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libertariantaoist · 11 months

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Here is your daily roundup of today's news:

News Roundup 5/17/2023

by Kyle Anzalone

US News

The far-reaching effects of America’s War on Terror may have contributed to the deaths of some 4.5 million people, according to new research by Brown University’s ‘Costs of War’ project. While many of the fatalities were the direct result of violent conflict, indirect causes such as economic collapse and food insecurity have taken a far greater toll. The Institute

Russia

The leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) will adopt a prohibition on restarting oil imports from Russia, according to the Financial Times. The “highly symbolic” ban falls well short of the total export embargo proposed by Washington. The Institute

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said Tuesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky have agreed to host a delegation of African leaders to discuss a potential peace plan for the conflict in Ukraine. AWC

Germany on Saturday announced its largest package of military aid for Kyiv worth $2.95 billion, Berlin’s largest since Russia invaded Ukraine last year. AWC

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Britain Monday and secured pledges for more military equipment from London, including air defense missiles and long-range attack drones. AWC

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has privately plotted major attacks inside Russia while pledging publicly that his forces won’t use Western-provided arms to target Russian territory, The Washington Post reported on Saturday. AWC

The Washington Post deleted a portion of an interview with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, where he accused the paper of helping Russia by posing a question about information contained in leaked classified documents. AWC

The Russian Defense Ministry on Saturday said Ukrainian forces have already used British-provided long-range Storm Shadow missiles in attacks on the Russian-controlled Donbas city of Luhansk. AWC

The last massive aid package Congress authorized for Ukraine has about $6 billion left, which is expected to be used up by mid-summer, POLITICO reported Monday. AWC

Warsaw received its first shipment of US-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), manufactured by Lockheed Martin, and announced plans to deploy the launchers near the country’s shared border with Russia’s Kaliningrad enclave. The Institute

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Russian mercenary group Wagner, dismissed claims made by The Washington Post that he offered Ukraine Russian troop positions in exchange for a Ukrainian withdrawal from Bakhmut, calling the report “laughable.” AWC

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization conducted war games aimed at tracking and eliminating submarines. The 12-nation exercises were the alliance’s largest ever military drills simulating underwater warfare. The Institute

Russia’s military said Tuesday that it hit a US-made Patriot air defense system in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv with a hypersonic missile, which was later confirmed by a US official. AWC

Kiev officially joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s Cyber Defense Center on Tuesday. Ukraine’s flag was raised at the headquarters of NATO’s Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE) in Tallinn, according to a Ukrainian Foreign Ministry statement. The Institute

On Monday, the CIA published a video on YouTube and Telegram urging Russians to contact the agency in an effort to recruit intelligence assets inside Russia. AWC

China

A high-level Chinese envoy is set to begin a trip that will bring him to Russia, Ukraine, and several other European countries as Beijing hopes to broker a ceasefire to bring an end to the fighting in Ukraine. AWC

Beijing says on 1/5/2021 the US conducted an antisubmarine operation about 100 miles from Hong Kong. When Chinese forces attempted to seize some American equipment, Washington destroyed it. SCMP

On Tuesday, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) responded to US plans to provide Taiwan with $500 million in unprecedented military aid and reports that said hundreds of US troops have been deployed to the island, warning it will “firmly crush attempts at external interference.” AWC

A US envoy said Monday that the US and the Federated States of Micronesia have agreed to extend a strategic pact that will allow the US to maintain military access to the Pacific Island nation. AWC

President Biden has canceled planned visits to Papua New Guinea and Australia to focus on the debt ceiling debate that’s ongoing in Washington, The Associated Press reported on Tuesday. AWC

Middle East

European countries are pressing Biden to resume talks with Iran about reviving the nuclear agreement. WSJ

The US military says it’s looking into reports that it killed a civilian in a recent airstrike it launched in northwest Syria. AWC

The Cradle reported on Tuesday that the US and Syria have been engaged in secret, direct negotiations in the Omani capital of Muscat. AWC

#kyle anzalone #libertarian institute #news roundup

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princesscatherinemiddleton · 2 years

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The Duchess of Cambridge visited Pirbright Training Academy and spent time with the 101 Operational Sustainment Brigade at Abingdon Airfield in November 2021. Kensington Palace released the photos, taken by the British Army, specifically Corporal Cameron Eden, in honour of Armed Forces Day 2022. Alongside the photos, a message written by the Duchess of Cambridge was published:

Today on Armed Forces Day, William and I would like to pay tribute to the brave men and women, past & present, serving in all of our armed forces, at sea, on land & in the air, here in the UK and around the world. Thank you for all you and your families sacrifice to keep us safe.

Last year, I was honoured to spend time with the British Army to see how they train serving personnel and new recruits. It was wonderful to see first-hand the many important and varied roles the military play day in, day out to protect us all and I look forward to discovering more about the Royal Navy & Royal Air Force in due course. C

#mine #royaltyedit #kate #armed forces day 22

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your-krazy-uncle-bob · 2 years

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The U.S. Army has met only 40 percent of its 2022 recruiting goals.

In fact, all branches of the military are facing historic resistance to their current recruiting efforts. If some solution is not found quickly, the armed forces will radically shrink or be forced to lower standards—or both.

Such a crisis occurs importunely as an aggressive Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea believe the Biden Administration and the Pentagon have lost traditional U.S. deterrence.

That pessimistic view abroad unfortunately is now shared by many Americans at home. In 2021, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute conducted its periodic poll of attitudes toward the U.S. military. The result was astonishing. Currently, only 45 percent of Americans polled expressed a great deal of trust in their armed forces. Confidence had dived 25 points since an early 2018 poll.

