ianford.bsky.social
Recent emigrant from the Other Place.
5,881 posts
1,210 followers
896 following
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Many seem to be carrying M16s (or some variant) which is the military version of the AR-15. Which fires 5.56mm high velocity rounds. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5.56%C3...
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Also: if I was a malign state, this might be the perfect time to instigate an international crisis knowing that the US is going to be consumed with domestic security.
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They can't have the resources to do this for any length of time. You could probably manage a show of strength for a short period of time.... but beyond that?
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Posh hobbits are basically smug 18th century Tory landowning aristocrats luxuriating in their stately homes watching the money come in and not thinking about all the "unpleasantness" happening in the rest of the world.
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Yeah - they have to be pushing it. The Bears are 1950s designs (even the Backfires are 50 years old) - they'll have been modernised, checked and updated but the airframes must be feeling the wear and tear. Particularly as they're being used so much.
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Always remember this short film from years ago about a Chinese guy who learns Irish and is freaked out when nobody understands what he's talking about.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=qA0a...
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The temptation will be for them to skimp on the maintenance and checks on the remaining aircraft because Putin wants to look tough - which will lead to problems. And the Tupolev's are *old* planes - they will probably need a lot of attention under normal circumstances.
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Just in case you don't know the background of the guy in the GIF - Sammy Wilson is an odious character.
bsky.app/profile/ianf...
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Colourful character to say the least: founder of paramilitary terrorist group in the 1980s, friend of gunrunners, enjoys ethic cleansing, climate-change denier, racist, bigot...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sammy_W...
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😲😲😲Sammy Wilson in a GIF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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That package makes one hell of a statement:
"No significant difference has been shown between milk derived from cows treated with artificial hormones and those not treated with artificial hormones."
😬😬😬
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😬😬😬😬Why would anybody even... 😱
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Interesting how all the hospital drama series don't seem to dwell on such... vegetable-based emergencies.
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A friend of mine in college was a trainee doctor and during his rotation in A&E he said he encountered a surprisingly large number of people with vegetable-related injuries of this nature.
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"What a fool I was! I was only a puppet, and so was Ulster, and so was Ireland, in the political game that was to get the Conservative Party into Power."
Edward Carson, 1921
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Similar to the authoritarian psychological con-trick: they are unstoppable, invincible, their victory is inevitable, all opposition is futile, you are weak and alone... so you should just give in to despair and don't even try to resist.
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Outsider suggestion: stop the deification of the founding fathers and treating the Constitution like some sort of holy document that can never be changed or updated to reflect contemporary realities. It all facilitates regarding the president as some sort of an untouchable god-king.
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Also China. And Canada probably.
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Weirdly it reminds me of this reactormag.com/most-citizen...
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Not everyone fell for the distraction sauce but enough did. This administration and the GOP for a while has only considered white "Christian" men to be Real Americans, so everyone else voting for them were selling themselves out. And now the bill is coming due.
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The most advanced toaster in the world was made in the 1940s - it produces a perfect slice of toast every single time. www.theverge.com/22801890/sun...
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In its place: an algorithmic chaos where every citizen is a broadcaster, every feed a battleground, and every truth contestable. We didn’t design for this. We didn’t adapt in time. And now the cracks are widening
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We built 20th-century democracies on the assumption that truth could be verified, public discourse could be deliberated, and those in power could be held accountable.
But the system those assumptions relied on, gatekeepers, shared facts, institutional trust, are in decline, and deservedly so.
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If we continue down this path, ignoring the collapse of shared reality, failing to rebuild the systems that stabilise truth, we will see democratic norms erode from the inside out.
Not in a single catastrophic moment, but in a thousand small compromises.
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Pet theory: Nixon secretly dreamed of marrying the Crown Prince of Monaco
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That is just asking for a coup.
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And all this time I thought that it was made from girders.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4Px...
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The Gendarmerie (France)/Carabinieri (in Italy) are a military police force within the Ministry of Defence. The Police National (Fr)/Polizia (It) are a civilian police force controlled by the Ministry of the Interior. Basic distinction is Gendarmes responsible for the country/Police for the cities.
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The answer to this is: no.
There is no dilemma.
The answer is no.
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Also fascism is a death cult and one of the deaths they're pushing is global death through climate change, so stopping fascism is stopping climate change
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killing the humanities so no one discusses the ethical implications of literally anything has really made american culture internalize that the smartest and wisest among us are those who can ignore their conscience for pragmatic gain
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Completely changed now. There are still problems and issues - sure. But the police there have transitioned from a heavily armed quasi-paramilitary force to a more normal police service. My point is that it change is possible if there is the political and public will.
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Used to live in Belfast during the Troubles - things were twitchy back then. The accepted response was to ignore the police/army doing their street gymnastics (squads ducking for cover in doorways and behind walls because of potential snipers etc). Just look through them as if they didn't exist.