What the Actual Hell is This?
This has been making the rounds today.
As a request by DARPA this might not be really odd until you consider the short notice.
It's the urgency that causes one to ponder things.
Why do they need an underground facility the size of several city blocks that can be sealed from the environment....BY FRIDAY?
The world's largest island (which, while big, is not NEARLY as big as a Mercator projection often makes it look) is a net (albeit slight) economic drain on
Denmark,which doesn't have the resources to develop it or realistically
defend it and it's small population of ~56,000 has been steadily
dwindling for some time. This is mainly due to them being eaten by polar bears and
Ithaqua.
"Please ignore his last sentence as it is dubious and lacks a citation!"
A Sobering Realization
Ilhan Omar was only 10 years old when she got here.
She went to school here.
She's had 26 years here.
She bore 3 kids here.
Any hate for us she brought with her she did not unlearn in our schools.
The rest of her hatred was not imported but learned here, in our schools.
I don't say this to defend or excuse her execrable views, but to point out that she is even more an indictment of our increasingly degenerate education system than our broken immigration policies.
Keeping out barbarians is all well and good, but it is a futile gesture if we make them domestically.
We're Not ACTUALLY Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor.
Brickmuppet Blog is protesting against the cyberbullying of a 14 year old girl by Buzzfeed. She delenquitized herself way before we linked to her.
I would not want a 14 year old of mine to make herself a target to the crazies like she does here...er....here
Trigger Warning!! Language, Burkas, anti-anti-semitism, insightful armchair psychoanalysis, and actual citations in the write-up.
...but that is between her and her parents, and NOBODY else. It is certainly not the business of Buzzfeed and not a matter that should involve the police in any way. Yes Buzzfeed called the police on her.
Parents beware, there is foul language, but rather less than I was led
to believe, this is far from the tourettes
cascade that was described to me. There's actually some nuance in it. She mentions that 'call-out-culture' is a subset of the left, pointing out that there are still lefties who are for free speech.
Of course it wasn't the language that pissed Buzzfeed off. It was the fact that she nails the big domestic issue of our age.
Now, the fact that she's in Marin county is causing her troubles with her school. There have been walk outs by students protesting her existence and I suspect that she's now the target of every Heather and soy-boy that wants to virtue signal. (Thanks Buzzfeed).
There is, of course a lot to be offended by here.
What pissed me off the most about her is that this 14 year old is a better writer than me.
At About 16:30 Today on YouTube (Updated)
We have, from top to bottom:
A: A stoic, calm, and reasoned You-Tube commentator.
B: A Brexiteer and, well, a bit of a troll.
C: A mellow, and yet delightfully wackadoodle libertarian loon from Vermont.
D: A generally left leaning journalist whose reporting has been quite wide ranging.
A: Matt Christensen
B: Sargon
C: Styxhexxenhammer
D: Tim Pool
All have been focusing on threats to free speech of late and most, if not all have been targeted over the last week or so by doxxings and calls for deplatforming.
Meanwhile, as this is being typed, other Youtube channels seem to be fine.
It's probably nothing. Just an odd coincidence.
UPDATE: As of 19:00, all 4 sites are back up, but they were down for over an hour.
UPDATE: This is a more recent article that is less comprehensive, but potentially less triggering than, the one linked at the end of this post. END UPDATE:
There's now a very comprehensive and interesting article on the broader details and implications of this written by...umm...well...
There's no way to sugar coat this.
The article is by Milo Yiannopoulos.
"WAT!?"
It's 16,201 words and despite the author's well earned reputation, is calm, fair, measured, reasonably balanced, informative and completely devoid of profanity except for a few instances necessitated by directly quoting college professors.
It really is a top notch article, but you'll probably want to run to the loo first and perhaps get some snacks.
1
Only started in on Milo's novelette but so far it seems measured and sensible. If he's trying to rehabilitate his image by producing quality writing, it may well work.
Posted by: Mauser at Mon Sep 24 20:19:25 2018 (Ix1l6)
3
Yeah, I was kind of surprised to see Pixy comment directly below obvious spam, particularly spam targeting his own business, and yet it remained there...
Posted by: David at Mon Sep 24 20:34:21 2018 (JMkaQ)
This story dates from March, but it caught my eye for a couple of reasons.
"We’re seeing members from all the three letter agencies,†said Fortitude creator Drew Miller, a retired Air Force colonel and intelligence officer, in a reference to the Central Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The gentleman being quoted runs Fortitude Ranch, a prepper outfit that provides a number of fallout shelters and protected compounds around the U.S. in the event of a societal catastrophe.