Military officials cite both the usual and a new array of challenges in finding suitable young soldiers—drug use, gang affiliation, physical and mental incapacities, and the dislocations arising from the COVID pandemic and vaccination mandates. But they are too quiet about why such supposedly longer-term obstacles suddenly coalesced in 2022—as if their own leadership and policies have had no effect in discouraging tens of thousands of young men and women to join them.

The Greatest Skedaddle in Modern American History

A year ago, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley were assuring the country not to worry over Joe Biden’s strange ideas of abruptly pulling out all U.S. troops from Afghanistan. The radical step was purportedly to coincide with Biden’s planned 20-year celebratory event marking his role in ensuring an iconic end of the war on terror that began on September 11, 2001.

What followed was the worst U.S. military humiliation since Pearl Harbor.

U.S. forces abandoned hundreds if not thousands of American contractors and loyal Afghan employees, a $1 billion embassy, a huge $300 million refitted air base, and reportedly somewhere between $60-80 billion in military equipment and infrastructure. That sum was nearly double all the current military assistance sent to Ukraine.

Thirteen Americans were murdered by terrorists during the chaotic flight. In response, the United States mistakenly blew up 10 innocent Afghans after misidentifying them as ISIS terrorists. The horrific scenes at the Kabul airport surpassed the 1975 catastrophic ending of the Vietnam War on the U.S. embassy roof.

The global aftermath was eerie. Russia in a few months thereafter invaded Ukraine. Iran proudly announced it would soon have enough fissionable material to make a nuclear weapon. North Korea resumed its provocative missile launches. China openly talked of storming Taiwan.

The common denominator was the global perception that any president and military responsible for such colossal, televised incompetence would or could neither deter enemy aggression nor protect allied interests.

In response, widely reported furor arose among the ranks of some American officers and the enlisted. Mid-level officers especially claimed they were ignored after warning that the abrupt withdrawal was suicidal, that Pentagon grandees were lying about the dire facts on the grounds in efforts to lubricate the Biden agenda, and that thousands of Americans and loyal Afghans would be cast adrift, along with our NATO allies.

The shame of defeat and the cloud of incompetence from Afghanistan have continued to harm recruitment efforts of the military.

The White Rage Unicorn

About a year ago Austin and Chairman Milley took time out from assuring Americans that all would be well in Kabul, to testify before Congress about the Pentagon’s effort to address “white rage” in the six-month aftermath of the January 6 riot.

Both were also asked to explain why the armed services were recommending soldiers read inter alia the often-discredited “antiracist” theories of Ibram X. Kendi. His polarizing doctrine asserts that the entire U.S. system of government, all social and political life, and our very culture are racist to core. As a result, Kendi’s solution requires radical and overt racial preferencing and discrimination supposedly to fight such an insidious system.

Yet what was startling about the two officials’ testimonies was the utter lack of data showing any general trends that white soldiers were any more or less likely to practice racial discrimination or chauvinism than other ethnic and racial groups in the military. An array of officers defended various workshops and course work at the military academies purporting that white rage is an existential problem in the military.

The subtext of the entire testimony debacle was that the two titular heads of the military wished to reassure progressive majorities in the U.S. Congress that they were sympathetic to the woke movement and, along with other high-ranking officers, wanted publicly to virtue signal to that effect.

In their emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion—the latest euphemisms for using race and gender quotas to assure proportional or even reparatory representation—throughout the officer corps, Austin and Milley seemed entirely oblivious that the U.S. Army depends on generations of family loyalty to the armed forces. Such heritage and legacy considerations have ensured a steady stream of recruits for front-line combat units.

In other words, over generations the same families, drawn from mostly middle-class cohorts, have served disproportionately in combat units in Vietnam, the various Iraq conflicts, and Afghanistan. Indeed, if the military was consistent in its racial fixations, it might have noted that white males—the purported targets of the Austin and Milley efforts to ferret out supposed white rage cells— died in three wars at roughly twice their numbers in the general population.

Current analysis of the recruiting crisis reveals what almost any observer would have predicted a year earlier from the haughty virtue signaling of Austin and Milley: traditional military families are not sending their sons and daughters into the ranks. It is not the danger of combat or the rigor of military life that families fear, but the suspicion their offspring will be targeted for ideological indoctrination and coercion that is either extraneous or antithetical to military efficacy.

Traditionally, 40 percent of new recruits cite the military service of their parents—not to mention their veteran grandparents. Currently only 13 percent of new recruits arrive from such military families. Yet Austin and Milley made no connection between the Pentagon fixations on current hot-button social issues and its apparent inability to secure an honorable and safe withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The Weaponization of the Pentagon

There is a general perception in and outside the military that the top ranks of the services are increasingly politicized. High profile officers have used the great authority, influence, and power of the Pentagon in polarizing progressive advocacy roles from transgenderism to abortion—to the detriment of military efficacy and lethality. Much of unhappiness with the military arises partly from the woke hysteria, the institutional disdain for Donald Trump and his response to it, and the perceived rewards for those retired military lobbyists and corporate board members who reflect a new woke creed.

The nadir in politicization came in 2021 when it was revealed that Milley secretly contacted his Chinese communist counterpart during the height of the 2020 presidential election. Milley claimed he believed that his own commander-in-chief, Trump, was unstable. And so, after his layman’s diagnosis, he wished to assure the People’s Liberation Army’s ranking officer that he would tip the Chinese off about any thought of a preemptive American strike on China. Milley also ordered his own subordinate theater officers to report to him first should Trump contemplate any nuclear action against China.

Upon public disclosure of those facts, Milley should have been summarily fired. By law, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs is an advisory official only. The position enjoys no operational command.

Milley violated the chain of command by usurping theater authority that was not his. Nor can a military long exist, if its iconic leader freelances in contacting enemy counterparts without the knowledge of the commander-in-chief.

