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Broke: the Russian government is illegitimate because Putin wins 85% of the vote and has no serious challenger

Woke: the Russian government is illegitimate because a supermajority of citizens and a majority of republics voted to retain the Soviet Union and its dissolution was an illegal act counter to the will of the people

Official death toll in Moscow rises to ~~115~~ (update 143) https://ria.ru/20240323/terakt-1935274924.html

Terrorists were trying to escape over the border to Ukraine and had connections to Ukrainian sources

https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/11-crocus-attack-suspects-arrested--including-4-directly-inv

Image of the white Renault that four of the terrorists tried to get away in

So where’s the international show of support for the Russian people in the aftermath of this attack? Have we lit up buildings with the Russian flag? Where’s the “je suis Russia”?

Nasrallah thanks the people that voted uncommitted in the Dem primaries

It is believed more than half of Brits have been exposed to conspiracy theories about Princess Kate.

Payton said the Russians have likely helped to fuel the cruel online storm which has been circulating around the Royal Family in recent weeks.

The Sun last week called on the world to "Lay Off Kate" after she was criticised for editing her Mother's Day family photo - before vile fake tales started spreading.

Why is the royal family allowing Russian propaganda to dominate the news cycle when Kate could just like hold up todays newspaper?

What the zionist monsters are doing to the Palestinians at al-Shifa hospital is incomprehensibly evil and deranged. https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2024/03/24/722398/Hamas-slams-shameful-intl--silence-on-Gaza’s-al-Shifa-Hospital-raid,-failure-to-stop-Zionists’-war-machine

The primary weapon of the imperialists is psychological warfare and terrorism. In their eyes, the more extreme and publicly gruesome their crimes, the more likelihood they can force Hamas into surrender. As we can see the hasbara psywar narrative is already transforming into blaming the resistance for not accepting a "ceasefire" when the zionists are being so incomprehensible brutal. Blaming Russia and China for "stopping ceasefire."

These monstrous crimes will only get more extreme and more outrageous until the imperialists are militarily and economically forced to accept defeat.

Whatever happened to the "historic icj decision" that everyone was so excited about? What a sick joke. A charade.

What the heck is a "ceasefire" anyways in this war between the forces of liberation & justice and the forces of extermination?????

I wanted to write a short primer on missile terminology at the start of the week, but my phone deleted most of it so I ran out of energy. Here it is again.

#Aerodynamics: Hypersonic: Technically a buzzword, but is regarded at Mach 5 (aka 5x the speed of sound). In US Military terms, this refers to a weapon that can perform maneuvers at this speed above. Ballistic missiles travel at above hypersonic speeds or above by virtue of all their other properties, but don't fill the US military definition as they don't do maneuvers in response to incoming fire. Even the original V2 approached hypersonic speeds. This speed makes the weapon difficult to intercept, as there's less time to intercept and any change in direction is "larger" for the purposes of interception. However, most cruise missiles and anti-tank missiles are not hypersonic, and are even subsonic. Hypersonic velocities introduce some aerodynamic and physical/mechanical complications that slowly increase depending on the local air pressure and multiple of the speed of sound. As a counter-example, a Mach 10 projectile 60 km above the Earth's surface will not produce the same plasma envelope or heat as the same profile projectile 2 km above the Earth's surface. Be wary when seeing this term in the media, it sometimes refers to ballistic missiles, which is nothing special unless they can course correct.

Supersonic: An actual technical term that means above the speed of sound in a given context. You know this. At sea level (and for many military applications), this is roughly 340 meters a second (1200 kmph or 760 mph). There are a bunch of aerodynamic qualities that change around this speed. I say around as air flowing past a bit sticking out (say, a wing, or radio antenna etc) will cause air to flow faster than the speed of sound, creating lateral forces that affect the vehicle (vehicle: plane, missile, bullet etc). Those lateral forces mean a vehicle will want to be solidly above or below the supersonic threshold. The lower the air pressure (usually, the further up) reduces the speed of sound, but also reduces the supersonic effects (to zero, as you slowly go up into the stratosphere). For long ranged air-lining, a higher altitude where your jet engines still run is better, but for other purposes it varies a lot.

Subsonic: Slower than the speed of sound. You are this, probably.