The two facilities near D.C. are reportedly getting a lot of business from civil servants in agencies that would be standing duty during a crisis with the aim of protecting family members.
Over the last several years, there have been quite a few luxury bomb shelters in the news like Vivos that cater to millionaires and such. While those are certainly cause for interest with regards to what the rich and connected might be anticipating, this particular collection of facilities are interesting in part because of their austerity.
The underground portions of the compounds are not 5-star accommodations.
They do, however, appear to be reasonably well thought out and adequate.
The company requires that everyone familiarize themselves with their facilities weapons and stand watch at the gates in the event the area is habitable. They provide air transport from the many small airports in the DC area, to get the families to the facilities in a crisis.
One clever bit: they want their clients to be familiar with the facilities so they double as rustic resorts (as they have large acrerages and the east coast facilities are in the mountains) at which the members can relax and get training on the facilities weapons(!).
So why should this be of any interest:
The impression given by their approach and lack of granite countertops is that this series of shelters is for people who are...serious...about this sort of thing. More importantly, civil servants in the agencies that concern themselves with this stuff have reportedly looked at the situation the country is in and decided to put down money on it.
The whole thing brings to mind this...
Yes kids. It's time to get your bug out bags in order.
The 2nd Fleet Returns
The United States Navy's Second Fleet has just been re-activated. It's area of responsibility is the Atlantic Ocean. During the Cold War, this was a major unit second only to the 6th fleet (Mediterranean and inshore Europe) in importance if the balloon went up. The 2nd Fleet was deactivated in 2011 because the Obama administration determined that there was no need for there to be a U.S. Navy fleet in the Atlantic.....
"Do what now?"
Anyway, the 2nd fleet command has just been reactivated. In the event of any hostilities in Europe it would be tasked with keeping the Atlantic sea-lanes open. This is being taken as a sign of the rising tensions with Russia, and to be sure, that is a factor. However, it's also a matter of remedial Geography and common sense that the U.S. needs a fleet whose area of operations is the Atlantic.
It would be even better if we could provide it with some ships.
"We believe that global growth is slowing down,†he said in a phone interview. "Trade is currently significantly weaker than it normally would be under the growth forecasts we see.â€
This does not jive with other forecasts, and certainly, with regards to domestic air and ground shipping industry my completely anecdotal and unscientific observations have been of daily box tsunamis. However, the shipping company I work for seems to be benefitting considerably from the explosion in online ordering, and we are spinning up for the hell called "Christmas". Maersk handles 15 percent of worldwide maritime trade. They have a particularly good vantage point to see things on a macro scale that includes raw materials as well as finished products. They probably should be taken seriously.
I cannot speak to their corporate culture or analytical methods, but in my experience inspecting their vessels in the Coast Guard, Maersk always ran tight ships with highly professional crews. They seemed pretty squared away.
1
Union Pacific is furloughing train crews due to continuing drops in shipping demand. And yet the government continues to pump air into the stock markets.
Posted by: Ben at Tue Nov 10 17:09:46 2015 (DRaH+)
Russia just conducted a combined arms exercise that included live firing of several strategic missile systems in a coordination.
On 30 October 2015, Russia conducted a test of the command and control system that involved a number of strategic and non-strategic systems. As part of the exercise, K-117 Bryansk submarine of the Project 667BDRM/Delta IV-class launched a R-29RM missile from the Barents Sea. K-223 Podolsk submarine of the Project 667BDR/Delta III class launched a R-29R missile from the Sea of Okhotsk. The Strategic Rocket Forces conducted a launch of a Topol/SS-25 missile from Plesetsk, while the Tu-160 strategic bombers launched cruise missiles toward targets at the Pemboy and Kura test ranges. In addition, Velikiy Ustyug small missile ship launched a Kalibr cruise missile from the Kaspian Sea. The exercise also involved a launch of an Iskander cruise missile from Kapustin Yar.
So, yeah. A comprehensive nuclear strike drill involving all the nuclear capable services as well as actual expenditure of ICBMs and SLBMs.
Of course all militaries need to train (I wish ours would do more drills of this nature than it does) so this would not automatically be a concern if it weren't for all the other stuff going on with Russia right now.
Russia's authorities should revive the old Cold War practice of training civilians on how to respond in the event of a large-scale nuclear attack, a senior government official said on Friday.
