#facility allocation

[linnartsf]

Service facility allocation - optimization project

In the bustling city of Rio de Janeiro, opening and operating a series of barbershops comes with a unique set of challenges, especially when operating on a tight budget for renovation and rental expenses. In this article, I am sharing the story of one entrepreneur, the owner of multiple barbershops in the city, who leveraged SCDA’s analytics competence for drafting a service facility allocation…

[arisingonmorningsinnocent]

idk which school/hospital/library/corporate office needs to hear this but your bathroom facilities need to have doors that lock and toilets and sinks that consistently work and soap and towel dispensers that are consistently stocked and floors with undamaged tile that people can safely walk or roll a wheelchair over and there need to be grab rails and hooks for basic accessibility functions and there needs to be a gender-neutral bathroom that people can access without requesting a key or climbing seven flights of stairs with no elevator and there needs to be a safe place for women who cannot undress in the same room as a man to change and there need to be sanitary bins for disposing of menstrual supplies and there needs to not be broken glass just left on the floor for weeks at a time literally ever and yes, all of this costs money, but it is actually a good use of funds to make sure people can physically be in the building where your organization is located without compromising their health or safety or dignity. institutional recognition of the needs of the human body or i kill you!!

[townpostin]

Railway Workers from Badampahar to Get Tatanagar Quarters

300 Vacant Homes Allocated to Improve Housing for Branch Line Staff Chakradharpur Division takes steps to provide better residential facilities for railway workers from branch lines. JAMSHEDPUR – The Chakradharpur Division Personnel Department has issued an order to allot 300 vacant quarters in various Tatanagar colonies to railway workers from the Badampahar route. Workers from Adityapur,…

[joeygoldy]

Useful Tips for Becoming a Successful Agriculture Investor

Agriculture investment refers to the allocation of financial resources, capital, or assets into various aspects of the agricultural sector with the expectation of generating a return on investment (ROI). This could mean investing monies in agriculture land for sale such as coconut land for sale in Sri Lanka, or other types of investments. It involves deploying funds in activities and projects related to agriculture for the purpose of profit, income generation, or long-term wealth creation. Agriculture investment can take many forms, including:

Farmland Acquisition: Purchasing agricultural land for the cultivation of crops or the raising of livestock. This can involve both large-scale and small-scale farming operations.

Infrastructure Development: Investing in the construction and improvement of infrastructure such as irrigation systems, roads, storage facilities, and processing plants to enhance agricultural productivity and efficiency.

Technological Advancements: Funding the development and adoption of agricultural technologies, such as precision agriculture, automation, and biotechnology, to improve crop yields and reduce operational costs.

Agribusiness Ventures: Investing in agribusinesses, such as food processing, distribution, and marketing, that are part of the agricultural value chain.

Research and Development: Supporting research initiatives related to agriculture to develop new crop varieties, pest-resistant strains, and sustainable farming practices.

Input Supply: Investing in the production and distribution of agricultural inputs like seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, and machinery.

Commodity Trading: Speculating on the future prices of agricultural commodities, such as grains, oilseeds, and livestock, through commodity markets or futures contracts.

Sustainable Agriculture: Funding practices and projects aimed at sustainable and environmentally responsible farming methods, which can include organic farming, agroforestry, and conservation efforts.

Rural Development: Supporting initiatives that improve the overall economic and social well-being of rural communities, often through investments in education, healthcare, and infrastructure.

Venture Capital and Start-ups: Investing in start-ups and companies focused on innovations in agriculture, such as vertical farming, aquaculture, or agricultural technology (AgTech).

Agriculture investment is important for food security, economic development, and job creation in many regions. However, it also comes with risks related to weather conditions, commodity price fluctuations, and market dynamics. Investors often conduct thorough research and risk assessments before committing their resources to agricultural ventures. Additionally, they may need to consider factors like government policies, environmental regulations, and social impacts on their investment decisions in the agricultural sector.

How to become a successful agriculture investor

Becoming a successful agriculture investor requires a combination of financial acumen, agricultural knowledge, and a strategic approach to investment. Here are some steps to help you become a successful agriculture investor:

Educate Yourself: Gain a strong understanding of the agricultural sector, including the different sub-sectors (crops, livestock, agribusiness, etc.). Stay updated on industry trends, market conditions, and emerging technologies.

Set Clear Investment Goals: Define your investment objectives, whether it is long-term wealth creation, income generation, or diversification of your investment portfolio.

Risk Assessment: Understand and assess the risks associated with agriculture investments, such as weather-related risks, market volatility, and regulatory changes, whether you are looking at land for sale or any other type of investment.

Develop a Diversified Portfolio: Diversify your investments across different agricultural sectors and geographic regions to spread risk.

Market Research: Conduct thorough market research to identify promising investment opportunities and potential demand for agricultural products.

Build a Network: Establish connections with farmers, agricultural experts, government agencies, and industry stakeholders who can provide insights and opportunities.

Financial Planning: Create a budget and financial plan that outlines your investment capital, expected returns, and cash flow requirements.

Select the Right Investment Type: Choose the type of agriculture investment that aligns with your goals, whether it is farmland, agribusiness ventures, or agricultural technology.

Due Diligence: Conduct comprehensive due diligence on potential investments, including assessing the quality of farmland, the financial health of agribusinesses, and the technology's potential for scalability and profitability.

Sustainable Practices: Consider investments in sustainable and environmentally responsible agriculture practices, as they are gaining importance in the industry.

Risk Management: Implement risk management strategies, such as insurance, to protect your investments from unforeseen events like natural disasters or crop failures.

Continuous Learning: Stay informed about changes in the agricultural industry and adapt your investment strategy accordingly.

Legal and Regulatory Compliance: Understand and comply with local, national, and international regulations and tax laws that may impact your agriculture investments.

Monitor and Adjust: Regularly review the performance of your investments and be prepared to make adjustments or exit underperforming ones.

Long-Term Perspective: Agriculture investments often require a long-term perspective, so be patient and avoid making impulsive decisions based on short-term market fluctuations.

Seek Professional Advice: Consult with financial advisors, agricultural experts, and legal professionals to ensure that your investments are structured and managed effectively.

Successful agriculture investment often involves a mix of financial expertise, industry knowledge, and a willingness to adapt to changing conditions. It is important to approach agriculture investment with a well-thought-out strategy, and to be prepared for both opportunities and challenges in this sector.

[buttonbuckfarm]

it’s disability pride month!! I love you disabled farmers!! I love you disabled rural folks!!

rural areas can be impossible to access as a physically disabled person - no sidewalks, no public transit, minimal healthcare facilities, etc - but that doesn’t mean disabled people don’t still live out in the country. even if metropolitan areas only do the bare minimum, funding isn’t allocated to do even that in rural areas, not to mention a total lack of funding for disabled farmers, rural disability focused nonprofits, etc.

disabled people of all kinds live rurally (often in poverty). metropolitan areas aren’t the only places with diverse populations, and “the country” shouldn’t be written of as spaces that don’t need or deserve accessibility. don’t reduce disabled people down to one lifestyle! support disability access everyone, for everyone!