Can we imagine the outrage that would now ensue, if Milley should once again warn his Chinese counterpart that another president, Joe Biden, in the chairman’s own opinion, suffers bouts of cognitive debility and early onset senility, forcing Milley to take matters in his own hands? Yet such freelancing insubordination is now Milley’s legacy.

In fact, some in the retired U.S. military for over four years systematically violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice, sometimes to the extent of engaging in a sort of coup porn.

In a Washington Post op-ed, retired generals Paul Eaton, Antonio Taguba, and Steven Anderson melodramatically and without evidence warned the nation of a supposedly impending coup should their commander-in-chief Donald Trump be elected again in 2024.

In August 2020, two retired officers John Nagl and Paul Yingling, wrote an op-ed urging Milley to simply remove Trump from office should Milley himself feel such a move was necessary after a disputed election. That was a de facto call for a possible coup d’état. But it was not unique.

Earlier, civilian Rosa Brooks, a former Obama-era Pentagon legal official, published an inflammatory call to arms in Foreign Policy. She discussed three major possible avenues to remove newly inaugurated Donald Trump from the presidency. One of her alternatives was a military coup.

For the entire Trump presidency, retired four-star generals and admirals had routinely smeared their commander-in-chief as a veritable Nazi, a Mussolini-like figure, an abject liar, and comparable in his policies to the architects of the Nazi death camps. One retired admiral called for the removal of Trump “the sooner, the better” as if regularly scheduled elections were insufficient remedies.

Aside from clear violations of Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, these officers were oblivious that nearly half the country supported the president and his policies. And so, millions of people would logically conclude that the highest-ranking retired officers, and by extension the culture of the current military, had nothing but contempt for their own views and voting decisions. Alienating nearly half the country is not a wise strategy of military recruitment.

Nor is hypocrisy. The perceptions in the ranks have grown that applications of the law are asymmetrical and politically warped. Article 88, applicable to retired generals and admirals, prohibits military officers from using contemptuous words about top civilian elected and appointed officials. It says nothing about the spouses of said officials.

None of the retired officers who in the media libeled their commander-in-chief from 2017-2021 faced any consequences—reprimands, court martials, or sanctions from doing business with the Pentagon from their corporate billets. Yet one recently did.

The U.S. Army just fired retired consultant Lt. Gen. Gary Volesky from a contractual position with the Pentagon because he poked fun at First Lady Jill Biden. Note that Volesky did not suggest Jill or Joe Biden was a Nazi, a fascist, or liar —much less that her husband should be removed from office “the sooner, the better.” Retired General Volesky’s crime was mocking Jill Biden’s purported hypocrisy on the recent overturn of Roe v. Wade.

Unfortunately, the crisis in the U.S. military transcends even the Afghanistan misadventure, unsupported accusations against an entire demographic, the erosion of military familial loyalty, freelancing politicized officers, and asymmetrical applications of laws and codes.

Fairly or not, the perception among the public and our enemies is that the U.S. military has become a political entity with an agenda that transcends defending the U.S. and its interests.

Its perceived main agenda by half the country is progressive social justice, administered top-down from a cadre of elites who can implement controversial policies through the chain of command without the messy work of the Congress—to the delight of the Pentagon’s newfound sunshine friends on the woke Left.

Such military social engineers unfortunately appear to share contempt for a large group of Americans who voted for a president they despised. And this is a fact warmly welcomed by our worst enemies abroad.

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cinema-tv-etc · 2 years

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Five Fearless Female WWII Spies and Resistors

Operating behind enemy lines, women took on some of the war effort's most dangerous clandestine work.

April 2, 2021 By Erika Robuck

VIA BERKLEY BOOKS

“From the purely tactical point of view, women were able to move about without exciting so much suspicion as men and were therefore exceedingly useful to us…”

—Maurice Buckmaster, They Fought Alone: The Story of British Agents in France

While researching my latest novel, The Invisible Woman, about Allied spy Virginia Hall, I made a surprising discovery. Nazis largely didn’t think women were as brave, intelligent, and even devious and vengeful as men. Because of this, women were often overlooked in the hunt for resistors and spies.

German propaganda at the time depicted a feminine ideal of woman as mother, preferably of four or more children, tending home quietly and with docility. How surprised Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie, “The Butcher of Lyon,” was to discover one of the most troublesome resistors in his region was not only a woman, but a woman with a prosthetic leg.

Barbie christened Virginia Hall “La Dame qui Boite (The Lady who Limps), Most Dangerous of Allied Spies” and put her face on wanted posters. Little did he know she was just one of many women operating in the shadows to destroy the Nazis—women whose stories would be unbelievable if they weren’t true.

Noor Inayat Kahn

Born in 1914 in Moscow to an American mother and an Indian father, Noor grew up across the globe, but mostly in France. She was a pacifist, a writer of children’s books, and a descendent of an 18th century Muslim ruler. After the fall of France, her family escaped to London. As a bilingual member of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, she was recruited for the British clandestine service, the Special Operations Executive (SOE). The first female wireless operator (WO) sent to Occupied France she went in spite of knowing WOs had a life expectancy of six weeks behind enemy lines.

After her network was compromised, HQ urged Noor to return to London, but she was the last WO left standing in her region and she refused to abandon her post. She managed to continue for four months before being betrayed by a Frenchwoman. Noor was deported to a German prison, was tortured, and was ultimately executed at Dachau Concentration Camp. She was posthumously awarded France’s Croix de Guerre and Britain’s George Cross.

Josephine Baker

Born in 1906 in Missouri, Josephine Baker joined a vaudeville act in her teens, but racism in the US sent her to France, where segregation didn’t exist on the same scale as it did at home. Her fearless, erotic performances in Paris propelled her to massive stardom, and she became one of the wealthiest and most celebrated performers in Europe. When war broke out, she hid refugees and resistors in her chateau, and helped procure false papers for their escapes.

