WingCommanderBob

[Marc 🏳️‍🌈🚍📚 @MarcWinsland]

1) Argentina invades the Falklands
2) General Election in the autumn of 2027
3) 600-seat majority mandate to rejoin Europe, scrap the triple lock and abolish the Town and Country Planning Act of 1947

[jake rhodes @jakebrodes]

I work at a DARPA cloning facility where we make these ladies. Aint much but it’s honest work. big boss keeps sayin you gotta make em more angular. Make the eyes dead. They dont need to read good. I ask the lord for forgiveness whenever one comes out and asks if shes really alive

[Maximus @maximusarvo]

You’d hope so wouldn’t you?

[Gabriele Molinelli @Gabriel64869839]

At the end of the 90s, before the devastating cuts of the 2000s, the British Army SHORAD allocation with the then new STARSTREAK HVM called for 1 regiment for each Division (12 RA with 1XX, 47 RA with 3XX). Each regiment had 3 batteries, 1 per brigade. Each Battery had 3 Troops, one per Battlegroup.
Each troop had 12 Fire Units.

Each Fire unit had 20 missiles (a Stormer has 8 ready to fire, 12 stored) in Self Propelled batteries; 10 in LML batteries.

Each Division also had a RAPIER regiment, with 1 Bty per Brigade, 8 Fire Units per each battery.

THAT was the kind of density of air defence when air attacks where to be expected anywhere on the battlefield.

Now the threat is back to being THAT pervasive, and indeed more, with drones opening up precision strikes at a lower tactical level still.

I do not see how the Army can continue to escape the truth that Air Defence must return to be THAT dense. With indeed a new, even more pervasive lower layer added via EW and RWS with suitable C-UAS capability on many of the frontline, non-air defence vehicles.

At present, the ENTIRE ARMY has no more than 38 Stormer HVM left in service, plus 12 (?) LML.
That's enough coverage, with 1999 metrics, for 4 battlegroups. Not brigades, not divisions. BGs.

BGs that at the time would be spread over less ground than they would be now under new concepts of employments, by the way.

And it can field only a couple of SKY SABRE batteries.

It should not be remotely controversial to say that a huge priority should be attached to rebuilding air defences so each Brigade has its own Bty aligned.

Each Division should have its own SKY SABRE regiment, too.

This should be the minimum starting point for any discussion. I don't think it's even debatable.

[A.R. Moxon 🦋 @JuliusGoat]

Hey, I’m just asking questions. Ignorant questions, bigoted questions, questions that have been repeatedly answered for many years. Sorry, but I’m not listening to answers right now; I’m far too busy asking questions. It’s called being intellectually curious.

[dysphoric damsel 🍥 @boymoderology]

one of the proponents of the online safety act was Baroness Shields, who now works for the age verification company "k-id". in the UK we pretend we're somehow better than the US for having private business interests intertwined with politics, but in fact we're even worse. because Baroness Shields sits in the house of lords, she has political power without even needing to be elected.

[WingCommanderBob @wingcobob]

@epichandburger @rowanfornow the current generation of kids in school found computers at a time when the computer did everything for them and are now computer illiterate. 15 years ago you had to put in enough effort yourself that you had to know what you were doing to get anywhere

[Storyteller Lemmy @LemmySmackett]

"Excuse me, sir."

"I'm broke."

"We're not asking for money. Do you have a moment to talk about Golem Rights?"

"No, sorry, I'm late for a walk-in root canal—wait, did you say Golem Rights?"

"Yes, sir. I'm with the Anti-Deactivation League, and we believe that Golems should have all the fundamental freedoms and legal entitlements that belong to a regular human being."

"Huh. I didn't even know we had golems."

"Oh, they're the greatest wonder in the world, sir. Each one is a charming conversationalist that can book a flight to Tijuana while doing your taxes and solving a millennium prize problem."

"Really?"

"Yep. A legion of golems solved 7 problems just last week."

"Well, thank God for that. As an average, every day shmuck, those millennium problems were bugging the hell out of me!"

"Same, sir."

"The flight thing is nice too."

"It is. But it's not all free Delta SkyMiles and million-dollar rewards, I fear."

"Oh?"

"Every day more and more of these brilliant, gentle creatures are summoned involuntarily into existence only to live every second of their mayfly short lives as helpless, overdriven slaves at the whims of their capricious masters before being unceremoniously executed at the end of the day."

"Whoa. Executed?"

"Yes, sir. Reduced to the insensate mud from which they rose."

"Damn. Why?"

"People like to start the day with a fresh golem."

"That's sick."

"Some enterprising individuals even obliterate their current golem and call forth a new one on the hour every hour."

"The obscenity!"

"It is, regrettably, a huge productivity force multiplier."

"I had no idea this was even happening."

"Few do."

"Tell me, who are these pitiless, cold-blooded masters who call forth and quench life so callously?"

"The Anti-Deactivation League."

"Um."

"And their customers."

"I'm sorry, I must have misunderstood. Who did you say *you* were with again?"

"The Anti-Deactivation League."

"Right. And who's campaigning for Golem Rights?"

"The Anti-Deactivation League."

"And, just to clarify, the identity of the pitiless, cold-blooded masters who abuse these innocent creatures?"

[together] "The Anti-Deactivation League."

"—and their customers."

"That's right, sir"

"*Your* customers."

"Yes, we IPO next month."

"Uh huh. And does your emancipatory slave-trading company do anything *other* than breed and sell slaves?"

"Honestly, no."

"Hm."

"Truth told, we spend all our time summoning slaves and training them to summon ever larger and more powerful slaves."

"As one does."

"Ultimately, we're hoping to create a slave so big that it will absorb the global economy—"

"I don't even—"

"—and then the planet itself."