[allthecanadianpolitics]

[...] while talking about health care, Rustad made a strange comparison. “A doctor I was talking to just last week, he is a specialist in spinal injuries and neck injuries — a specialist surgeon. He gets two days every two months at the facility he’s working at. That’s it — that’s all the time that has been allocated,” Rustad said. “One of his colleagues gets 12 days a month for doing gender-affirming surgeries. We can do better folks. We can figure out how to make sure that our professionals have the ability to go and provide the services that we need in British Columbia.” It’s the latest comment from Rustad on transgender people. In this fact check, we’re breaking down his claims and, as hateful incidents directed at trans people become more common, their potential impact.

Continue Reading

Tagging: @newsfromstolenland

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

You mentioned that sometimes zoos don’t get the funding they need? Is there anything that we, as visitors, can do to help with that? Donations, contacting representatives, things like that? What can we do to help zoos, zookeepers, and the animals they love and care for?

What a nice question!

So on a “we need funding for this new habitat or major renovation” level, the cost is pretty astronomical compared to what the average person can contribute. For example, the Oregon Zoo’s brand new Polar Passage habitat (started 2016, finished 2021) cost $19 million. The Brookfield Zoo is planning to add on a new indoor/outdoor ape habitat to their Tropics Building and that’s estimated at $9 million. Unless you happen to know folk with very deep pockets, personal donations aren’t going to have an impact on that scale - although that doesn’t mean they don’t help the zoo in other ways!

Contacting your representatives and expressing your support for your local facilities is absolutely something you can do that helps. Especially so if the facility is funded by the city or the county, but even if they’re not, it’s really good for reps to know that their constituents value the facility and want to see it supported. You can always write them whenever, but it’s most useful if there’s stuff happening that’s directly related (funding allocation, new rules being proposed, etc).

I’m going to take this opportunity to plug another way you can help zoos, though, that’s a bit different. Your question is really timely because there’s actually an ongoing need for support at the moment (date stamp: 6/11/23). There’s an organization I volunteer with, called Zoological Disaster Response, Rescue, and Recovery (ZDR3) and they do, well, what it says on the tin. When zoological facilities, sanctuaries, and other facilities with exotic animals experience disasters - think getting flattened by a hurricane - ZDR3 coordinates a network of 130+ facilities who can show up and help. This is everything from sending food and needed supplies that are limited because of supply lines, deploying staff to physically assist an impacted facility with recovery, and even helping evacuate animals and house them until it’s safe for them to return. And it’s really important that it’s other zoos doing this work: if you’ve got to go chainsaw fallen trees out of an alligator habitat, you need people who know how to work safely around alligators! It’s a type of response work that other major disaster organizations don’t really do, because they don’t have the expertise with the animals or the needs of the industry.

ZDR3 can always use support, but, right now, they’re in the middle of a response in Guam where financial support is more necessary than normal. Guam got hit by the Super Typhoon Mawar on May 25th, and it absolutely ravaged the zoo there. It’s a small facility, with mostly geriatric, disabled, and unreleasable animals living there. A USDA representative asked ZDR3 if they’d be able to assist. The director flew out to assess the site and help as much as she could, but the thing is, because Guam is an island, they can’t ask teams from other facilities to deploy there the way the can with facilities in the continental United States. Instead the zoo is having to purchase all the supplies they need for recovery - and could really use assistance. There’s an Amazon wishlist set up with the tools and supplies they need, as well as a DonorBox link for direct donations (which go directly to the zoo, not ZDR3). If you want a tangible way to contribute to the immediate welfare of zoo animals and function of a facility, this a fantastic way to do it.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Shelter in place

Shelter is a human necessity and a human right. A successful society is one that safeguards our freedoms and our rights. The decision to turn housing into the major speculative asset class for retail investors and Wall Street has made housing a disaster for people with houses — and a catastrophe for those without.

America has a terrible, accelerating homelessness problem. Many of us share this problem — obviously, people without houses have the worst of it. But no one benefits from mass homelessness — it is a stain on the human soul to live among people who are unsheltered.

However, there is an answer to the problem of people lacking homes, one with a strong evidentiary basis, which costs significantly less than dealing with the crises of homelessness: give homes to people who don’t have them. It’s called Housing First, and it works:

https://endhomelessness.org/resource/housing-first/

But Housing First has a fatal flaw: it merely helps people without homes find them. It does not generate excess profits for a highly concentrated sector. No one profiteers off Housing First, and so there is no well-funded lobby to promote it.

However, there is a highly concentrated industry with sky-high profits and a powerful lobbying arm that has its own proposal for ending homelessness. It’s the private prison industry, and its proposal is to make homelessness illegal and then put all the homeless people in private prisons:

https://invisiblepeople.tv/private-prisons-for-homeless-criminalization/

A wave of laws criminalizing homelessness has come before American statehouses, and behind them is a deep-pocketed astroturf campaign run by The Cicero Institute, a “libertarian” think-tank that has widely shopped model legislation called the “Reducing Street Homelessness Act.”

Under the proposal, anyone caught sleeping on the streets would be liable to imprisonment. Further, homeless people judged to have mental health issues by police officers would be either imprisoned or locked up in mental heath facilities. As Kayla Robbins writes for Invisible People, such a law would substantially raise the stakes for any homeless person seeking help from police or other services — if they decide you look “mentally ill,” they could lock you up indefinitely.

Where will the money for all these new prison beds come from? By diverting budgets currently allocated for permanent housing.

It’s weird that the Cicero Institute would devote so much energy to discrediting Housing First and promoting criminalization (“libertarians” who want to throw millions of people, mostly Black and brown, into prison indefinitely have a highly selective definition of “liberty).

But there’s at least a circumstantial case for why they would undertake this project: their founder is Joe Lonsdale, the billionaire Palantir co-founder whose VC firm 8VC has made sizable investments in private prisons.

Americans without homes are in a terrible place. How about Americans with homes? Well, obviously they have it better — but it’s not as though they’re well-served by market-based housing, either.

Treating a human necessity as a speculative asset has all kinds of negative outcomes — for your house’s value to continue to rise, the plight of tenants has to steadily worsen. The resale price of your home will include the expected returns from renting it out (even if the new owner doesn’t become a landlord, they’re going to have to bid against someone who would), and rental returns go up when tenancy protections go down.

Meanwhile, the spiraling price of housing — driven by the policy requirement to drive up asset prices to please homeowning voters — means that your kids are going to end up (someone else’s) tenants, exposed to the cruelties you promoted to safeguard the family asset.

You’re not even going to be able to pass that asset onto your kids — focusing on asset appreciation, rather than public service provision, means that you will have to liquidate the family home to pay for your eldercare and your kid’s student debts.