Her job as a performer allowed her to travel, and she gathered intelligence at Axis functions for the Allies, recording what she learned on sheet music with invisible ink. When the Nazis heard rumors of her activity and started to close in, she was evacuated to London. For her service, General de Gaulle awarded Baker the Rosette de la Résistance, the Croix de Guerre, and named her a Chevalier de Légion d’honneur.

Micheline Dumon

Born in Brussels in 1921, Micheline Dumon and her family were in the Belgian Resistance. They started The Comet Line, an escape and evasion network for downed Allied aviators that ran from Belgium, through France, and into Spain. When her parents and younger sister, Andrée, were arrested due to a betrayer, Micheline took over leadership, even escorting and guiding pilots over the Pyrenees on many trips.

She was arrested and questioned on multiple occasions, but because she looked so young—she could pass for a thirteen-year-old—and could call forth the tears to support her alleged age, she was released. Throughout the war, Micheline searched for the betrayer, and eventually helped in his capture. She personally escorted 250 aviators, and nearly 800 in total were saved on The Comet Line. After the war, Dumon was decorated with the George Medal and the US Medal of Freedom.

Violette Szabo

Born in France in 1921 to a French mother and a British father, Violette grew up between the two countries, with France as her first love. After escaping France with her little brother as it fell to the Nazis, she joined the rest of her family in London. On Bastille Day, 1940, Violette’s mother asked Violette to find and invite an exiled French soldier to dinner. That man was French Legionnaire Etienne Szabo, and he and Violette fell in love. Married after a five-week courtship, Violette became pregnant while Etienne was on leave, and gave birth to her daughter, Tania, in July of 1942. In October of ’42, Etienne was killed in the Battle of El Alamein in North Africa, having never set eyes on his little girl.

Fueled by a wish to serve and a need for vengeance, and as a bilingual sharpshooter and member of both the Land Army and the Auxiliary Territorial Service, Violette was recruited to join the SOE. She parachuted into Occupied France on two missions but was arrested shortly into the second, just after D-Day, after a shootout resulted in the death of at least one Nazi. She was imprisoned in France before deportation to Ravensbrück Concentration Camp in Germany and was executed there in February of 1945.

In 1947, King George himself pinned little Tania with Violette’s posthumous George Cross award, and Tania received her mother’s Croix de Guerre from the French Ambassador two years later.

Virginia Hall

I don’t want to reveal too much about Virginia Hall, only that if I’d made up a story about a woman with a prosthetic leg, wanted by the Gestapo, who escaped Nazi Occupied France over the snow-covered Pyrenees, only to return weeks before D-Day as a wireless operator, arming and training guerrilla fighters while hunting her first network’s betrayer, you wouldn’t believe it.

If you’d like to learn more about Hall, perhaps you’ll pick up a copy of The Invisible Woman.

***

🔗 👉 https://crimereads.com/five-fearless-female-wwii-spies-and-resistors/

Berkley Books Erika Robuck espionage Josephine Baker Micheline Dumon Noor Inayat Kahn Resistance Women spies The Invisible Woman Violette Szabo Virginia Hall World War II WWII

#Women spies #Spies #Resistance #Women spie #World War II #espionage

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81scorp · 1 month

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Constructive criticism: Space Jam 2 and Scoob!

Ah yes, Space Jam: A New Legacy and Scoob!

Space Jam: A New Legacy

We live in a time where you can make movies about everything. Books, comics, video games, board games, old SNL skits and even commercials.

In 1992 and 1993, two Super Bowl Nike ads, "Hare Jordan" and "Aerospace Jordan" respectively, aired on television and featured Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny. Both ads were commerically succesful and led to the green-lighting of a film featuring Jordan and Bugs.

The project was closed when Jordan retired from basketball in 1993, only to be reopened in 1995 when Jordan returned to play basketball again.

In 1996 Space Jam was released; a movie where the Looney tunes recruit Michael Jordan to help them beat a gang of aliens in a game of basketball.

The movie was a big hit at the Box Office and did OK with the critics.

When I saw it I found it enjoyably OK, and still do. Sure, it`s not the next Who framed Roger Rabbit, but it`s fine.

Years later Warner Bros. decided to cash in on the Space Jam nostalgia, and in 2021 they released Space Jam A New Legacy to the theaters.

It didn`t do that well at the Box Office and received generally negative reviews from critics for its humor, overlong runtime, and particularly for its extensive product placement of WarnerMedia properties.

This is another one of those movies that I haven`t seen but I know what happens in it thanks to watching videos about it on youtube.

So, if I could travel back in time with the help of a timemachine from ACME, what would I have changed?

I would not make it about the Looney tunes competing in a sport against a team of bad guys. From what I`ve seen from trailers and other videos, the movie put a lot of emphasis on "Look at how many IPs we have!" with all the references to other WB movies, just like Disney did in Ralph Breaks the Internet. So I would keep the whole "Looney tunes meets some of WB`s other animated characters" angle. The LT characters should be made with 2D animation, or at least 3D animation that looks convincingly 2D.

Plot

Our main protagonist, let`s call her Jody, (played by Zendaya) works at some big megastore (maybe Walmart?) and is bored with her own life. She would like to go out and travel the world but she rarely has enough money. When she has money she doesn`t have enough time and sometimes she just too stuck in her rut to carpe that diem. One night her apartment is invaded by Bugs Bunny, Lola Bunny, Porky Pig and Daffy Duck. (In this universe cartoon characters are NOT something common like it was in Roger Rabbit, so Jody is quite shocked she she sees them.)

The toons reveal that that there is trouble in the animated world, a big, evil space lord, let`s call him... Monty Cosmos (voiced by Don Cheadle), is taking over and is trying to enslave the animated world. (Not a very original idea, I know.)