Note that the article couches this in terms of a response to the U.S. nuclear weapons modernization (which consists of improving the accuracy and lowering the yield on a group of existing bombs designed 45 years ago). No mention is made of the Russian deployment of 2 different ICBM types and current development of a new super heavy ICBM, no less than 3 different types of SLBM and a new cruise missile that is in direct violation of the INF treaty.
Of course, one of the main problems in Syria is ISIS, which, as this article points out, has beyond it demonstrated depravity and stated goals a considerable potential to cause chaos in Europe even if they continue applying pressure indirectly via the refugee crisis.
Speaking of which, in a development that comes as a shock to only the most obtuse, the Iran Nuclear Deal is pretty much scuttling all efforts at non-proliferation of nuclear weapons as nations that gave up their nuclear programs look at the terms Iran got and conclude they were saps, those that are pursuing them conclude that the days of consequences for such actions have passed and a general feeling begins to take hold that the controls are off and everyone who values their sovereignty had best get them soon.
Some folks think that the huge fissure opening near Yellowstone (well, in the same state) indicates renewed vulcanism is imminent at the worlds largest advertisement for storable food. THe government isn't making any preparations for ashfall, and they are saying that the phenomena is a peculiar type of landslide...so it's probably just craboids.
Like Izumo, she's named after a prefecture that doesn't exist anymore, so yeah, they are naming them after the WW2 warships.. We think of Kaga mostly in context of Perl Harbor and the Darwin raid, (and Midway obviously) but like Izumo, the old Kaga was heavily involved in the unpleasantness in China...in particular she was the ship that provided air support during the 1932 Shanghai incident.
4
Pete, consider the reaction in Russia if Germany named a division of brand-new, high-tech tanks the "Barbarossa Division".
Yeah, I'd expect there to be some soiled skivvies in Moscow. Probably much like there are in Beijing over the name of this ship.
Posted by: Wonderduck at Sat Aug 29 22:04:36 2015 (jGQR+)
5
We think of Kaga mostly in context of Perl Harbor...
1. #!/usr/bin/perl
2. use strict;
3. use warnings;
4. my @attackplanes = ("B5N2", "D3A2")
5. my @carrers= ("Kaga", "Akagi", "Soryu", "Hiryu", "Shokaku", "Zuikaku")
6. use @carriers @attackplanes @perlharbor
7. print "A Day That Will Live In Infamy"
Posted by: Wonderduck at Sat Aug 29 22:15:23 2015 (jGQR+)
6
Well...I guess I won't be correcting that typo.
Also:Wonderduck wins the thread.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sun Aug 30 01:18:41 2015 (ohzj1)
7
Wonderduck, what blighted moment led to you learning Perl?
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sun Aug 30 03:36:19 2015 (PiXy!)
8
Pixy, the moment I saw the "perl harbor" typo. I know Perl much like somebody "knows" something by reading about it on the back of a cereal box.
Seriously, everything I know about PERL came from this website, in about five minutes of reading. I know the syntax is correct, because it's pretty much copied directly from that page, but beyond that? I think the end result of that snippet would be "A Day That Will Live In Infamy" as the "print" command is the only thing that actually does anything in the so-called "program."
I will spend much time for the right joke...
Posted by: Wonderduck at Sun Aug 30 04:29:19 2015 (jGQR+)
9
Thanks to a brief fad for Perl poetry, it's hard to write Perl that's so bad it doesn't do something. It just may not accomplish your original goal, which makes the joke even better...
My history with Perl began a few weeks before version 2.0 was released, and has yet to end. Too damn useful.
-j
Posted by: J Greely at Sun Aug 30 11:30:23 2015 (ZlYZd)
PESHAWAR, Pakistan—Six leading figures of the Pakistani Taliban pledged allegiance to the terror group ISIS, one of them claimed in an audio message released Tuesday.
(There is no word on their position regarding Lion hunting.)
However, the possibility of Pakistan straight up using their atomic weapons in a war is nontrivial. A lethal 12 hour long gunfight in an Indian border town has thrown tinder on the hot-plate that is India and Pakistan's relationship. This despite the fact that no lions were harmed during the incident.
Conditions are ripe for a crisis in this strained environment, even more so if a terrorist attack on Indian soil—such as Monday’s—is traced back to extremist groups supported by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). These rising tensions make crisis management more difficult and increase the risk of a conflict with nuclear dimensions.
Pakistan and India have been to war several times and Pakistan's statement that they consider battlefield nuclear weapons to be legitimate equalizers should certainly give one pause since once nukes start popping off all in a conflict where both sides have them, all sorts of nastiness is likely to ensue.