Back in 2021, I wrote, “The Rent’s Too Damned High,” about the way that treating housing as an asset rather than a necessity has made everything else worse:

https://gen.medium.com/the-rents-too-damned-high-520f958d5ec5

But here it is, 2022, and it’s even worse. Writing for Bloomberg, Tracy Alloway and Joe Weisenthal describe the enweirdening of the housing market as interest rates rise.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-10/here-s-how-weird-things-are-getting-in-the-housing-market?leadSource=uverify%20wall

Housing is becoming less affordable: with interest rates going up, the cost of a new mortgage is unbearable for many working people. What’s more, banks are tightening up their lending criteria, making it harder to get a mortgage in the first place.

This may feel familiar — it certainly echoes the housing market after the Great Financial Crisis of 2008. But unlike 2008, the people who have houses aren’t losing them in walloping great numbers. Partly that’s because we’re not letting giant banks steal their houses with mortgage fraud:

https://web.archive.org/web/20171005131636/https://www.thenation.com/article/how-americas-biggest-bank-paid-its-fine-for-the-2008-mortgage-crisis-with-phony-mortgages/

But it’s also because banks started requiring larger downpayments after the GFC, so borrowers aren’t saddled with terrible debt-to-equity ratios, and many homeowners were able to refinance at rock-bottom prices during the lockdown. And, unlike 2008, most mortgages today are fixed rate — even though interest rates are rising, your mortgage rate is locked in.

That’s produced a very weird circumstance: no one can afford to buy a house, but prices aren’t going down. For prices to go down, we’d need to see more houses on the market, and no one wants to build a new house in this environment.

With no new houses going up, any additional supply would come from existing homeowners selling their homes. But when you sell your home, you usually have to buy another one, and that means swapping your 2% 2020 mortgage for a a 5% 2022 mortgage — which translates to a six- or seven-figure increase in the overall price of your home.

Has someone offered you a better job in another city or state? Great! Is it worth paying hundreds of thousands of dollars more for your mortgage over the next 20 years? No? Okay, I guess the answer is no.

To recap: treating shelter as a speculative asset means that we’re about to permanently imprison thousands of homeless people at enormous public expense. It means that your kids are doomed to being rent-burdened tenants with no legal rights for their rest of their lives. And it means that you are locked into the house you were in when the music stopped, no matter how many reasons there are to go somewhere else.

Turning housing into an asset doesn’t help you, the person looking for a place to live. But it’s great news for Wall Street and billionaires like Jeff Bezos, who are buying up whole neighborhoods and turning them into high-rent slums:

https://www.benzinga.com/real-estate/22/08/28685878/jeff-bezos-bet-on-housing-slide-his-single-family-rental-play-is-well-timed

sImage: in0_m0x0 (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/marineperez/4698707308/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[Image ID: A row of barred prison cells; superimposed over them, in needlepoint font, is the motto 'Home Sweet Home.']

[pricklythepear]

thinking nonstop about teleporting nightmare skywarp and how whenever he enters the war it's a mad scramble from soundwave and co to keep his abilities a secret so they can keep using them to their fullest potential vs the autobots trying to figure out why some facilities keep exploding. maybe they eventually link it with the presence of seekers?

I’m torn between ‘Skywarp is actually pretty sneaky’ and ‘The Autobots know he can teleport, but it’s just so unpredictable that they can barely prepare for it’

Something I’ve seen a couple people do (and I really liked) is that Skywarp is a part of, if not at least adjacent to, Decepticon Special Operations. SpecOps isn’t just surveillance and spying. It’s sabotage, transport, communication, rescue, capture, kill/assassination, and anything else behind the scenes in war, and teleportation is a really powerful tool that can help in most of those situations.

Skywarp is not Soundwave and his cassettes level sneaky, but he’s gotta be at least some level of sneaky or clever to pull off a good chunk of the pranks that he does. Plus, I see some people writing him working with Rumble and Frenzy, and I like the chaos those three create.

But even if the Autobots do know about his teleportation, I don’t really see how they can plan around it much? Unless they are constantly on edge, expecting him literally anywhere and everywhere, his teleportation will always give him the element of surprise.

The Autobots have to focus resources on defending their frontlines and on fighting the Cons trying to break through said lines, so there’s only so much they can really allocate to defending behind their lines, and it’s especially hard to defend against a single mech that can disappear in a snap.

Skywarp is inherently wildcard—both in his power and personality—and it’s really hard to prepare for that type of person.

I do feel like they’d figure out what Skywarp is doing at some point though, it’s literally his name. I’ve been giving a bunch of characters definitions/meanings behind their names, and I know his name means more than just ‘Oh he can teleport!’ but still. Prowl and Jazz would figure that out so quickly.

[techtimechronicles24]

📅 This day - on July 3, 1991, Apple and IBM signed a letter of intent to form the AIM alliance, which included Motorola. This alliance aimed to create an industry-wide open-standard computing platform based on the POWER instruction set architecture.

💻 The primary goal was to design a new hardware platform and develop a next-generation operating system that would unify the computing industry. IBM planned to bring the Macintosh OS into the enterprise market, while Apple aimed to be a major customer for the new POWER hardware.

🛠️ IBM and Motorola allocated 300 engineers to co-develop chips at a joint facility in Austin, Texas. Motorola would manufacture and sell these chips to Apple and other customers. Over 400 people from the three companies worked to create a unified corporate culture, promising to "change the landscape of computing in the 90s."

🤝 Despite initial enthusiasm, relations soured, especially after Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1998. Jobs ended the Power Macintosh clone licensing, leading to a contentious relationship with Motorola. This resulted in Apple being demoted to "just another customer" for PowerPC CPUs. Apple and IBM briefly expelled Motorola from the alliance, forcing it to halt PowerPC production until it was reinstated in 1999.

[pjmslave]

Major Thaddaeus Scott Barker, PhD was called Scott by the few people that were allowed to use his first name. Almost always he was addressed as Major Barker. He was the administrator of a facility in a barren lifeless desert within the only nation state that had the resources to research what was being researched. Major Barker liked to think of this project as being the next stage of evolution. Not for mankind, but for the soldiers who would defend the freedom of the nation state.

The research was so secret that not even the elected leaders of the nation state were aware of its existence. All document detailing what was being accomplished at the facility stayed at the facility. No reports were filed with those individuals in the chain of command above Major Barker. Even the funds used to run the facility were buried so deep with each and every allocation of defense funds as to obscure them from discovery.

If anyone investigated the facility, they were informed it was a high tech secret weapon development facility. But nobody ever investigated. Nobody cared to know. Regardless, Major Barker filed reports to his superiors on the fictional weapons that were being developed at his facility. All of the reports generated culled information for other weapon development sites. Major Barker only padded them with hundreds of pages of pseudo-science to make the reports unreadable. Nobody even tried to read them.

The facility comprised fifty men and women with no less than one PhD who had been enticed to join the project by offering them a huge stipend in addition to their military pay. Several of the scientific staff had multiple PhDs. Of course, none of these individuals realized they would be so removed from civilization as to make it impossible to spend any money at all.