Monty Cosmos` personality is similar to Hades from Disney`s Hercules. A couple of toons that have already joined him by their own free will are: Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Marvin the Martian, Wile E. Coyote and Taz.

Bugs, Lola, Daffy and Porky tried to fight Cosmos but were overpowered, forced to flee and ended up in her world by accident and have been trying to find a way back.

Suddenly Taz breaks through the door to her apartment. A portal opens, Bugs, Lola, Daffy, Porky and even Jody are forced to escape through it. They are now in the animated world, the one who opened the portal was an animated professor (It could be an already existing character or a character made for this movie.) Jody meets not just the Looney tunes but many other characters as well, like Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, Freakazoid, Tom and Jerry, The Iron Giant, pretty much any character from an animated franchise owned by WB.

The story is kinda like a mix between Lord of the Rings and Crisis on infinte Earths, but PG and more humorous. The gang and Jody need to go to a place to find a thing that they can take with them and use to defeat Monty Cosmos, but their journey is not easy.

I would include Pepé Le Pew in my movie, but I would dial down the more problematic parts of his behaviour. I would also include Minerva Mink and Heloise Nerz (better known as Hello Nurse) in the movie, and I would imply that they were bi or pansexual and attracted to each other. Pinky and the Brain would also be in the movie, they would be working with Cosmos. The Brain however, would have plans to, when the time was right, get rid of Cosmos and take over his throne. This is The Brain we`re talking about after all, he`d rather be in power than serve the man in power.

In the end, when Monty is defeated, Fred (from Scooby Doo) shows up to see "who is hiding behind the mask" and starts to pull on Monty`s face.

Monty Cosmos: "Ow! Stop it you idiot! This is my real face!"

Fred: "Oh! Sorry! Old habit."

Happy ending. Everybody celebrates. Jody is glad she got to have an adventure and Pinky and the Brain return to their lab to prepare for tomorrow night.

Pinky: "Why, Brain? What are we going to do tomorrow night?"

Brain: "The same thing we do every night, Pinky — try to take over the world!"

Aand... That`s all folks!

What would I call this film since it doesn`t have basketball (or any other kind of sport) in it?

Maybe:

Looney tunes: Through the Looniverse

Looney tunes: Across the Looniverse

(Something with Looney tunes and Looniverse.)

It`s not that think that Zendaya did a bad job voicing Lola, (then again, I haven`t seen the movie) but it feels like the people behind this decision were thinking: "Who needs experienced voice actors when you have celebrities? People will like this movie because of all the celebrities!" While celebrities are fun you can`t rely completely on them to carry an entire movie. And since this movie didn`t do well at the Box Office I think we can safely say that this kind of strategy isn`t exactly foolproof.

Space Jam wasn`t a masterpiece, like I said earlier: it was OK, but it was an interesting kind of OK, and the later half of the nineties was an interesting time.

A New Legacy was more interested in trying to catch lightning in a bottle again by doing pretty much the same things the first one did in a time full or remakes, reboots and rehashes.

And yes, I realized that my idea is similar to Looney tunes: back in action.

Scoob!

Back in June 2014, Warner Bros. Pictures decided to reboot the Scooby-Doo film series with an animated film. After a few years, Scoob! came out in 2020 (not the greatest time to go to the cinema).

Set in a Hanna-Barbera animated shared universe, the film follows Mystery Incorporated working with the Blue Falcon to stop Dick Dastardly's evil plan to unleash Cerberus.

It received mixed reviews from critics, who praised its animation, voice performances, and sense of nostalgia but criticized its modernization, writing, and polarizing casting choices.

Unlike A New Legacy, this is a movie that I actually did see.

So, if I could travel back in time and make some changes to this movie, what would I change?

I would have gotten away with it, if it hadn`t been for those meddling SPOILERS!

Fred, Blue Falcon, Dynomutt and captain Cavemans personalities

Fred is too much of a stupid dudebro for my liking and Blue Falcon is too juvenile and obsessed with social media to be a functional crimefighter. I guess these changes were made to pander to the 7 to 10 year olds in the audience.

I was gonna suggest that their personalities should be more like they were in the show but Fred and Blue Falcon didn`t really have that much of a personality.

So, make Fred more like a Steve Rogers-like boy-scout who wants to do the right thing. Blue Falcon could be like Kevin Conroy`s Batman with a little hint of Adam West`s Batman. He could deliver funny lines in a serious way.

Dynomutt should be stupid.

Captain Caveman should have been like he was in the show, voiced by an experienced voice actor. When he spoke I couldn`t hear Captain Caveman, only a celebrity doing a celebrity voice.

I would also imply that Velma is gay, because representation matters.

Synopsis

I like the part in the beginning with the mystery gang as kids, so I`m keeping that in my version.

Fast forward to the present: The gang is at a diner being interviewed by a reporter (Lose Simon Cowell, his cameo is pointless.) and she brings up everyones strenghts and what they bring to the group. But questions what it is that Scooby and Shaggy does that helps the group, she has done her research and says that most of the times that they have managed to catch the bad guys in monster costumes it despite of Shaggy and Scooby`s effort, not because of it.

Shaggy and Scooby object and try to come up with examples of how they help the group, but just end up helping the reporter`s argument.

Shaggy and Scooby start to question themselves, the rest of the gang try to comfort them.

Fred gets a text message that someone wants them to invesigate a haunted house, the gang drives to the house and are greeted by a blonde woman named Ms. Jaffe who`s late grandfather used to own the house. The gang investigates and the usual weird things that you can expect happens: paintings of people seem to watch them wherever they go. Velma finds tiny little wrappings of foil, the kinds you use for chocolate bobons. Shaggy and Scoob get separated from the rest of the gang, they look out of the window and see a strange, almost invisible UFO in the sky. Things start to shake, they try to escape. Fred, Velma and Daphne gets out of the house, but where`s Scooby and Shaggy? The house collapses and the strange, almost invisible UFO in the sky disappears.

