shinyhappyrainbows

More cops never did improve safety. It increased quota pressure on officers, which blows back on the vulnerable. When you have generally conservative institutions like the Auditor General's Department saying that extra cops was a waste of the public purse, not only are all cops bastards #ACAB, but more cops is a bastard waste of money. From The Guardian ... No proof a 2,700 boost in Victorian police numbers has improved safety, audit finds Auditor general finds police unable to ‘assure itself or community’ that $2bn program is meeting its aims. Photograph: Darrian Traynor/Getty Images Adeshola Ore Thu 1 Sep 2022 14.00 AEST A blitz to recruit more than 2,700 additional Victorian police officers under a $2bn investment to tackle crime has not been proved to improve community safety, a report by the state’s auditor general has found... [ read more ]

I'm not telling you to do this. If you do this, you choose to. I don't want you to even need do this but life is a bitch and we have a right to know how to keep ourselves safe from harm. Nominally, if we are in danger, we should call the police, but hey, what if you're a woman who lives alone in the country, kilometres from any sort of police response, and a local "creepazoid" "takes a shine" to you and he is totally unwelcome to. I believe there are situations where, even though in law we might not have such a right, we do have "a moral right" to nonlethal defence. I'm not writing in the USA, BTW, the Second Amendment doesn't apply outside that failed state, and is the reason that nation is a failed state. Yeah, pin pulled, diplomatic incident, fuck the USA, fuck off. So, the nonlethal defence option for the rest of us. It needs to be "cooking" rather than "chemistry." It needs to be relatively nontechnical, but sa...

Image: ABC News. I make no bones about this, if China were to invade Australia because we took an active role in the defence of Taiwan, it would be a hideous experience for Australia. It would make the German bombing of the UK look like Guy Fawkes' Night. Millions of Australians would suffer. Literally millions. Of this there is no doubt, and Australia's Defence Force is right to model this invasion, they are right to warn us of the consequences. I genuinely believe, though, not even China could support a modern invasion of Australia, anymore than Germany was ever able to actually invade Britain in the 1940s. China would choke on the outback, and the resistance Australia could mount from there. They would choke on their own agribusiness interests here. Take this image. Now, imagine a panorama constructed of photographs taken side-by-side along the tropic of Capricorn from Western Australia to Queensland coasts, stitching together 100s of thousands of images (if not millions) l...