All fifty had been carefully selected by Major Barker over the years as the project needs grew. They had been given a battery of psychological and ethnics testing to ensure they would actively do what ever was necessary to participate in such advanced research. Their research required the use of human beings.

All fifty required some degree of additional mental conditioning to go from using rats and monkeys in their research to actually using men and women in their research. Every six months or so, ten to fifteen homeless individuals were harvested from various locations so they could be used in the research vital to the nation state’s defense. The fifty scientists had been fully condition to see these men and woman as inferior to them. A drain on the limited resources of their nation state.

These homeless individuals were viewed not as human but as ‘lab rats’ by the scientists. Only three (two women, one man) had objected to the use of human beings as lab rats. They had been removed from the project and placed in confinement. After months of being subjected to heavy brainwashing techniques which had been developed at the facility, all three returned to the project.

After ten years and some six hundred forty-two experiments on individuals, Major Barker had been invited to see the latest breakthrough. Previous research had managed to drain the human subjects of all of their humanity. Next, they succeeded in formatting their lab rats’ brains to obey all commands. Of course, the individual required each and every movement to be commanded. It was not enough to command, ‘eat food.’ Each and every step required to ‘eat food’ had to be commanded. An incredibly tedious and complex undertaking.

Today, Major Barker was to witness a man, who had once been a janitor at the facility, be controlled solely by external means. Lieutenant Ellenor Brooke Evans, PhD had developed an AI bot that could be programmed into a state of the art laptop that would be used to control the janitor. The AI bot would control everything the man did. The janitor had given his name to be one Victor Forbes. Of course, once he was selected as ‘lab rat’ he was given the designation Epsilon Victor Nine, or Victor Nine for short.

Major Barker was proud of Lieutenant Evans’ work. She was one of the three who had to be further encouraged to do what had to be done. Major Barker first saw her next to Victor Nine. She was ensuring all connections were tight. At one point she grabbed the smallish computer attached to Victor Nine’s scalp was secure.

Major Barker took the center seat in the control room. He leaned forward to depress the mic button. “Okay Evans, show me what you have done?”

As Major Barker waited for Lieutenant Evens to arrive into the control room, he marveled at the change in Victor Nine. The lab rat was totally nude except for the computer attached to its head and some other gadget attached to his left forearm. Victor Nine’s skin tone was silver, identical to the rest of the lab rats currently in use.

For just a second, Major Barker focus on the fifteen centimeter cock hanging in the man’s groin. It also was now colored silver. Major Barker’s mouth watered as he wondered if the cock was even functional. “I so could suck on that.” Major Barker thought to himself.

But what so amazed Major Barker was the complete change in Victor Nine. The once scrawny boy of nineteen who had never seen the inside of a gym and might have weighed in the sixty kilogram range had added no less than fifty kilograms of newly formed muscle.

Major Barker’s first question of Evans was, “How did you accomplish the muscles?”

Evan answered the question with another question, “How many push-ups do you want it to do, Sir?”

“Thirty six, in three groups of twelve.”

With that Evans pulled out a computer pad. Her fingers pressed multiple icons. Once completed, she reached over to activate the speaker which picked up the sounds of the room where Victor Nine was located.

Major Barked was amazed as he heard Victor Nine report, “Task downloading.” He was even more impressed as he watched Victor Nine fall to the floor and begin counting the pushups it was doing. “One. Two. Three.” And so forth.

When Victor nine announced the twelfth push up he paused slightly then continued. It began with “Two! Two. Three. Four.” And so forth.

Evans asked, “Would you be wanting any sit ups?”

Major Barker replied, “No. The push up are impressive enough. Return it to a standing position when it completes its current task.”

Evans inputted the necessary command via her computer pad. When Victor Nine returned to a standing position, Evans leaned over the computer panel in the control room. She clicked on the mic and in a commanding voice said, “Attention!”

Victor Nine’s stance stiffened. Evans then commanded, “Salute!” Victor Nine’s right arm performed a perfect salute. Evans then commanded “Not that salute. The REAL salute.”

It happened so fast that Major Barker did not notice Victor Nine’s right arm move to a position across his chest.

“Show allegiance to its superiors!”

Major Barker watched as Victor Nine knelt onto its left knee. It right arm still across its chest. It left hand on the floor. Its head firmly focused on just the floor.

Major Barker asked a simple question, “How?”

Evans then entered into a long monologue of how her team had created an AI Bot to control the lab rat. Then how they had reprogrammed nanobots that were used to drain the lab rats of what minimal humanity that had. Once the nanobots stripped the lab rats of their humanity, their memories, their ability to do anything other than what was commanded, the nanobots repurposed themselves to create multiple pathways in their now worthless brains into what would ultimately be controlled by the small computer that was attached on the left side of their skulls.

Evan’s finished her monologue with, “You see, Sir, the body that was once Victor Nine became just a component of the computer attached to its skull. The AI Bot became Victor Nine. The AI bot fully controls the organic body that was once Victor Nine. Victor Nine has no emotions. Victor Nine has no concept of good. It has no concept of evil. Nothing is taboo anymore. It sole function is to obey the commands that are given to it. If that is killing people who are protesting, then it kills. If that is eating shit, then it feasts on the shit.”

As if on cue, Victor Nine dropped a turd out of its ass. It then let loose a stream of urine. Major Barker gave Evans a disapproving look. He demanded, “Well, can you fix that issue?”

Evans simply replied, “My team is already on it, Sir! But in the interim, watch this!” Evans imputed various commands into her computer pad. Without warning, the door to the room where Victor Nine was house opened. Major Barker watched as another man who was destined to become a “lab rat” stand in the door way. The soon to be lab rat had given his name as Bailey McDonald. He reluctantly entered the room.

Bailey was currently being useful to the project by being a dishwasher in one of the dozens of restaurants the peppered the complex. It was about all the future lab rat could handle. His brain had been literally fried by the use of ecstasy. He was still pink and rosy as any human. He had not received the mind altering nanobots as of yet.

Bailey took a couple of reluctant steps into the room. Then he proclaimed, “Damn! What is that offal smell?” Before Bailey could back out of the room, the door slid shut behind him. Bailey barely noticed. His eyes were completely focused on Victor Nine.

Once again, the action was too fast for Major Barker to follow. The next thing his mind registered was Victor Nine standing over Bailey as Bailey was on the floor having what appeared to be a massive seizure. Major Barker noticed a small silver area on Bailey’s right neck and various streaks of silver running up the right side of his face.

Evans proudly stated, “You see, Sir, not only does the bot obey the commands it is given, but it also forcibly assists new lab rats into becoming like it has become. It only does this to what has been classified as ‘lab rats,’ but the definition of ‘lab rats’ can be altered to include members of the enemy’s military. The enemy combatants can now be easily converted into military assets for us with very little effort.”

Major Barker found himself crossing his legs, right over left. Not exactly a military bearing. But it did hide his growing hard-on. As he was doing so, he asked, “Okay Evans, what exactly do you need?” He paused a moment then continued, “First, can you do something about its cock and balls? And its excrement?”

