Oct 6, 2022
Today's Tweet
The assholes in charge of Iran killed her mom for exactly what she's doing here in this picture.
When someone stands up in the face of murderous intent and says, "No - you will not put your shit on me any more", it's an act of courage that has no equal.
What a remarkable image. The daughter of Minoo Majidi--a mother of two who was killed by the Iranian regime while protesting for #MahsaAmini--stands at her mother's gravesite. She is defiantly unveiled, and in her left hand she holds the hair she cut from her head. pic.twitter.com/QPqHGk4MDy
— Karim Sadjadpour (@ksadjadpour) September 30, 2022
Today's Reddit
Even with state-controlled media, the word will eventually get out. Cuz every one of these guys is going to tell family and friends back home how bad it is.
Every day that sees more Ukrainian ground liberated is a day closer to Putin's inevitable fall - which could take years to be sure. But it's not unreasonable to think he won't survive this war.
Ukraine
Putin put out the kind of standard order that dumbass REMFs who fancy themselves as brilliant and inspirational field commanders always put out, which is that he won't allow retreat, so there's a fair probability that he's going to lose an entire division (about 15,000 guys) in the Kherson area west of the Dnipro.
Winter is coming, and the Russians are not prepared for it.
And I've been wondering why the Russians were probing the Ukrainian line in certain areas - from just south of Bahmut down to Tokmak. And it's occurred to me, that's the area where mostly mercenaries are deployed, and they get paid according to the real estate they've captured, so they're pushing at points of the front where there's not much of anything except dirt to conquer, and where the going should be a little easier. But the Ukrainians have pretty well shut that down too.
Something that's not getting much media attention is the 5th column/underground-type resistance going on in lots of urban centers - Mariupol, Berdiansk, Tokmak, Melitopol, Nova Kakhovka, and Kherson - plus various places scattered all over the joint.
Winter is coming, and the Russians are not prepared for it.
Ukraine
Our sunflowers don't fertilize themselves.
Here's Ukraine teaching a master class in modern Psy Ops.
Oct 5, 2022
Significant If True
I've heard this from a couple of different sources now, but so far there's no confirmation.
Because of the failing effort in Ukraine, and trouble at home, Putin is having to divert resources.
- Manpower: drafting more guys, but sending them to bolster internal security forces to make sure the growing unrest in Russian cities across the Federation can be contained if not quelled.
- Weapons: he's stopped exporting - tanks in particular - so he can send them to Ukraine (a triple whammy):
- He'll end up donating them to the Ukrainians because his guys have a tendency to ditch their tanks and other armored vehicles, sometimes at the first sign of trouble.
- It's a sign of persistent problems both with operations in Ukraine, and with Russian manufacturing.
- If he's not selling his goods, he's getting less income to finance his war.
Unconfirmed, but wow.
Putin will not survive this war.
Today's Problem
Hershel Walker's Abortion Controversy
Yeah, I get it - it's a joke. But even the vaccine thing would be ignored. The rubes are conditioned to accept, and to rationalize, and even to embrace whatever horror or contradiction comes from the candidate they've been instructed to support.
Daddy State Awareness
BASICS:
- The Daddy State lies as a means of demonstrating their power.
- The lies have practically nothing to do with the subject of the lies.
- Lying about everything is a way to condition us - to make us accept the premise that they can do anything they want.
- THEIR GOAL IS TO DICTATE REALITY TO US.
Dirty Fuels
We have to keep moving away from dirty fuels, but that threatens the plutocrats who are looking for control by commoditizing everything, and then monopolizing it.
You can't sabotage the sun, you can't cut back on the production of wind, and you can't blow up the motion of the water.
If we want energy independence, and the healthier world, and the freedom all of that implies, then we have to stomp the rent-seekers out of existence (figuratively of course - if possible).
How do you expect to hold me hostage to something that you don't have?
The WaPo editors conveniently miss that point.
(pay wall)
Undersea pipeline sabotage demands the West prepare for more attacks
Evidence continues to accumulate regarding underwater explosions that blew huge holes in two Russia-to-Germany natural gas pipelines on Sept. 27, and the circumstances all point to what a official NATO statement called “deliberate” sabotage. Sweden and Denmark have officially informed the U.N. Security Council that there were “at least two detonations” using “several hundred kilos” of explosives. This is the kind of capability usually wielded by a state actor, though NATO did not say officially what everyone suspects unofficially: The author of this strike against Europe’s stability and security was Russia. Now, the United States and its allies must meet a new challenge: threats to critical infrastructure, just as they are about to try to get through winter without Russian oil and gas.
Intelligence sources had foreseen this, and, indeed, Ukraine’s government warned of it. Getting the response right begins with understanding why Russian President Vladimir Putin might have chosen to strike where and when he did. In some ways, the pipelines — known as Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 — made attractive targets precisely because the short-term harm to Europe’s economy would be relatively limited. Neither carried much gas. Russia shut off the flow in Nord Stream 1, ostensibly for routine maintenance, more than a month ago, and the German government canceled Nord Stream 2’s planned opening in response to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. Furthermore, the explosions took place in international waters in the Baltic Sea, meaning they cannot be construed as a direct attack on any NATO member, which could have triggered the alliance’s mutual-defense agreement. As for the timing, the attack came on the day a new undersea gas pipeline opened from one NATO member that borders on Russia, Norway, to another, Poland, which the latter had billed as a quantum leap for its energy security.
Put it all together and the attack looks very much like an attempt to take revenge on countries that have backed Ukraine — a signal to them that more expensive energy supply disruptions might be coming — while preserving plausible deniability.
The West has long been aware of Russia’s capacity to disrupt critical energy and communications infrastructure through cyberattacks and disinformation. In April, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, along with the FBI and the National Security Agency, issued a joint warning about the cyberthreat to critical infrastructure such as energy and utilities. And so far, Ukraine and its supporters have kept cyber-damage to a minimum. Sabotage to the gas pipelines shows that Russia might use more prosaic “kinetic” tools — high explosives — to achieve the same purposes. In fact, Norway has suspected the Russian navy damaged its undersea fiber-optic cables earlier this year.
NATO was wise not to assign blame without ironclad proof, while warning it would respond forcefully against known culprits. What must come next, however, is stepped-up air and naval surveillance of the global network of undersea pipelines and cables, more accumulation of energy reserves for the winter and assurance that existing pipeline repair services — they already exist in both the Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea — can act rapidly if needed. In protecting critical infrastructure, resilience is an essential part of deterrence.
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