Here is an estimate of the soot cloud that would be generated by 100 nuclear weapons of 15 kiloton yield going off over cities.
The scale on the bottom measures reduction in watts per square meter.
These estimates tend to lean towards the pessimistic, however, this study assumes blast yields somewhere between approximately one half and one quarter those of the underground tests the countries have conducted and since both countries had stockpiles of around 100 weapons in 2011 (and have been building them up since) the number of blasts modeled is perhaps half what one would see in a real war. It concludes that growing seasons would be reduced between 10 days and a month in many parts of the world.
Smoke emissions of 100 lowyield urban explosions in a regional nuclear conflict would generate substantial globalscale climate anomalies, although not as large as in previous "nuclear winterâ€scenarios for a full-scale war (11, 12). However, indirect effects on surface land temperatures, precipitation rates, and growing season lengths (see figure, page1225) would be likely to degrade agricultural productivity to an extent that historically has led to famines in Africa, India, and Japan after the 1783 1784 Laki eruption (13) or in the northeastern United States and Europe after the Tambora eruption of 1815
This does not include estimates of ozone layer depletion which might persist for as much as 5 years. These models should be taken with a grain of salt of course, but it is apparent that if India and Pakistan go at it full on it would cause problems worldwide.
There has been little coverage of the deteriorating situation between the two nations in the U.S. media which is remarkable given that many of the hypothetically targeted cities in the studies contain zoos, which in turn might contain....lions.
Fortunately, no negative impact upon any lions is considered imminent, hence the lack of interest by the media.
Ukranian 'rebels' are reportedly building a dirty bomb, ie: a conventional explosive laced with radioactive substances to increase its lethality, or at least fear inducing effect. Like everything coming out of the confused region this should be treated with some skepticism, especially since the media has determined that it does not merit extensive coverage despite the fact that, if true it would be an obvious threat to the proud people eating lions of Kiev.
1
With respect to the scale on the map: Doesn't earth, in the daylight, get something on the order of 500-1000 W/m^2? (I know it's 1000 W/m^2 in orbit above the atmosphere) Would a 0.01 W/m^2 haze layer be noticeable without instruments?
(Obviously better not to have that happen than have it happen, but it seems to me that the main effects of nuclear weapons that need to be worried about are very much in the target area. i.e. The world won't be turning into a cinder: The targets will be turning into a cinder, and we can't really expect western handwringing over the end of the world to deter other countries (much less crazy ones like NK or Pakistan.).)
Posted by: EccentricOrbit at Mon Aug 3 07:14:44 2015 (GtPd7)
2
PS: Your CAPTCHA seems to be stuck on asking the same question over and over.
Posted by: EccentricOrbit at Mon Aug 3 07:15:41 2015 (GtPd7)
Doesn't earth, in the daylight, get something on the order of 500-1000 W/m^2? (I know it's 1000 W/m^2 in orbit above the atmosphere) Would a 0.01 W/m^2 haze layer be noticeable without instruments?
I honestly don't know. I doubt that 0.01 would register against Chinese factory emissions, but I think 0.1 (which also appears in places on the.gif) might be relevant.
The study has the exchange take place in late winter early spring, which is bad for the northern hemisphere since even a tiny reduction in wattage to the surface would reduce snowmelt and warming, so, the timing is probably worst case. There is some affect in the southern hemisphere as well.
I suspect these nuclear winter scenarios are sexed up, a bit but the fact that the number of and yield of the bombs was so minimalist for a full war between the two countries. (I'd figure 150-200 detonations of 40-100 kilotons) that the low estimates might correct for any oversestimation in effects.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Mon Aug 3 07:39:32 2015 (1zM3A)
Even if the captcha isn't cycling, for the time being it's still enough to exclude all the spambots.
Jim Dunnigan's "Quick and Dirty Guide to War" is excellent and has been updated several times since it came out. It makes for chilling reading.
When it was originally written (1990?) it said the most likely place for a nuclear exchange was between India and Pakistan, following this scenario:
A new serious border war breaks out between the two nations, and India's military prevails. Indian military units enter Pakistan and head for the major cities. Pakistan then uses nukes in its own territory to stop the Indian invasion.
India then bombs Pakistan in retaliation and it eventually escalates to a city-swapping duel.
I can't really argue with that scenario; it makes too much sense to me. And until Iran completes its arsenal and makes good on its threat to nuke Israel, this scenario still seems like the highest probability of nuclear war on the planet.
In an extraordinary move, the People’s Bank of China has begun lending money to investors to buy shares in the flailing market.
"Umm...What?"