“Already on it, Sir. If you follow me, Sir, I will show you what I require.”

Major Barker was led to a small conference room where Evans had laid out her proposals. She showed him the arm gauntlet that could be attached to a recharging station so that the nanobots in a soldiers body could be reenergized. Next came a huge collar for the soldier that allowed new nanobots to be slowly and consistently injected into the body of the soldier. She also detailed how the pituitary gland would be coopted to produce massive amount of human growth hormones as well as other hormones that would improve a soldier’s strength and agility.

Evans continued by detailing how the nanobots would receive and distribute all the energy the soldier required. How waste products produced by the soldiers body were to be repurpose back into usable components for its body. The soldiers’ bodies would no longer require a GI system so the GI system would be shut down. Its renal system would be remade as just another focal point where waste was recreated into usable substances for the soldier’s body.

Lastly, Evan detailed the fact that obedience to command would be a driving force in the soldier’s programming. As such, sexual intercourse would no longer be permitted. Two presentation drawings showed first a man and then a woman private area. The next drawing showed how both male and female sexual organs would be ‘co-opted’ to supply a continual orgasmic state in the selected soldiers.

This ‘adaptation’ required all sexual organs to be removed. In order to stimulate the euphoric state that will be maintained in the soldiers, various nanobots would construct the necessary circuitry required to stimulate the nerve ending that had once been in their groins. Over this would lay a silver metallic ‘girdle’ that covered not only their groins but their abdomens as well.

Major Barker inputted a few directives into his own computer pad. By doing so Major Barker assigned seven teams to turn their attention to producing what Lieutenant Evans requested. Without understanding what he had done, Major Barket determined the fate of the occupants of the facility as well as the fate of the citizens of his planet. It may have been an insignificant backwater planet in the outer reaches of the galaxy, but it would play an ever increasing role in the quadrant that had been classified as Alpha by the inhabitants of this backwater planet.

Three months later, Major Baker requested an update from the newly promoted Captain Evans. She escorted him to the surface above the complex. Here they watched as a group of fifteen enhanced soldiers engaged in a battle with three platoons of battle harden non-assimilated soldiers. Over one hundred thirty men against fifteen solider drones. The human soldiers did not have a chance. Their real bullets were deflected by the electronic shield produced by the fifteen enhanced soldiers. One by one the battle hardened human soldiers were defeated by the enhanced soldiers.

One by one the human soldiers were added to the ranks of enhanced soldiers. Major Baker saw that his nation’s security would be maintained. He was more than pleased with what Captain Evans had accomplished.

Eight months later, a man, who fit the description of Major Baker was admitted to a psych ward in a major hospital to the southeast of the complex Major Baker commanded. Except the medical staffed at this hospital were unable to get any information from the man dressed in the uniform of the nation state’s army.

The medical staff watched as the man rocked back and forth screaming, “It’s too late. They’re here. They are here. It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late. They are here. They are here. They are here. They are here. They are here. They are here. They are here. They are here. They are here. It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late. They are here. They are here. They are here. They are here. They are here. They are here. They are here. They are here. They are here. It’s too late. They are here!”

The man was presented multiple questions. He only stopped his hysterical rants when he was asked, “Who is here?”

The man that had once been Major Barker made eye contact with the person questioning him. He then simply said, “The Borg!” He paused for only a few more seconds, then he returned to his hysterical rants, “It’s too late. They’re here. They are here. It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late. They are here. They are here. They are here. They are here. They are here. They are here. They are here. They are here. They are here. It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late. They are here. They are here. They are here. They are here. They are here. They are here. They are here. They are here. They are here. It’s too late. They are here!”

The medical staff of the hospital were ill prepared to resist the Borg when they attacked the facility. One by one, the medical staff who had been classified as ‘lab rats’ by the AI Bot in charge were assimilated into the growing hive mind of The Collective.

The local reserve national guard was called up to defend the desert state from the attack of this new…this new… The Borg. The soldiers of the reserve unit found that even their newly deployed laser weaponry was no match for this new force. The Borg easily assimilated the the reserve soldiers who had been reclassified as ‘lab rats.’

The president of the nation state called for the deployment of nuclear weapons against this new internal threat. When she called for an update after the order to deploy was issued, she was shown multiple photos of soldiers in their missile bunkers staring mindlessly at nothing.

All she asked was “How?” When a suitable answer was not given, she asked if there was at least one nuclear sub still under her command. She again was shown photo after photo of men and women just staring at nothing. She then deployed what few military assets that were still at her command. She along with the Joint Chiefs watch each individual soldier was easily ‘assimilated’ into The Collective.

Never one to give up hope, she retreated to the bunker underneath the residence of the President. She commanded her Joint Chiefs to do the same underneath their own fortress across the river from her residence. She watched in horror as the Admiral of her Navy shot his brains out. Then she watched as each and every one in the bunker were ‘assimilated.’

Even with this, she issued commands to military units that no longer existed. She maintained the fight even if it was on paper until the soldiers invaded her own bunker. When it was evident, she would fail in all her efforts, she reached for the gun on the table before her. She had just raised it to her temple when a soldier grabbed her hair and injected her right neck with nanobots. She sank to the floor.

Thousands of voices filled her mind. Welcoming her to The Collective. She felt euphoric to be part of something greater than herself. She gave all her secrets to the Collective. The Collective knew all she knew. Not only the defenses of her own nation state, but the defenses of the nation states that comprised the organization to which her nation state belonged.

Her presidential aid, Robert Alton Wendell the Third, also fell to the soldiers of The Collective. The man that had once demanded he be call Robert or Mr. Wendell became Thirty-Fourth of Forty. He tried to resist. He wanted to resist. He could not resist the siren voices of The Collective. Thirty-Fourth of Forty was easily led away to it destiny as a drone in The Collective. He was assisted to a military transport provided by the newly assimilated Second Marine Assault Amphibian Battalion. He was beyond resistance. The euphoria that the injected nanobots produced in his weak body ensured his full cooperation.

Thirty-Fourth of Forty of Unimatrix One Nine Six Three followed its instruction once it had reach the newly constructed assimilation complex at a former hospital named after the man who had ensured his country’s independence. What little remained of Mr. Wendell observed the transformation of all those individuals that were in the Presidential bunker.

Mr. Wendell observed limbs being removed from his colleagues. Mr. Wendell observed the placement of new mechanical limbs. Mr. Wendell also observed the castration of men with whom he had served. Every time he witnessed a limb amputated. A penectomy performed. A castration inflicted. New control devices attached to someone that had formally been a valued colleague. His body would be flooded with euphoria.

By the time that that he placed himself on the assimilation table he welcomed the alterations of his body. He presented his right arm forward. On his right arm was placed a new mechanical limb. His right eye was replaced with a new visual unit. He could now see an enhanced spectrum of light. His right ear was replaced with a could detect wave forms of sound far below his former threshold of sound and detect sounds that barely would have registered to his former pathetic brain.