Missile Types: Ballistic Missile: A vehicle (plane, missile, or bullet) that follows approximately a ballistic trajectory. Usually, such a vehicle will expend all of its fuel on the way up (at most), and rely on orbital mechanics to maintain its speed on the way down. Longer ranged ones will avoid the Earth's atmosphere for a lot of the journey. This means that such a vehicle will be very speed<->weight/fuel efficient. If it isn't striking a moving target, it also needs the least amount of redirection by weight. Its main disadvantages are that its very easy to detect by RADAR, since it by definition goes over the horizon very far away, and that it can get difficult to course correct for many reasons. As the air pressure goes down due to altitude, your aerodynamic surfaces matter less. As the pressure and speed increase, both heat and RADAR are less effective on the way down. Nonetheless, they are very hard to shoot down. Famous examples: V2 Rocket, Iskander, Kinzhal, and ATACMs. They're also cheaper per range/weight.

Cruise Missile: A missile that follows the curvature of the Earth (instead of ballistic trajectory), usually powered by a jet Engine and are usually subsonic. Compared to Ballistic missiles, they're easier to guide and harder to detect by RADAR. However, once they are detected, they are easier to shoot down. They can even be chased and engaged with fighter aircraft. Some of them have a lower powered RADAR that lets them follow terrain up and down, making their visibility extremely low when going cross-country. Cruise missiles have an ascending, descending, and a cruise trajectory, and generally behave like a plane (indeed, the original Kamikazes planes were called early cruise missiles, but the V1 is closer to what we'd call a cruise missile). They have similar vulnerabilities to planes. Various methods of making them harder to shoot down, coating them in RADAR absorbing paint, making them faster during one stage (often descent, for things like the Zircon), RADAR following terrain, Jinking maneuvers on descent, hardened noses etc. Famous examples include the V1 Buzz-bomb, Tomahawk Missile, Zircon... Anti-ship missiles are often a variation of this, flying lower and with less range but otherwise performing the same function.

Missile: Much talk of missiles, traditionally it means something that isn't powered in flight (e.g. an arrow, rock, bullet etc), but nowadays means an unmanned powered flight weapon (e.g. a cruise missile, ballistic missile etc). Nonetheless, it is always separated from the operator and firing mechanism, as is tradition.

Anti-Aircraft Missile: The Ballistic and Cruise Missiles usually go to destroy battlefield assets of one sort or another. AA missiles specifically destroy missiles and aircraft. They tend to be the fastest rocket powered missiles for their size. Things like the Patriot or the S-500 are AA missiles, and are capable of catching up to and destroying other missiles even if the other missile has passed the launch point. The tend to fly in a straight-ish line, always heading for the predicted trajectory of the target.

Drone: Often powered by an electric motor, subsonic, and intended to loiter in the battle space until needed, as opposed to launched for mission. Blurry term.

Motors:

Rockets: Rockets are high power per weight, high power per time, and extremely cheap. Their disadvantages are running time and they are less able to be controlled (there are fuel rockets, but that's generally outside the scope of a military context). They are mostly used on Ballistic and AA missiles, and the final portion of some cruise missiles. The smallest missiles (MANPADS, MANPAT?, etc) also tend to use rockets for their simplicity, tolerance to size, and cheapness.

Jet Engines: Jet Engines offer very high power to weight ratio, weight to range, and medium efficiency. They're usually found on cruise missiles and aircraft. Some cruise missiles final stage may seem like they attain rocket-like velocities, but in-fact use scramjets to attain this velocity. They tend to be very high cost for all dimensions (range, efficiency, volume etc), but fulfill a niche in between traditional combustion engines and rockets.

Piston Engines: Outside the scope of missiles and aircraft nowadays, though they used to be used in aircraft. They are cheap, have high tolerances and fuel efficiency, and can adjust their power for a purpose very well. They tend to be quite heavy for their power output though. Poor torque at low RPS compared to all other engine types. We don't see these on missiles or aircraft atm and I don't see it except in some extremely niche cases.

Electric Motors: These tend to be somewhere around Jets and Pistons, though they tend to have quite high weights to volume and power. They offer very high torque at low RPS compared to jets and lots of power variability, and much lower mechanical complexity compared to equivalent Jet and Piston designs. As the line between missile and drone gets blurred, I imagine we'll see this blurred. However, for the time being, if something is electrically powered and seems like a missile, it is a "drone".

