we can all agree that their prudence and restraint really helped the US dodge a bullet.

God damn, people. Didn’t masked ICE agents snatch the New York City Comptroller and the migrant who had showed up for a hearing from the center of a heavily policed immigration court? Did anyone on the NYPD try and stop them?

You can see a local police officer in the fucking headline image. He’s holding back the press and letting masked ICE agents do as thou wilt. If the local PD won’t stick their necks out for a municipal senior official, what are the odds they’re going to do it for you?

This, after a sitting US Senator was arrested during a press conference? Who are you fooling?

This post is advocating turning the state/local police against ICE, a federal agency.

More than 600 local police agencies are partnering with ICE: See if yours is one of them

Fascism is a subset of rightwing authoritarianism characterized by, among other things, the authoritarian leader enacting escalating persecution of an increasing number of people to back up their fascist rhetoric.

Saudi authorities have permitted the use of lethal force to clear land for a futuristic desert city being built by dozens of Western companies, an ex-intelligence officer has told the BBC.

What make me hesitant to call him a fascist is that, after he completed his takeover, he didn’t make up crises and go after minorities to keep power

He absolutely did. That was what the entire Chechnyan War was about. Plus his embrace of ethnic Russian social identity, which was the cause belli of the Donbas invasion. Also, the party’s pogrom against Muslims and the LGBTQ community.

Compare with Trump’s treatment of immigrants and you’ll see what I mean.

Xenophobic Crackdown on Central Asian Migrants. Harassment, Violence, New Restrictions Since Crocus Concert Hall Attack

No text. ASCII was a mistake. HTML is heresy.

But please consider how much worse things can get, and what barriers still remain between here and there.

The barriers are largely logistical. And I believe Trump’s allies in Silicon Valley are closing the gap between what they want and what they can practically achieve.

That it isn’t a crime to say “Free Palestine”

If you can be targeted, arrested, and deported for doing a thing, it is a crime in every way that matters.

I guess its nice they didn’t subject him to torture, indefinite detention, or summary execution. But given how many people are being sent to international black sites and concentration camps, that’s hardly a given.

The question isn’t whether things can get worse. The question is whether there are any avenues left for things to get better. I’m increasingly pessimistic, given the current state of play.

Then they’re commandos or special forces.

Sure, fair enough.

Its full but not cluttered and it looks cozy as fuck.

I guess we’re operating on different definitions of “cluttered”. Although, I’ll happily cede it looks cozy, I would be afraid to swing my elbows without knocking over something extremely rare and expensive.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company

it came to control vast territories and transportation networks in Central America, the Caribbean coast of Colombia, and the West Indies. Although it competed with the Standard Fruit Company (later Dole Food Company) for dominance in the international banana trade, it maintained a virtual monopoly in certain regions, some of which came to be called banana republics – such as Costa Rica, Honduras, and Guatemala.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic#Etymology

In the early 20th century, the United Fruit Company, a multinational corporation, was instrumental in the creation of the banana republic phenomenon. Together with other American corporations, such as the Cuyamel Fruit Company, and leveraging the power of the U.S. government, the corporations created the political, economic, and social circumstances that led to a coup of the locally elected democratic government that established banana republics in Central American countries such as Honduras and Guatemala; No official apology has ever been done by any banana company or the U.S. with only the C.I.A. backed dictator of Guatemala apologizing in 2011

:-|

They are so dependable on fossil fuel export that they try to sway all other nations to use fossil fuels

Ah, Okay. I think I understand the problem here.

So it doesn’t sound the like the local sheriffs are intentionally targeting people

I would be curious to know how ICE got access to the sheriffs’ systems. Whomever they’re contracting with needs to have it terminated yesterday, or they might as well be complicit.

Shortly thereafter, the two regents and their secretary were defenestrated, but they survived the 70-foot (21-metre) fall from the third floor. Catholics maintained the men were saved by angels or by the intercession of the Virgin Mary, who caught them; later Protestant pamphleteers asserted that they survived due to falling onto a dung heap, a story unknown to contemporaries and probably coined in response to divine intervention claims. Philip Fabricius was later ennobled by the Emperor and granted the title Baron von Hohenfall (literally ‘Baron of Highfall’)

Just make sure you do it right this time. Last thing we need is Eric Adams getting knighted.

Nothing wrong with protesting anonymously, just so long as you do it with a badge and a gun, and you’re “protesting” by snatching people off the street and throwing them into unmarked vans for deportation.

The study isn’t bs.

There’s a lot of “I’m childless and proud and how dare you suggest living in isolation and screaming at my computer screen all day has had any negative impact on my mental health. You’re just trying to trick me into breeding! A thing I became intensely averse to just recently, after spending 16 hours a day on incel forums full of reactionary influencers.”

So much of the knee-jerk ingrained responses online are indicative of people who have utterly lost the ability to think for themselves and are only capable of lashing out in defense of their latest favorite social media trend. Add in the artificial interactions created by bot accounts and people spamming content for self-promotion, and you’ve got a real recipe for mass psychosis.

In theory, we have the Third Space for that kind of socializing. Parks, plazas, union halls, club spaces and dance halls, churches, community centers, libraries…

In practice, they’ve been gradually privatized and monetized until everything is The Mall. If you don’t have $10 to spend for the hour, there’s nowhere you can legally so much as sit down. Hard to socialize on these terms.

My city decided to take its $7B budget and close a $330M shortfall by gutting parks, libraries, and other public amenities. Meanwhile, the police and fire departments are seeing a budget surge of over $100M.

Best thing about working from home is stepping away from my desk, popping upstairs, and tossing my little baby boy up in the air a few times while he giggles and smiles.

So much cheaper to just ask Grok what’s going on than to pay any kind of journalist staff.

The real Singularity in the modern tech sector is a race to achieve a company that can boast Zero Overhead while still achieving revenue growth year-over-year. Data mining and social media scrapping is one path towards that end. Just have random schlubs online do all the legwork for you and spend a few bucks on an AI model to compile and regurgitate the results into a saleable product.