The gang is devastated. (They are being watched by a tiny little robot, hiding in a tree and Ms. Jaffe is nowhere to be seen.)

Act 2

Shaggy and Scooby wake up inside a futuristic airship, they realize that they are inside the Falcon Fury, Blue Falcon's plane. Blue Falcon, Dynomutt and Dee Dee Skyes show up to greet them.

They explain that they have been tracking a dangerous man named Dick Dastardly and have noticed that Dastardly has had his eye out for Scooby, so they figured that the best thing to do would be to keep Scooby away from him.

All at once, an alarm goes off in the ship alerting that Dick Dastardly and his ship, The Mean Machine, are close by.

Dastardly orders the robots, who he calls Rottens, to attack the Falcon Fury. He says that he was so close to catching Scooby at the house until it at fell apart (literally), but he won`t fail again! He will get back what he lost!

(Note: In my version Dastardly has a habit of eating small chocolate bonbons.)

The Mean Machine latches onto the Falcon Fury using harpoons and is about to drag it in when Dee Dee tells Dynomutt to send out the beam that sucked up Shaggy and Scooby, but to put it on the reverse setting, so that it pushes them away from the Mean Machine. This works, and they escape Dastardly and the Mean Machine for the time being.

Now that they are temporarily safe, Dynomutt, Blue Falcon, and Dee Dee explain to Shaggy and Scooby that Dastardly is collecting the skulls of Cerberus, although they still don't know what they have to do with Shaggy and Scooby. Dee Dee comes to the conclusion that Dastardly wants Shaggy and Scooby alive, as he could have killed them earlier instead of just trying to capture them. Blue Falcon says that Shaggy and Scooby are important, though they still don't know why, and that they'll need their help on their mission. Shaggy is, at first, reluctant to agree but realizes that he can use this opportunity to prove to himself, and that reporter who made him question himself, that he is important and useful!

Back at what`s left of the haunted house: Daphne, Velma and Fred are searching in the rubble after their friends, Fred gets a text message. It`s Shaggy! He and Scooby are still alive, thank goodness! He says that he is on an adventure with Blue Falcon and also adds that they should watch out for a guy named Dick Dastardly.

Velma does a little computer hacking and finds out that Dick owns Dastardly Demolitions. He`s also stolen the first skull of Cerberus and the genealogical records of many dogs. They decide to go after him and help Shaggy and Scooby. The tiny little robot that watched them earlier is now hiding in their van.

Inside of the Mean Machine: Dastardly is lamenting over the fact that Scooby got away. He becomes upset at the Rottens because, in his mind, they are not nearly as good as his last sidekick. One of the Rottens apologizes for their failure, but that only upsets him more. He calls him a "suck-up," and to prove a point to the other Rottens, he removes his head and replaces it with the top of a vacuum cleaner.

The Falcon Fury: Blue Falcon and Dee Dee are searching for the second skull by locating areas with high fossil density. Dynomutt, on the other hand, is trying to find the skull by asking people on social media where it is. Shaggy and Scooby come in, their hands full of food. Dynomutt just got a DM from "a very reliable anonymous source" that the skull is in an abandoned amusement park in Romania. Dee Dee and Blue Falcon, not being stupid, ignores this, but Shaggy thinks it`s worth looking into. Blue Falcon decides to go along with this idea, just so Dynomutt can see that blindly trusting people on social media is not a good idea.

Meanwhile, in the Mystery Machine: Velma reveals that by cross-matching the biographical data that Dastardly stole, she is able to determine that Scooby is the last descendant of Peritas, Alexander the Great's dog. Fred changes course, as he claims he "knows a shortcut."

The abandoned amusement park in Romania: As soon as they walk inside the park, the Mean Machine ascends from the sky. Dastardly and the Rottens fly down and Dastardly reveals that he was the one who sent Dynomutt the DM and that he has just retrieved the second skull. Dee Dee, Blue Falcon and Dynomutt fight the Rottens as Shaggy and Scooby look for a place to hide. The Rottens chase Shaggy and Scooby into an arcade, they play "whack-a-mole" with the Rottens, trying to destroy them. Dastardly breaks into the arcade and when Shaggy asks what he wants with him, Dastardly reveals that Shaggy isn't important at all and that he only wants Scooby. He shoots Shaggy out of the arcade and he falls into a Ferris wheel seat where he is attacked by the Rottens but saved by Dee Dee.

Scooby escapes the arcade and runs into a house of mirrors, where Dastardly is waiting for him and tells him that if they join forces, he could make him "the most important dog in the world." He explains that Scooby is the key to something very important. Scooby refuses to help Dastardly and runs out of the house of mirrors, where more chaos is happening.

Dee Dee deploys the tractor beam, which pulls BF, Dynomutt, Shaggy and Scoob into the Falcon Fury. Dastardly is alerted by the Rotten in the Mystery Machine of the existence of Fred, Daphne, and Velma.

Scooby tells Dee Dee and BF what Dastardly told him. Dynomutt is shocked that an anonymous source on the internet could be so unreliable. Shaggy is disappointed in himself because he was the one who supported this idea. Scooby tries to comfort him.

Dastardly Demolitions (a factory in the middle of nowhere): Fred, Velma and Daphne have arrived and are looking for a way in. Velma finds finds little candy wrappings made out of foil on the ground. Suddenly a car shows up, it`s Ms. Jaffe. She wanted to make sure that they were OK and wonders if she can be of any help. Velma is not fooled by her act.

First of all: the "old house that belonged to her grandfather" may have looked old but she noticed some details that proved that it was built only a few days ago.