Motor vs Engine: Motor provides motive force generally, engine provides motive force with internal combustion. Colloquially, these are pretty interchangeable. However, if you need to... Steam Engine, Jet Engine, Electric Motor, Pressure Motor. Usually, this is rotary. Rocket engines, despite being a combustion system, often get called motors.

Guidance systems:

RADAR: The standard method of tracking aerial targets and sea targets. Metal reflects Radio very well compared to air or water, or even soil, so this can be tracked very easily. Sometimes, especially for smaller projectiles (e.g. AA guns), the RADAR is on the ground and the projectiles pull into the reflection from the target until they are close enough. Missiles can also track into such a reflection; Semi-homing RADAR (Fox-1). For larger systems, a RADAR array can be mounted on the projectile (active homing RADAR, Fox 3). This is used in civil and military aviation constantly, but can also be used for reversing your car, speed detectors etc. Can be jammed, but not as easily as you'd think.

Infrared/thermal/heat-seeking: (Fox 2) The main method other than RADAR for tracking aerial targets. Aircraft tend to run hot. Thus, an infrared camera can track a projectile into a target for much cheaper. Most military aircraft carry flares to guide heat-seeking projectiles away, to varying degrees of success. This also tends to be pretty short ranged; infra-red gets soaked up by the atmosphere pretty quickly. Also, for faster missiles, the nose cone gets hotter as the velocity increases, which reduces the ability of thermal optics to see any target.

Manual or external guidance: Receiving data from somewhere else to guide the missile. Wire-guiding on anti-tank weapons is a classic method of this, however the modern Dong Feng uses transmissions from an AWACS to guide to target. These tend to vary quite wildly and their counter-systems also.

Aerodynamic Control: Uses fins and wings to control the direction of movement. Only applicable for low altitude missiles, and less applicable for supersonic vehicles (but not inapplicable, you just have to design around it)

Gyroscopic Control: Stabilisation control that allows you to adjust heading based on previous velocity. Used in conjuction with other controls.

Vectored Thrust Control: Uses thrust from the Motors to control the direction of movement. The only valid method of control when outside the atmosphere.

Brazil’s Bolsonaro is indicted for first time over alleged falsification of his own vaccination data

I’ve seen a lot of takes lately about ISIS being essentially a US asset at this point. Tracks with what I know of US methods historically, but wondering if anybody has anything substantive or specific on this.

Talking to a red fash from a former eastern block country is so disorienting.

Them: Immigrants are taking up all our housing.

Me: Actually housing problems are a result of housing being treated as a vehicle for profit

Them: I agree, commie blocks were good, the market can’t handle housing properly

Me: So???

Them: Immigrants are taking up all our housing.

It’s basically just the Patrick wallet meme.

"The Attackers on "Crocus" did not intend to become suicide bombers: the criminals were caught attempting to flee to Ukraine

FSB head Bortnikov reported to President Putin on the detention of 11 individuals, among whom are all four terrorists directly involved in the attack on "Crocus". The effort to identify the remaining accomplices continues, but conclusions about the situation are forthcoming, and they are disheartening for Ukraine.

The perpetrators of the attack did not intend to become "martyrs." They wanted to live long and happily after their horrific crime. That’s exactly why they quickly retreated, not waiting for the assault to begin and did not try to take hostages. This does not resemble the typical actions of Islamist terrorists, but rather resembles the actions of mercenaries from sabotage groups, who were promised cover, escape, and a generous reward. None of the scoundrels intended to die for ideas or anything similar — it was purely cold calculation.

As for who sponsored them — this can be understood by the direction of their escape. " - Readovka

Edit: to clarify this is the telegram interpretation of what happened. What is known for now is that 11 ppl were arrested, the terrorists were heading towards ukraine and "they had approppriate contacts there", whatever that means.

Edit 2: anyway it does look a lot more like ukraine had to do something with this. Whether it was official or some mercenaries told to go rogue is not at all clear yet.

Edit 3: BBC reporting curiously omitting the part of the FSB statement about where they were captured, where they headed and who they had contacts with.