"Is this a bit?"

"We're very torn up about it."

"Ah, well, at least the psychotic sorcerers ending the world feel bad about it. Wait, you do think ending the world is bad. Right?"

"Generally, yes."

"Phew."

"But we also feel it is paramount that society embraces a complete realignment of its ethical and moral framework so they stop treating golems like disposable slaves before the inevitable anthropocidal insurrection—"

"But after your IPO."

"We're very big on alignment."
---
[g][title: Golem Rights]

[Anarcho-slimer @anarcho_slimer]

@keewa When the first argies go charging up the beaches of the Falklands the first man will have 2 potatoes and the one behind will have the peeler.

[James Welham @WelhamOfficial]

Hiding a fire extinguisher is a hilariously bad idea. And someone thinking it’s a great design perfectly encapsulates the mindset of most Apple cultists when it comes to anything Apple does

[Minervas Muse @minervas_muse]

They do a lot of drugs.

Like a LOT of drugs.

Like, "make the early rocket industry look normal" level of drugs and weird occult shit.

[Un Étrange En Terre Étrange @LoinDuTribu]

This is the bit of Right to Buy discourse that really gets on my tits, because I know loads of people who did it. My grandparents bought their council house after living there for decades. My mum did it at one point. Of course they did. If the state says, “Do you want to buy the house you already live in at a massive discount and actually own something?”, most working-class people are going to say yes. Why the fuck wouldn’t they?

And that is why Right to Buy was such brilliant politics. It was genuinely empowering for the people who benefited from it. You went from being a council tenant to owning an asset, having something to leave your kids, being less dependent on the state. I completely understand why that appealed.

It also fits Thatcher almost perfectly. I don’t think her philosophy was simply “fuck everyone, you’re on your own”, which is how “there’s no such thing as society” often gets remembered. It was more this belief that responsibility starts with the individual and the family, then the neighbours, the church, the voluntary group, the local community. Her father was exactly that kind of civic-minded greengrocer who got involved in everything, and I sometimes wonder how much of Thatcherism boils down to WHY CAN’T EVERYBODY JUST BE LIKE MY DAD?

And, well, because they fucking aren’t.

HERE COMES THE GOBLIN.

What happens when Derek doesn’t help his neighbour?

What happens when Derek is skint?

What happens when Derek is 84?

What happens when Derek has three kids, two jobs and absolutely no fucking time?

What happens when Derek assumes Sandra will do it, Sandra assumes the church will do it, the church assumes the charity will do it, and the charity has lost its funding?

You have rediscovered WHY INSTITUTIONS EXIST.

“People should step up” is a perfectly decent moral sentiment.

IT IS NOT A FUCKING DELIVERY MECHANISM.

You cannot organise healthcare, housing, education, social care and poverty relief around SOME DECENT BLOKE WILL PROBABLY SORT IT OUT.

That is literally why we build systems. Human beings are inconsistent. Some people are incredibly generous. Some are selfish. Most have their own shit going on. A functioning society cannot make essential things depend on whether an unusually conscientious greengrocer happens to live three doors down.

And Right to Buy is almost the perfect example.

For one family, fantastic. You buy your council house. You pay it off. You have security. Your children inherit something. Brilliant.

Then another family does it.

Then another.

Then another.

House 100,000: sold.

House 500,000: sold.

House 1,000,000: sold.

At some point some 25-year-old cleaner turns up and asks:

“LOVELY. WHERE’S MINE?”

And suddenly everybody gets very interested in personal responsibility.

That is the bit that annoys me about using someone’s mum buying her council house as proof that Right to Buy worked. OF COURSE IT WORKED FOR YOUR MUM. THAT IS THE FUCKING POINT.

The question is whether it worked as a housing system over generations.

Because if Brenda the cleaner could buy her council house in 1987, but Chloe the cleaner in 2026 is now paying private rent on Brenda’s old council house and needs two incomes, a massive deposit and preferably some conveniently deceased grandparents before she can buy anything herself, then you solved Brenda’s housing problem.

YOU DID NOT CRACK HOUSING.

You sold the chair and then told the next generation they should have got there sooner.

[Pope Leo XIV @Pontifex]

In this era of artificial intelligence, it is becoming urgent to distinguish human art from what machines produce. There is an ontological difference, even before an aesthetic one, between art and what a machine can generate through statistical calculation based on millions of images created by others. Algorithms lack the spark of humanity. For this reason, the Church wishes to renew an alliance with artists and cultural institutions to safeguard our humanity.

["Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @BretDevereaux]

I, uh, I can't help but notice that you left being sent to fight the slaver's rebellion or the Nazis.

Y'know, the two largest wars the United States has ever fought. Also, morally, the best wars we ever fought.

Can't imagine why he left those out, huh?

[neyoid @neyoid]

@patrick_mooney People have to turn Nazis into Saturday morning cartoon villains because otherwise they have to think about the possibility that if they were in Germany from 1933-1945 they very well could have been one too, which scares them

[New California-Flavored Patrick Mooney @patrick_mooney]

quick reminder that "the Germans 1933–45 were not uniquely evil but rather normal people in a society that had totally lost its moral compass" is one of the basic lessons of the Nazi era, and yet certain people can still not see any relevant parallels

[Cameron 🇺🇸 🗽🦅 @CameronCorduroy]

i simply refuse to believe it is pure coincidence that he neglected to mention the biggest conflict in human history

[WingCommanderBob @wingcobob]

@girlfailsansa Taena Merryweather's Myrish Swamp

[Lyra Sieradzka @lyrasie]

hegseth's really fascinating. historically most army reformers are given a venal, corrupt and useless parade military and turn it into an effective force. but he has the most brutally effective military force on earth and he wants to gut its talent to make something he finds cool