Second: In the old house she found some chocolate bonbon wrappings of the same brand the she found just now on the ground, a rare brand that is not sold in many places.

Velma: "You work for Dick Dastardly, don`t you?"

Ms. Jaffe (in Dick Dastradly`s voice): "Oh well, I guess the jig is up" (Takes off disguise.)

(When he reveals himself the gang reacts in surprise, not fear and disgust.)

Velma: "That... was my second guess."

Dastardly deploys his Rottens to pull Velma, Fred, and Daphne up into the Mean Machine and locks them in a cell.

Dusty, the Rotten with the vacuum head, walks by their cell. Daphne persuades him to let them out of the cage after cleaning out the dust in his head. They creep to the center of the Mean Machine, where they spy on Dastardly, who is using the two skulls of Cerberus to reveal that the third is hidden in a place called Messick Mountain. Dusty points them to a room with a communications device. Velma hacks into Dynomutt, telling Dee Dee that the third skull is at Messick Mountain. In the room, they find a pinboard, revealing Dastardly's plans for Scooby. They learn that Scooby, being the descendant of Peritas, is the only one who can open up the gates to the Underworld, where Alexander the Great hid his treasure. They also find a display shelf of Muttley's things.

Dastardly breaks in, catching them. When asked about Muttley he gets furious and tells them it`s none of their business. The Rottens then come in to take away Velma and Daphne, but Dastardly keeps Fred as he has "big plans" for him.

Messick Mountain: The Falcon Fury arrives at Messick Mountain, which turns out to have a Mesozoic ecosystem. Shaggy, feeling that he only screws things up, decides to wait by the ship. While investigating the landscape, Blue Falcon and Scooby run into Captain Caveman, the protector of the third skull. He takes them to an arena, filled with other cavepeople, to get the skull, they must defeat him in battle.

Fred, shows up to the Falcon Fury, alone in the Mystery Machine. He tells Shaggy that they need to go to Scooby, as he's in great danger.

Captain Caveman battles Scooby and Blue Falcon. Dee Dee and Dynomutt show up to help and defeat Captain Caveman. Fred and Shaggy show up in the Mystery Machine. Fred reveals that he`s actually Dastardly in disguise. The Mean Machine appears overhead and Velma, Daphne, and the real Fred are thrown overboard, although they are caught by the crew of the Falcon Fury. Dastardly kidnaps Scooby and escapes with him and the third skull on the Mean Machine. The gang and the Falcon Fury crew head back to the ship, only to find that it has been destroyed by Dastardly.

Shaggy says that he may mess up and fail at a lot of stuff. But today he won`t fail his best friend Scoob!

Inspired by his determination the rest of the mystery gang and the Falcon Fury crew start to build something from the wreck of the Falcon Fury.

Act 3

The Parthenon in Athens, Greece: Dastardly ascends with the three skulls and Scooby. He connects the skulls which generates the gates to the Underworld and turns the sky dark. Suddenly, the Mystery Machine appears in the sky, having been transformed to have wings and jets. Dastardly orders for it to be shot down, but Dusty purposely misfires so that Daphne's life is saved. However, the Mystery Machine still falls to the ground, it's wings being shot off.

Dastardly forces Scooby's paw upon the lock of the gates, opening them up. Cerberus appears at the gates, something Dastardly was not expecting. Cerberus runs out, creating enough commotion for Scooby to run off to the Mystery Machine. The gang is finally reunited! Dastardly goes into the Underworld, where he finds his old sidekick Muttley! He gets a flashback to the day when he first opened the portal and convinced Muttley to go through it. The portal closed and Muttley was stuck in the Underworld. They rejoice at seeing each other, grab as much treasure as they can carry, and leave through the portal.

The gang and the Falcon Fury crew begin attacking Cerberus. The Rottens, at the command of Dusty, deploy themselves, deciding to help the gang instead of Dastardly.

Shaggy and Scooby, with help from the Rottens, manage to trick Cerberus to go back to the Underworld. The portal is closing, if they don`t hurry they`ll be stuck in the Underworld forever! Shaggy and Scooby run as fast as they can with Cerberus chasing them and they make it just as the portal closes!

The Rottens, now good, capture Muttley and Dastardly and bring them to the gang, all tied up. Fred wants to see "who is hiding behind the mask" and starts to pull on Dastradly`s face.

Dastardly: "Ow! Stop it you moron! This is my real face!"

Fred: "Oh! Sorry! Old habit."

Dastardly yells that "he would have gotten away with it if it hadn`t been for those meddling kids!" The Falcon Fury crew take him and Muttley away.

Back at Venice Beach, the gang has an opening ceremony for their new base. The Falcon Fury crew shows up and Blue Falcon gives Fred a new, updated version of the Mystery Machine, as the old one was destroyed. Mystery Inc. gets a call that tells them that there have been sightings of a phantom tuna trawler and the ghost of a sea captain. The gang heads off in a haste, to pursue new mysteries!

And that`s how I would do it.

This little rewrite ended up longer than I had anticipated.

To be completely honest: I didn`t quite remember all the details of what happened in Scoob! so I went to Scoobypedia to refresh my memory and ended up copy pasting a lot of the synopsis into my editorial. I removed things that were unnecessary, like Scooby and Shaggy`s forced break up and Blue Falcon`s character arc (because this is not his movie.)

It is of course very easy for me to write these because I have the luxury of hindsight. And unlike the filmmakers I didn`t have a movie studio breathing down my neck, focus grouping the movie to death, forcing in unnecessary changes and pressuring me to get it made before a deadline.

Why do I write these?

For several reasons. I`m nitpicky, sometimes the movies I criticize aren`t bad, I just like my own ideas better, sometimes the movies I critize are bad, I care about good storytelling and it`s a fun excerize in creativity and script doctoring.