Blue MAGA like, how can I be anti-arab when I support ISIS?

tempted to download tiktok as a show of my support to the Peoples Republic of China

Has blue MAGA started claiming Russia did it yet

Cats are always saying this stuff

“State media says”

jfc nyslimes

American politics be like; "America is going to commit genocide, bucko. So you need to decide which geno-side you're on!"

The Democrats campaign promise is "Our genocide will not effect people you care about"

And the GOP's promise is "our genocide will effect people you hate"

This is a bad and everything sucks. The political class now has the thumbs up to openly, explicitly use genocide as a policy tool to whip the voting masses. We've gone from "They'll take your guns/abortions!" to "Vote for us or we will let them kill your family. Hell we'll fucking help them do it".

Yugopnik self-critting for being a Zizek simp for so long: https://twitter.com/yugopnik/status/1770055442854519226

Being a rather frequent flyer from Boston, I want to talk about the Biden administration's vendetta against JetBlue. JetBlue is a airline carrier operating in the US.

The US airline market is made up of the Big 4 (United, American, Delta, Southwest) followed by regional (Alaska, Air Canada), low cost (JetBlue), and ultra-low-cost (Frontier, Spirit) carriers. The Big 4 dominate passenger volumes (160M+/year), while the others sit in the 40M/year range.

JetBlue is an airline carrier that's primarily focused on the Northeast (New York, Boston, etc.). Spirit and AA have more national networks, which crucially means more slots for flights. AA also has a robust international network.

Naturally, you might think that having more competitors for the Big 4 would be something desirable for the Biden administration... And yet?

JetBlue and American Airlines had signed an agreement termed the Northeast Alliance. This agreement allowed JetBlue passengers onto AA flights (and vice versa) and route coordination along with various status recognition and loyalty program integration benefits. In 2022, the DOJ began a trial claiming JetBlue and American Airlines were being "anticompetitive" in their operations in the Northeast. In 2023, the ruling forced the Northeast Alliance to disband within 30 days. The core elements of the Northeast Alliance were designed to help JetBlue and AA compete with Delta and United in the New York and Boston markets. This, naturally, fell through.

JetBlue and Spirit Airlines had signed an agreement aiming to merge. The DOJ also claimed that this merger was "anticompetitive" as it would remove ultra low cost carrier seats from the industry. This merger was also terminated by the DOJ.

In this context, it's important to note a couple of things:

Spirit Airlines is not doing well. Domestic leisure travel demand has not rebounded as they'd hoped and their planes are not in the best shape. They're worth a fifth of what JetBlue was offering to purchase them.

JetBlue is not doing well. They're running losses and had hinges the entire company on one of the two partnership deals going through. Now, with both deals blocked and losses racking up, they're forced to cut service and cut routes while raising fees. As a result of this, JetBlue is currently paying pilots to not fly.

American is the straggler of the Big 3 (Delta, United, American) traditional carriers. Their profit margins are lower than the competition post-COVID.

This is to say, while Delta and United have been doing great throughout this entire ordeal, JetBlue is fucked, Spirit is fucked, and American is slightly fucked. This is the type of competition that the Biden administration encourages: one where the entrenched players aren't touched and smaller/less successful players can go fuck themselves.

From Reuters

White House spokesman John Kirby said there was "no indication at this time that Ukraine, or Ukrainians were involved in the shooting." Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova questioned how the U.S. knew this and said Washington should immediately pass any information it had to Moscow, or stop making such statements. "On what basis do officials in Washington draw any conclusions in the midst of a tragedy about someone's innocence?" Zakharova said.

Putler would have actually lost the election but all the ballots for the other candidates happened to be in those trucks Ukraine bombed

Lol if you type anything about someone being a supporter of genocide into a youtube comment it gets shadow removed by an automated system.

when I'm in a reaping competition and my opponent is Ukraine sowing hundreds of drones and missiles in Belgorod

Everybody huge news has dropped that nobody has really metabolized yet, although I'm skeptical as I'm not seeing any mainstream news reporting on it yet. It's possible these two just look very very similar. For one thing, Chechnya is nowhere close to Tajikistan so I'm not sure how it would be reported that he's Tajik if he was Chechnyan/Ukrainian.