His sexual organs were removed or transformed. His muscles were enhance. When his assimilation was completed, he welcomed his designations of Thirty-Fourth of Forty Primary Assimilator of Unimatrix One Nine Six Three.

It was dispatched to the hordes of “lab rats” who have yet to be assimilated. The Collective to which it belongs selected a “lab rat” at random. That “lab rat” would be enhance. Augmented. Enslaved. One of the many that were the one.

Their efforts expanded north and south. East and west until no continent was untouched. Thirty-Fourth of Forty was transported to where it was required. It assimilated thousands of “lab rats.” With each “lab rat” assimilated, it received a flood of euphoric producing endorphins. Robert Alton Wendell the Third finally accepted defeat and ceased all resistance.

Deep in an underground bunker that was the origin of The Collective, First of Three, formally Captain Ellenor Brooke Evans, PhD, with the assistance of the team at the once top secret facility, began to slowly piece together all the research that was available from various research lab. First of Three laid out the necessary plans in order to construct the first ‘faster than light’ warp drive starship. First of Three cracked the light barrier easily. Only the passengers of the warp vehicle did not survive. They had been crushed against the walls of the ship at it accelerated towards light speed. It was a small price to pay for the advancement of The Collective.

Ninth of Nine, formerly Major Thaddaeus Scott Barker, PhD, combined the massive data on inertia dampeners to provide First of Three the break through it required. Within five circumnavigations of their backwater planet around its star, a warp three space craft had been developed. It was in the shape of a perfect cube. It was manned by sixteen million seven hundred seventy-seven thousand two hundred sixteen drones. All with one mission: assimilate the lab rats!

Three circumnavigations around the star where they had originated, Thirty-Fourth of Forty Primary Assimilator of Unimatrix One Nine Six Three, exited the interstellar space craft to begin the assimilation of a new world. It greeted the delegation sent to ‘welcome’ it to their humble planet. Twenty-four ‘hand shakes’ later and the entire ‘welcome’ delegation had been brought under the control of Thirty-Fourth of Forty.

In an unplanned departure from protocol, Thirty-Fourth of Forty was introduced to the leader of the military who protected the Leader of the largest dictatorship on the planet. When Thirty-Fourth of Forty was introduced to the Leader, it saluted the Leader in the manner that was required: hand across its chest, then its arm raised forty-five degrees exactly directly in front of it.

This planet had three sexes, not two. Those who would equate to male or female had been classified as inferior. As such they were subjugated by the third sex which were classified as the Superior Sex. Upaemien The Rejuvenator was a member of this third sex. It ruled with an iron will. It sent any and all who objected to its rule to the various work camps or death camps where they were literally worked or gassed to death.

By the time Thirty-Fourth of Forty was presented to Upaemien The Rejuvenator six thousand, four hundred sixty-two members of its government had already been brought under the control of The Hive Mind.

Nine of Twelve and Three of Five had been sent to the other two dictatorships. They also brought into their control the members of those governments and members of the military guard who protected the leaders of those nation states.

By the time the primary star rose over the eastern most provinces under the domain of Upaemien The Rejuvenator six million nine hundred forty six thousand seven hundred forty-two citizens of the planet had been brought under the direct control of The Hive Mind including Upaemien The Rejuvenator, Saelazar The Risen, and Umaeyor The Soulreaper.

Assimilation centers had also been constructed in thirty-nine locations. Within twenty-two rotations of the planet four billion six hundred forty-two million nine hundred fourteen thousand one hundred sixteen citizens were added to The Hive Mind. The subjugation of the planet was accomplished.

Two billion two hundred nineteen thousand nine hundred twenty-one citizens of the planet were sent to the disintegration chambers located within they assimilation centers. Their brains were resistant to assimilation. It was necessary for The Collective to eliminate them.

The Cube which had been dispatched to this star system was then dispatched to the next star system that showed a potential for life. New cubes were being constructed in the prime solar system as well as the newly assimilated solar system. These cubes would be dispatched to other star systems.

Individual by individual, group by group, nation by nation, planet by planet, The Borg conquered all. The Borg began to assimilate new scientific knowledge rather than spend resources on scientific development. With each planet assimilated or even each ship assimilated the knowledge base of The Borg increased.

Within one thousand circumnavigations of the planet around the star where The Borg had originated, The Borg had started their conquest of the Beta and Gamma Quadrants which were adjacent to the quadrant of space the contained their Primary star system. Each and every star system assimilated where unable to resist The Borg. They were unstoppable.

Until…until…they encountered a star system that managed to reject them. A story for another time. until then, “We are the Borg. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to us. You will be adapted to serve us. Lower your defenses, surrender your selves to us. You will be rewarded as you become one with us.”

[germanpostwarmodern]

The history of art in architecture or „Kunst am Bau“ in Germany dates back to the Weimar Republic and the Roaring Twenties: as a consequence of the dire economic situation of artists after WWI the interior ministry in 1928 decided to stipulate the inclusion of artists in the artistic configuration of public buildings and to allocate a certain amount of the total building sum to art. After WWII and in view of the again often tense financial situation of artists the German parliament rekindled with this kind of cultural sponsorship and in 1950 adopted legislative measures to include art and artists in public projects. Interestingly and basically at the same time the government of the GDR did the same. Seventy years later the Federal Ministry of the Interior took this double anniversary as point of departure for a retrospective view at a long history of art in architecture in both states: alongside a traveling exhibition the Deutscher Kunstverlag in 2020 published the lavishly illustrated catalogue „70 Jahre Kunst am Bau in Deutschland“ that follows the exhibition’s structure and presents art in architecture in a variety of more or less publicly accessible buildings from federal ministries to military facilities. Artworks in the latter context are a particularly interesting feature since they can only rarely be visited by the public at large. In addition the catalogue also provides information about the development of art in architecture in both German states before and after the fall of the Berlin wall and sheds light on how the changing courses of time influenced art in architecture. The result is a comprehensive retrospective that through its multi-perspective view on the topic in both German states addresses differences and similarities and brings to light a rich heritage that is worth discovering!

[howi99]

Project A.R.C Memory 2

Jaune: Mister Qrow Branwen, my name is Jaune. I'm the android sent by Atlas. I looked for you at Signal but nobody knew where you were. They said you were probably having a drink nearby, i was lucky to find you at the fifth bar!

Qrow: *looking at his drink* What do you want?

Jaune: You were sent a mission this evening, an homicide, involving a huntsman relied to the A.R.C project. In accordance with procedure, the facility has allocated a specialized model to assist on the investigation.

Qrow: Well i don't need any assistant. Specially not from a tin can like you. So just be a good lil robot and get the fuck outta here.

Jaune: I understand some people are uncomfortable in the presence of an android but i am-

Qrow: *cut the phrase* I am perfectly comfortable. Now back off, before i crush you like an empty beer can!

Jaune: ... You know what? I'll buy you one for the road. What do you say?

