All rightwing fascists are basically the same, it is exhaustingly monotone.

While I think it is foolish for Germany to have largely ignored having a serious attack helicopter for so long, 60 Chinooks is a huge investment in a platform that can launch 12,500*60 kilograms of drones (that is ~3000 Rusty Dagger cruise missiles for reference) while operating out of mobile resupply points not tied down to static assets that are existentially vulnerable to overwhelming pre-emptive strikes or sabotage.

Additionally these Chinooks are just as useful during peacetime for wildfire fighting (also see and in Germany), disaster response and search and rescue among other tasks unlike the vast majority of other tools of war.

Yoink!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8xypKsmeZlk

This is a major deterrance against russia as unless Germany puts all their Chinooks in one basket that never moves there is no way russia can ensure they can destroy or subdue such a massive, unpredictable, mobile interceptor and long range strike drone launch capability during a crucial window of surprise attack.

https://theaviationist.com/2025/05/15/raf-fpv-quadcopter-from-chinook/

There has been a virulent backlash in the British media against the Green Party of England and Wales since delegates at the party conference voted for a motion that brands Zionism as a racist ideology and supports the formation of a single democratic state in Palestine. As we have come to expect when British pundits and politicians are discussing Israel, nobody has seen fit to ask any Palestinians what they think about Zionism and what it has meant for them in practice.

While Palestinians who live in Britain are studiously ignored, the media extends its search for critical voices to the rest of Europe. The Guardian reported on a statement from the European Green Party (EGP) that criticized the motion — “we unequivocally distance ourselves from it” — and suggested that the English and Welsh Greens were now “facing international ostracism.”

The speed and severity of the response from the EGP contrasts sharply with its deafening silence about the shameful track record of the German Greens, the flagship of the European Green movement ever since the 1980s. The EGP never spoke out against the German party, even though its leaders campaigned against a ceasefire in Gaza, supplied weapons to Israel’s war machine, and branded Palestinian schools and hospitals as legitimate targets.

The Green politician Annalena Baerbock was Germany’s foreign minister when Israel began its onslaught against the people of Gaza in October 2023, and she remained in that post until May 2025. Her party had already demonstrated its hostility to Palestinian rights in 2019 when it voted to support a Bundestag motion that compared the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement to Nazism.

…

In January 2024, Baerbock immediately joined the Israeli campaign against the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), cutting off funding for the organization that supplied vital humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza. This move came just as Israel went on trial at the International Court of Justice, accused of violating the Genocide Convention. She later admitted that Israel had supplied no evidence to back up its allegations that UNRWA collaborated with Hamas.

Over the course of the year, Baerbock modified her rhetoric in a way that mirrored the discursive games of the Biden administration, calling for a “humanitarian ceasefire” while her government continued to funnel arms to Israel. Israeli leaders had no reason to fear any consequences when they brushed aside such calls.

In Krasnodar, Russians decided to transport a Mi-2 helicopter tied to the top of a pickup truck which topples over.

The state of russia’s aviation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKm4SymbvZE

Behold, russia has no fucking clue what a Main Battle Tank is or how to build one.

What a bunch of overconfident bullshitting idiots…

Estimates indicate that by 2030 the country will have 366 U.S. Abrams, 360 K2s, 235 Leopards, and 150 PT-91 Twardys, while it is also working with the U.S. to establish production capabilities for Abrams spare parts.

This force could smash russia to pieces, especially given how degraded the russian military is at this point. Russia can produce 1000 tanks fairly quickly but their tanks are critically flawed and there is no cohesive institutional attempt to actually keep tank crews alive and upskill them continually in the russian military… whereas for Poland each of those ~1000 tank crews are and will be highly trained and treated as valuable, skilled professionals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jtkg2DEpalg

A good rundown of the Sepv3 Abrams, it is definitely a biased perspective but it is very thorough and conveys well why russian design lineage tanks are categorically outclassed by these in technology, doctrine and crew protection.

Germany relinquished its position as possibly the most powerful european military when it passed over purchasing AH64Es, Poland fortunately did not make the same mistake. Here is a demonstration of why this was such a foolish choice for Germany, in Germany nonetheless.

https://www.dvidshub.net/video/1000323/12th-cab-proves-apache-effectiveness-counter-drone-operations-operation-skyfall

This is decisively game over for russia in terms of their prospects for continuing a landwar in Europe in the medium to longterm, and it also spells death for the tactic of spamming the enemy with cheap and slow flying bombs in the region (something I am unconvinced Germany understands), Apaches will simply use mass flying wave attacks like that for target practice and the only result the enemy gets is subjecting Apache crews oppposing them to advanced air defense training that will quickly push the prospects of penetrating air defenses even farther away. This goes for littoral naval defense and security as well, which is a major function for the UK’s soon to be similarly huge fleet of AH64Es.

Europe should have had an attack helicopter by now, the Fenice is coming but nowhere quick enough and I am unsure it is even designed to carry a longbow style radar and targetting suite… so we are left with the reality yet again that the Apache is by far the most forward looking weapon system of the Cold War/later half of the 20th century and is still in many respects far more forward looking than newer platforms.

Until you have seen how these aircraft move in person through a landscape you can’t really understand why they are hunters of drones rather than targets for them…but trust me one day you will and then maybe you will begin to understand… especially once you recognize mass flying bombs attacks are best at hitting static infrastructure and helicopters do not need static infrastructure the way fixed wing aircraft do.

Agriculture is an ecologically embedded enterprise, and we should not tolerate actions that degrade our natural capital, the diversity and function of our ecosystems, or the health of the atmosphere, soils and waters that surround and support us. At the same time, we must recognise that agriculture is embedded in society – a farm practice that runs counter to society’s goals is hard to maintain. I agree that a farm can and should be valued by its owners as a place to live, and as a source of pleasure in good farming, good eating and engagement with both domestic and wild neighbours. Society continues to measure farms, and judge farmers, on their production of grain, meat, biomass and other commodities. Farmers are caught up in a highly competitive market system that typically allows only a slim margin between money coming in and money going out. Meanwhile, the goal of public policy for agriculture continues to be guided by the desire for cheap food.

While the predicament of modern agriculture may appear so dire that we will inevitably adapt and organise a more sustainable system, ecologists at Murdoch University in Australia came to a different conclusion after analysing the problems facing farmers in the semi-arid southwestern part of that continent. Farmers and policy-makers continue to invest in production systems that don’t fit the land because they are now tightly bound up in patterns of modern agribusiness and food production. Financial capital goes to conventional farmers more easily than to alternative farmers, and social capital – in the forms of agronomic research, technical assistance (for addressing issues with animal health, soil fertility, soil erosion and water pollution), and especially processing, distribution and retail – supports the energy- and natural-capital intensive system. The authors describe this as a ‘lock-in trap’, ‘an industry that has so much “sunk-costs” that it may continue to degrade the resource it relies upon until the capital is totally removed.’ Shifting the system to a more desirable state – one that is ecologically as well as socially resilient – requires us to forge new social connections in the quest to establish more sustainable patterns of land use.

The report, however, was wrong from the start. An analyst had used an AI chatbot to ask about some intelligence data related to the suspect ship’s cargo manifest. The chatbot drew on classified data and open-source intelligence, then made up a conclusion: it decided that the vessel was carrying components for a nuclear weapons program, CNN’s sources said. This was false, but the analyst did not detect that; instead, they packaged it up for formal use - again using AI for formatting - and sent it up the chain of command.

I really really hate bullshitters and this system is clearly optimized for them.