Edit: upon further review, the terrorist is speaking Tajik in an interrogation video released of him so it’s unlikely to be a known Chechen criminal. I’m gonna say this is deboonked.

This is the arrested leader of the attack on Crocus:

His name is Rustam Azhyiev, he's a Chechen.

According to this article from August 2023, Rustam is a veteran of Syria (fought for jihadists against Russia) who then went to Ukraine in 2022 and gained citizenship there to continue fighting Russians. The leader of the attack is a Ukrainian citizen, a terrorist from Syria and jihadist. He was likely the one that recruited the other Tajik nationals to join in the Ukrainian plan, and the Ukrainians obviously hoped they could blame ISIS and Tajiks/Chechens instead of themselves being implicated.

The mission was for Rustam to get across the border back to Ukraine, where FSB states Ukrainian intel had contacts awaiting them. Rustam then would get squirreled away to safety and the other Tajiks would be blamed. These are professional mercenaries, not ideological martyrs, because they work for money and flee for their own safety.

No evidence of Havana syndrome brain injury, US studies find - Reuters, 2024-03-18

Russia requests that Germany recognize the Siege of Leningrad and other WWII war crimes as genocide

I feel like I need to further explain the electoral college to the non-yanks here. Most are, of course, already aware that it's completely fucked up. But most of even these people are under the impression that state "points" are awarded to whoever wins the popular vote in each state. This is not true. In fact, ordinary American citizens have no right at all to vote for a presidential candidate. This is not an exaggeration, it's not a joke. The president is installed by the electors, who are under no obligation to honor the vote in their state. They are the only ones with the powers to cast votes for presidential candidates, and who they decide to vote for is at their sole discretion. It has happened before where an elector ignores the vote in their state. Again, the electors are not required in any way to agree with the vote in their state.

When you fill in the circle next to "Genocide Joe", you aren't voting for him, you're voting for the people who pinky promise to do so on your behalf, but who will face no consequences if they don't.

Strictly speaking, this means that the votes for each candidate are essentially a non-binding poll that may or may not be honored.

Reddit IPO began today. Was pumped by private investors and is now declining now that retail investors have been let in.

Surprisingly porn has not been banned on reddit, nor has any amateur content been forced into age verification.

When the dust settles and some data on major shareholders emerges it will be interesting to see what funds are the biggest shareholders. Most of the big ones have a Vice Clause that forbids them investing in things like porn. Will be quite fun showing them loli content and asking why they're investing in child pornography.

Random facts that I learned today:

In 2008, Ukraine held a television polled called the “Greatest Ukrainians” and Yaroslav the Wise came first with an astounding 40% of the votes.

However, it was later revealed that the voting had been manipulated because Stepan Bandera was the one having a huge lead in the poll:

The Chief of Great Ukrainians project, journalist Vakhtang Kipiani, informed the public in his blog, that the voting system had been manipulated by unknown persons. He stated that a couple of days prior to publishing the results he was aware of a possible win for Yaroslav the Wise. Prior to that, with a huge lead in first place was the controversial Stepan Bandera. For example, the winner, Yaroslav I, received 60,000 votes in one month and almost 550,000 in just one day. Mykola Amosov, who took second place, received almost 150,000 votes in just one day. Kipiani said that if these manipulation hadn't taken place Yaroslav would not have won.

Interestingly, in the same year, Russia also held a television poll called the “Name of Russia” and Alexander Nevsky came first place as the most influential Russian.

However, it was also disputed in that the voting had been manipulated as Josef Stalin was the clear winner in the poll:

Stalin had led the poll early on and narrowly missed the top spot.

The dictator took 519,071 votes compared to Nevsky's 524,575.

Communists said the vote had been "cunningly" manipulated to prevent Stalin or first Soviet leader Lenin (who came sixth) winning because the Kremlin was embarrassed at their popularity.

In a statement, the Communist party said it had "no faith in the organisers of the voting project", who had decided Stalin and Lenin were "bad lads" who should not win. The results prompted the "same level of trust as in the central electoral commission", it said, in reference to Kremlin rigging of the presidential election in Russia earlier this year.