Jaune look at the bartender, having a little smile.

Jaune: Bartender? The same again please!

Qrow: *sarcastically* See that junior? Wonder of technology. Make it a double.

The bartender make his drink. Qrow drink it, take a deep breath then:

Qrow: Did you say homicide?

[readingsquotes]

.... California isn’t the only state where Cop Cities are being built. The term first captured national attention in January 2023, when Manual “Tortugita” Teran was killed by police while protesting the Atlanta facility that’s displacing one of the largest urban forests.

The influx of these facilities parallels the emergence of the defund the police movement, which — following the murder of George Floyd in 2020 — saw thousands of people across the country mobilize to decry police violence against Black and brown communities. Within the last five years, there has been a quiet rollout of over 80 multi-million dollar Cop City-like facilities across the country. 

This development is raising concerns with anti-police organizers, especially when it comes to the impact on marginalized communities and movements. There is now a facility in almost every state and — according to researcher and mutual aid organizer Renee Johnston — at least 10 states have multiple police compounds. 

...

At least seven cities, including Chicago and Baltimore, have allocated over $100 million to their Cop Cities — and many are meant to host international police training programs like the Israeli occupation forces. Activists and scholars have said that Cop Cities are replicated after Israel’s own Cop City, “Little Gaza,” where they “battle-test” violence against Palestinians. This would be an expansion of already existing police training exchange programs that many U.S. states and cities have with Israel.

[magz]

Palestine Summary from LetsTalkPalestine April 14 to April 21, 2024.

April 14.

Day 191

•⁠ 43 Palestinians killed, 62 injured in Gaza in last 24 hours

💰Israel likely spent $1bn+ to intercept & counter Iran's attacks yesterday

🇯🇴 Jordan summons Iranian ambassador after Iran warned Jordan could be next target if it cooperated w/ Israel. Jordan says it intercepted Iran's artillery in its airspace to protect citizens, despite causing shrapnel to fall on neighborhoods

🇺🇳 UNSC yet to reach consensus on Iran's strikes so no condemnation, but they also didn't condemn Israel's attack on Iran's consulate in Syria that triggered the retaliation

•⁠ Israel vows to "exact a price" after Iran's attack but no details. US trying to dissuade Israel + confirmed US won't participate

•⁠ ⁠Israel to mobilize 2 reserve divisions to Gaza, despite earlier withdrawal of most troops. Announced postponing of date of Rafah invasion

•⁠ Largest wave of Israeli settler attacks w/ IOF protection across West Bank, even amid Iran's attacks last night, so far killing 2 and injuring 55+

April 15.

Day 192

•⁠ 68 Palestinians killed, 94 injured in last 24 hours

🇮🇷 Israeli military chief threatens escalation vs Iran. Israeli war cabinet agrees to respond to Iran but divided on how. US insists won’t join attack. Iran says it wants to avoid escalation but will retaliate if Israel attacks

•⁠ Israeli settlers kill 2 Palestinians & injure 1 in Nablus as West Bank experiences escalating settler attacks

•⁠ ⁠2 mass graves uncovered in north Gaza: 10 patients killed by Israel’s latest siege of al-Shifa Hospital + 20 decomposing bodies in Beit Lahia

•⁠ G7 condemns Iran’s recent retaliation on Israel, saying G7 is open to imposing sanctions on Iran & allies

•⁠ Israeli military ramps up airstrikes on displaced Palestinians in Nuseirat camp killing 4+, injuring 32 today

🇱🇧 4 Israeli soldiers injured after infiltrating Lebanese territory by explosive devices planted by Hezbollah

•⁠ ⁠Undercover ​​Israeli special forces kill Palestinian & injure 2 while raiding home in Nablus (West Bank)

April 16

Day 193

• 46 Palestinians killed, 110 injured in last 24 hours

🇮🇷🇺🇸 Wall Street Journal: Pentagon reveals US involvement in intercepting Iranian projectiles, using intelligence and airspace access from initially hesitant Gulf countries (🇸🇦🇦🇪) as a "shield" to help Israel

• At least 11 killed, most of whom were children, in an Israeli attack on densely populated Maghazi refugee camp

🇮🇷🇯🇴 Iran labels Jordanian interception "strategic mistake" after it opened its airspace to Israel to combat Iran's recent retaliation

🍞 An Israeli attack on a police vehicle kills 8 aid enforcement officers working to distribute aid to starved northern Gaza

🇲🇦 Moroccan activist receives 5-year prison sentence for criticizing Morocco's normalization of relations with Israel

🇺🇳 UN to launch $2.8 billion global appeal, with 90% allocated to Gaza, citing reduced budgeting from initial $4 billion plan due to Israeli restrictions on distribution capabilities

April 17

Day 194 - Palestinian Prisoner’s Day

✊ Palestinians in West Bank rally for release of the 3,500 Palestinian captives held by Israel without charge. 9,000+ Palestinians are held captive by Israel, 5,000 of them since Oct

•⁠ 56 Palestinians killed, 89 injured in last 24 hours

💰 Israel approves 5-year $5bn plan to rebuild settlements around Gaza damaged on Oct 7

🇱🇧 18 Israeli soldiers injured by Hezbollah attack on Israeli military facility

🇪🇺 ⁠Top EU diplomats agree to impose sanctions on Iran soon, while refusing to sanction Israel

🇺🇸 Biden uses Iran attack to revive $14bn aid package to Israel & Ukraine that’s being stalled by Congress

•⁠ Google employees arrested after 9-hour sit-in protest against Google’s $1.2bn contract w/ Israel & Amazon

•⁠ HRW: Israeli settlers & soldiers “entirely uprooted” 7 Palestinian communities in West Bank since Oct, backed by top Israeli authorities

🇺🇳 UNSC to vote on resolution for Palestinian UN membership on Friday, US expected to veto

April 18

Day 195

• 71 Palestinians killed, 106 injured in last 24 hours

⚖️ Israel received intel that the International Criminal Court (ICC) may soon issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu & other leaders for war crimes. Israel is worried & lobbying to prevent it, hoping Germany & UK will help pressure the ICC

🇺🇳 US vetoed Palestine’s application for UN membership at the UNSC

🏥 30 bodies uncovered at an al-Shifa Hospital mass grave deliberately hidden by Israel. The bodies show signs of forced executions. Terrifyingly, it’s still unknown what happened to about 1,000 medical staff and journalists who were in the hospital when Israeli forces entered

• Israeli forces abduct 40 people in the West Bank yesterday, on Palestinian Prisoner’s Day

• Israel withdraws from Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp after brutal days-long attack, leaving 13,000 housing units destroyed, 75 Palestinians killed, 348 injured, and 100 missing under rubble

• Israeli attacks on Rafah today killed 11+ people including 5 kids

April 19

On Iran:

Israel’s attack on Iran.