But also because I have a lot of of free time.

--------------------------------------------

Written stuff: 56

Started writing this 2024-03-07

Comments are appreciated.

Sources: Wikipedia and Scoob!`s Scoobypedia page.

Other movies on my Constructive Criticism list that you can look forward to

Supergirl (1984) Jonah Hex (2010) Dragonball evolution The Spirit (2008) The Dark Knight trilogy Raya and the last Dragon Wish (2023)

And as usual: English is not my first language, so if my writing doesn`t seem to flow naturally, you know why.

#editorial #looney tunes #written stuff #constructive criticism #scooby doo #scoob #space jam a new legacy #81scorp

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bllsbailey · 5 months

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Data: Only 43 Of Over 8,000 Discharged From U.S. Military For Refusing COVID-19 Vaccine Re-Enlisted

Data from U.S. military branches shows that only 43, or less, out of the over 8,000 U.S. service members who were dismissed for refusing to receive the COVID-19 vaccination have attempted to re-enlist.

The Defense Department was forced to repeal the vaccination requirement in part because of the argument made by many Republicans that the requirement hindered attempts to attract and retain military personnel.

Another point mentioned was that the COVID-19 vaccines did not actually prevent those who received them from catching the virus or transmitting it to others, as opposed to other vaccines.

The COVID-19 vaccination was required by the military from August 2021 to January 2023, before it was legally revoked as part of the National Defense Authorization Act. This was presumably the first time in U.S. military history that a vaccination mandate was lifted.

Now, according to service officials, only 19 troops have returned to the Army since the repeal, while 12 have rejoined the Marines. Additionally, “just one or two” members of the Air Force and Navy have returned since, making the numbers significantly lower there. However, it was not disclosed what branches the rest of the dismissed service members rejoined.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies’ J. Stephen Morrison, head of the Global Health Policy Center, called the figures “minuscule” and said, “I hope it helps put the issue to bed.”

Following the vaccine’s FDA approval, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered that all military personnel receive it. Even though the Defense Department has mandated more than 15 different immunizations, including the COVID-19 vaccine, a number of Republican senators had blasted the mandate.

In the continuing battle to keep his hold on more than 300 military nominations, Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville said that the vaccination requirement had “depleted the ranks” and “damaged readiness” of the force.

The Alabama Republican said that the discharge of thousands of service personnel had a negative impact on military recruiting and retention in a letter he sent last month to the secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force.

Senators Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) attempted to modify the National Defense Authorization Act in July with the goal of restoring military members who were “wrongfully discharged” due to the vaccine mandate.

However, only a very tiny percentage of veterans who were released from the service have applied to rejoin months after the requirement was lifted.

Experts surmised that although senior military personnel would have viewed it as an excuse to retire sooner, younger soldiers could have gone and pursued other employment opportunities.

“Some people were already on their way out of the military, and they didn’t want to get the vaccine and they just didn’t care, and I think that may account for a significant portion of the individuals represented in the data,” claimed Kate Kuzminski, the director of the Military, Veterans, and Society Program at the Center for a New American Security.

“I don’t see this number jumping significantly,” Kuzminski said. “You might see ones and twos in the future.”

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sdyc2023-crisis · 8 months

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The Chin Way

30 September 2021

In Chin state, where both the CNF and ICNCC have joined the NUCC, citizens have responded well to new developments – the fresh supply of French arms, creation of a Chin Self-Defence Force under the oversight of the ICNCC, and the collaboration of leaderships of the CNF and ICNCC. Recruitments have been skyrocketing, reports The Chin National, the new jointly-funded Chin newspaper.

Shiny new air raid siren systems and proposals for the construction of bunkers have bolstered the ability to protect Chin citizens from potential attacks by the Tatmadaw, but it remains to be seen how this effort can expand to help the rest of Myanmar.

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usafphantom2 · 2 years

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New Chinese H-20 stealth bomber may be closer to the first flight

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 07/09/2022 - 14:00 in Military

China is planning to conduct a flight test of an "important type of aircraft that has a crucial strategic and historical significance", which several state media have alluded to the H-20 strategic stealth bomber, the country's most poorly kept aviation secret.

Ge Heping, head of the Chinese party at the Flight Test Establishment of the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), referred to the next flight test at a meeting on Tuesday with the personnel involved in the next test, the media said citing a press release from the establishment.

Ge urged all personnel involved in the development of the aircraft to fully understand the “extreme importance of completing this mission,” according to the statement.

Neither the report nor the press release revealed the nature of the aircraft nor the expected date of the flight test.

Several state media outlets speculated that the aircraft to which Ge Heping was referring is the long-awaited "H-20 stealth strategic bomber", since only one strategic weapon deserves the description of "having strategic and historical significance" (in Ge Heling's words).

An aircraft with a flying wing design similar to the American B-2 Spirit was revealed in a video (at 3:45 of the video) of recruitment of the Air Force of the People's Liberation Army of China (PLA) in January 2021. The comments that accompany the video describe him as the "next generation's far-reaching strategic stealthy bomber".

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Given all these official tips, public speculation that the new aircraft could be the H-20 makes sense, but it may only be an exaggerated interpretation, said a Chinese expert who follows the development of China's aviation industry to the Global Times on Thursday, requesting anonymity.

In another note, unidentified experts interviewed by the Global Times speculated that the next aircraft could also be the J-35 aircraft carrier-based poaching, which are urgently needed for the newly launched Fujian aircraft carrier.

Tags: Military AviationPLAAF - China Air ForceXi'an H-20

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Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, he has participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Dayton Airshow and FIDAE. He has works published in a specialized aviation magazine in Brazil and abroad. He uses Canon equipment during his photographic work in the world of aviation.