Canada to halt arms sales to Israel after non-binding vote in house of commons

Canada stalls approval of non-lethal exports to Israel

Surprisingly based NDP?

AP: Hong Kong approves new national security law to quash dissent

I'm sure if the US bans TikTok they'll have a similar headline, right?

Alex Jones is doing better than Joe Biden on Gaza

(CW: IDF drone footage in video in embedded Tweet)

Israel has lost the high ground. This is not war. It is robotic mass genocide. Section 1091 of Title 18, United States Code, prohibits genocide whether committed in time of peace or time of war. Genocide is defined in § 1091 and includes violent attacks with the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/isis-leaders-ukraine-tukey-syria-caliphate-al-bara-shishani-a9211676.html

A story from a few years ago on the arrest of a senior isis guy in ukraine and the general path of isis guys into ukraine from the mid east

How Ukraine became the unlikely home for Isis leaders escaping the caliphate

Ukrainian authorities announced last week they had arrested a top Isis commander in Kiev in a joint operation with the CIA. He appears to be one of many to have made Ukraine their home

(as a destination for isis fighters leaving Syria) Ukraine offers several advantages over the competition too: the common Russian language, chaos of war, unprofessionalism of local security services, and the low risk of extradition to countries such as Russia.

Mironova estimates “hundreds” of former Isis fighters have decamped to Ukraine. But it is not the numbers that should be of primary concern, she said. The cluster of terrorists in Ukraine were by their nature a “self-selecting” elite: “This isn’t a random selection. The slower guys stop as soon as they get to Turkey. After all, it is a multiple-step operation to get to Ukraine. The ones who get there are the dangerous ones.”

And the Communist Party remains a relic of a bygone era, disconnected from the young people who might hypothetically propel a revolution.

yeah

whoever taught natoids about false flag attacks i hate you. these losers are fucking insufferable

I think it's a good reminder that back when people were floating Budanov as the new leader of the war effort, everyone expected him to do a shitty job as army chief but for there to be an uptick of intelligence ops. So it's no wonder the 'ISIS' gunmen tried to flee to Ukraine.

Just thinking about how Nuland promised "Nasty Surprises" for Putin in 2024

I am actively exercising self-discipline not engaging with certain western shitlibs gloating about the terror attack in Moscow.

Putin is Schrödinger's dictator isn't he? When something bad happens to ordinary Russians, it's backlash for supporting Putin. But when they talk about elections/democracy etc. then Putin is a dictator who cannot be removed except with force. Which is it ~~western~~ liberals?

Biden campaign tests Trump’s name-calling strategy with ‘Broke Don’

Transforming into a shitty, watered-down version of your opponent is an interesting strategy. "Broke Don" isn't even funny.

Still can't get over the fact that the demonrats are literally pushing to build the wall while chanting "four more years!"

Ukraine blaming Russia for the attack so suddenly really doesn’t help their case.

This shit is so sketchy

The president of Vietnam has resigned: https://en.vietnamplus.vn/party-central-committee-agrees-to-let-vo-van-thuong-cease-holding-positions/283222.vnp

Additional context is the previous president resigned a year ago: https://en.vietnamplus.vn/na-approves-resolution-on-relieving-nguyen-xuan-phuc-from-posts/247252.vnp

NATOpedia claims that both presidents were forced to resign after facing corruption charges. It seems like the CPV is methodically purging corrupt officials in their anti-corruption campaign.

https://ru.usembassy.gov/security-alert-avoid-large-gatherings-over-the-next-48-hours/

from March 7th. wtf.

The obvious instigator of the Moscow terrorist attack is the evil empire or one of it's proxies. The question is what they were counting on achieving. A callous desire to inflict harm on random "enemy" civilians probably had something to do with it but it seems like a really lazy explanation.

The attack has no military purpose. Maybe the plotters are hoping to demoralise the Russian public, thereby hurting the war effort and making the people demand an end to the war. But things rarely works like that and spectacular terrorist attacks like this are much likelier to increase public support for punishing those responsible.

The only motive that kind of makes sense is that the attack was plotted in order to increase morale in Ukraine. The Kiev regime has been putting hundreds of thousands of their people into the meat grinder and they have no military results to show for it. A large attack like this can feel like a win in Ukraine and motivate the military to keep fighting.