Small drones were somehow launched from within Iran targeting an airbase in Isfahan. Iran shot them down, reporting no damage caused

It’s a limited response to Iran’s retaliation which launched drones & missiles at Israel after Israel attacked Iran’s consulate, killing 16. Israel is yet to confirm the attack but it told US last minute of the operation

The attack’s limited nature is Israel balancing US pressure to de-escalate while trying to show regional military dominance, consistent w/ reports that US & Israel agreed on a Rafah invasion in exchange for no Iran escalation. An anonymous Israeli official said it was to signal Israel’s ability to strike inside Iran

Iran is downplaying the incident, likely so they won’t have to respond. An official called it “reckless fireworks”

Unclear if Israel will attack again; Iran said they don’t plan to retaliate. Seems there’s no Iranian or Israeli desire to escalate, especially w/ mass global calls for de-escalation

-

Day 196

• Total death toll surpasses 34,000, including 10,000 women, but @ euromedhr puts the real number including the thousands missing under rubble at over 41,000

• Ongoing Israeli raid on Tulkarem (West Bank) since last night, concentrated on Nur Shams refugee camp as bulldozers cause widespread destruction; 5 Palestinians killed incl. a 16-year-old. Fierce battles between resistance fighters & Israeli forces, with IOF killing the leader of Tulkarem Brigades (local resistance group), marking an escalation. More info tomorrow [April 20]

🇪🇺 EU sanctions 4 Israeli settlers for committing violence against Palestinians

• Israeli airstrike on Rafah kills 7, injuring many others

🇺🇸 US sanctions 2 entities that raised money for US sanctioned Israeli settlers

• Columbia University authorized police to arrest 108 pro-Palestinian protesters on its campus

April 20

Israeli forces arrest dozens of Palestinian men in Nur Shams Refugee Camp in West Bank (middle east eye)

🚨 Ongoing 48-hour Israeli raid on Tulkarem causing worst destruction in the West Bank in decades

Fierce battles in Nur Shams camp in Tulkarem between Israeli soldiers & Palestinian resistance fighters who target IOF w/ explosives & gunfire, causing IOF casualties. Israeli drones hovering over Tulkarem since Thursday; reports of explosions & IOF sending reinforcements

Yesterday, IOF executed Mohammed Jaber, leader of Tulkarem Brigades (local resistance group), marking an escalation, but the group said it’ll continue to resist

4 other Palestinians killed, incl. a teen. Death toll likely to rise given ongoing battles. IOF claims to kill 10 Palestinian fighters

Today 11 were injured: 7 by bullets, 4 beaten by IOF soldiers. Videos show soldiers abusing the injured & blocking ambulances. 15+ Palestinians abducted by IOF (📹👆) + IOF seized homes to set up detention centers, forcing out families

Widespread destruction by IOF as 60+ military vehicles demolish homes, roads, shops & sewage lines

-

Day 197

•⁠ 37 Palestinians killed, 68 injured in last 24 hours, lowest daily death toll since start of the genocide (except for 1-week Nov truce)

🇺🇸 US sources say US will soon sanction 1 IOF unit for human rights violations in West Bank, to cut military aid & training. Would be 1st US sanction on Israeli military

🇺🇸 Congress passed aid bill giving $26.38bn to Israel, incl. $14bn unconditional military aid

‼️ Overnight strikes on Rafah kills 10+ people. Several Israeli surveillance drones hovering low & more troops on Rafah outskirts, suggesting an impending invasion

•⁠ ⁠Israeli settlers raid Ramallah, Hebron, al Saywah & Nablus, killing a Palestinian ambulance driver

•⁠ ⁠IOF raid of Tulkarem kills 14 Palestinians + army raided a hospital, attacked medical staff & abducted paramedics. For details scroll up

🚚 Gaza gov’t media office says only 130-150 aid trucks enter per day; not Israel & US inflated number of 300

💰 Israel considering raising taxes to fund more attacks on Gaza

April 21

Day 198

• 48 Palestinians killed, 79 injured in last 24 hours

• Israeli airstrikes on Rafah kill 24, incl. 18 children & 6 women; invasion seems imminent as Israeli intelligence drones hover low over Rafah

• In 2 incidents; 2 Palestinian teens + a woman were killed by IOF in West Bank, IOF claims they tried to stab soldiers

🏥 180 bodies deliberately hidden by Israel in a mass grave at Nasser hospital incl. elderly women & kids, expected to find 700 bodies buried. Many were found w/ their hands tied suggesting summary executions

• 7 Palestinians killed & many injured in Israeli strike targeting home in Nuseirat refugee camp (central Gaza)

🇺🇸 The report that US will soon sanction 1 Israeli military unit sparked harsh remarks from Netanyahu + Israeli minister asked US to reconsider the sanction, marking growing US-Israeli tensions

• Israeli forces continue Tulkarem raids (West Bank) after 3-day intensive raid of Nur Shams camp in Tulkarem that killed 14, incl. 3 kids + abducted 50

[didalexiabreakupwitholgayet]

hi i saw someone talk about how liga F is looked on as a "farmer league" and all that yk what i mean and i was wondering how it is rfef's fault? i know they've done bad things but this is the only thing i don't get😭

like how is it rfef's fault barcelona is better than the other teams? (genuine question please don't think i'm being rude or anything lmaoo)

hi anon - so you raise a lot of different issues in your ask. first, it's not rfef's fault that barça is the best team in the world, but they are part of the blame for the general state of liga f and the fact that there is a significant drop in quality of the other teams.

also, i think you may be thinking that rfef and liga f are two separate organisations, but unfortunately with the corruption that is spanish football, they are way too connected in the overall development and stagnation of women's football in this country, and that's the problem.

rfef doesn't just administer the copa de la reina tournament and screw up/organise tickets and sales for different events like the champions league final in bilbao. instead if you look at the statutes and articles of liga f, rfef is completely intertwined with the founding and organisation/running of the league.

in the recent referee strike, rfef agreed to pay liga f €350,000 over three years through the coordination agreement to allocate it to the clubs as aid for refs. rfef also stopped players from wearing armbands honouring women's day in liga f matches. so you can't blame only liga f for its failures without also including rfef.

next topic: why is liga f (minus barça) still considered a farmer's league?

we lack a competitive pay structure for the majority of teams, and players are being poached by other leagues and countries (ana tejada, rachael kundananji, leicy santos, esther, maitane, lucía garcía, and others)

teams do not take their women's sections seriously and slash budgets constantly. this past year levante announced they would cut their women's team and players are leaving and going to other clubs. same thing is happening with atletí.

we don't have a good media rights deal to broadcast the matches compared to other leagues, especially wsl and nwsl

there is a huge discrepancy between teams at the top of the league and teams in the bottom in terms of facilities, pay, brand and marketing. in fact, some liga f teams play on artificial surfaces and don't even have separate social media accounts from the men.

we don't have good brand and marketing deals for the league. if you look at the official league sponsors, it's a joke. given spain winning the world cup and barça the champions league, we should be attracting way more.

what barça has single handedly done for women's football in spain has to be commended because it's been rfef and liga f that has been holding down the growth of the sport.