That just smacks of desperation. The article also mentions twice that the government is concerned about "monstrous public disorder" which further fails to instill confidence.
1
It's not good, but everyone (everyone who was paying attention, anyway) knew that China was in an economic bubble. Still, they have a fundamentally strong and growing economy, both internally and in terms of exports, so they'll weather this. Unlike Greece, they've learned that socialism doesn't work and abandoned it.
2
All good points. China's been around for 4,000 years so I'm sure they will endure. My big concern is secondary and tertiary effects that this might set in motion. "Monstrous disorder" does not lend itself to optimal decision making.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Tue Jul 7 21:09:13 2015 (ohzj1)
3
Yeah, the free market just optimises things (more or less) in the long run. It makes no guarantees that the path will be smooth. Even less so when governments inevitably put their thumbs on the scales and their fingers in the till.
4
And just for perspective - after a drop of 30%, China's stock market is at its lowest point since... April. April 2015. That's how much of a bubble they've been in.
6
Potential for some real ugliness. *Everything* is trending down. Stocks, commodities, the value of the dollar, precious metals. There's a lot of "pay no attention" hand-waving going on, too.
8
We'll see over the next several days, but copper and aluminum did not do well, which indicates a lack of faith in manufacturing.
Of course, there was a whole lot of stuff making people jittery, the computer glitches (which we are assured were not hacks) Greece and concerns about the safety of the donut supply may have combined to accentuate alarm.
Still, I fear the Chinese problem may well be a nontrivial matter.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Wed Jul 8 18:37:40 2015 (ohzj1)
Chinese Admirals are saying that they are authorized to ram japanese ships in the South China Sea. (I suspect that their authorization comes from the legal theory known as "General Principals")
Karachi, the largest city in Pakistan, has been wracked by intense jihadist activity for a month and is deteriorating further.
A reliable source says Taliban leaders are living quite freely in Karachi, but because they have nothing to do with the government they are left alone. To date, neither intelligence reports nor the media have been able to confirm the suspect presence. Yet the TTP has managed a number of attacks in the city, targeting polio workers, politicians, and top police officer Chaudhry Aslam.
(Note: Pakistan has an unknown number of nuclear weapons, the security of which is, no doubt, as leading source of insomnia amongst world security officials.)
More importantly, Saudi Arabia is investing in a civil nuclear industry. "Where would Saudi Arabia train the scientists to work on its secret program?†Zakaria wonders. Oh, I don’t know, how about the King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy? Somehow Zakaria never mentions that Saudi Arabia is building a dedicated city for training nuclear scientists. I can’t predict whether this investment will pay off, but then again neither can Zakaria — if he even knows it exists.
Iran launched a satellite back in February, from a military base, that carried a 110 pound payload. While it did not stay in orbit as long as planned (indicating that they have quite a bit of work to do), they are making a fair amount of progress. A very rough rule of thumb is that a rockets payload to low orbit plus 50% what the rocket can put on the other side of the world so keep an eye on the estimates of their satellites mass.
The US is now in a similar position to what Germany and Japan were in WW2 in that Russia and China have everything...EVERYTHING. The solution is harder than simply changing the codebooks, because we can't get rid of ALL THE PERSONNEL.
For a professional perspective on this, John Schindler has thoughts on just how bad this is here, here and here. (It's REALLY bad). I urge you to read them all. There is a NPR interview with him here.
This is the biggest national security story in decades, and it is on the level of Pearl Harbor. Given that it has been going on for a year or more the friskieness of the Russians and Chinese over the last several months comes into perspective. The damage will take years to fix.
1
You missed the situation in and around the Dniestr statelet and the situation with the Russian "peacekeepers" stationed there. Kiev is no doubt trying to get its paws on the 14th Army depots in there, having drained their supplies in Novorossia.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Mon Jun 15 19:55:22 2015 (RqRa5)
I just noted a story that seems to me to be rather significant, but is getting very little play. Indeed it is several days old already.
It's almost as if the powers that be are offended by the story and do not wish it to see the light of day. Certainly this development is frankly, likely to cause much upsetedness in some circles, as there is a certain, aroma of scandal attached to it.
We here at Brickmuppet Blog find ourselves struggling to find the proper words to describe this turn of events.
No, that is not a typo, the number is nine hundred thousand.
This is not a full mobilization, but the country is sending letters to all reservists clarifying where they are to report in the event of one.
The Iranians have seized the MVMaersk Tigris. The vessel is registered to the Marshall Islands. This gets complicated because while the Marshall Islands is an independent country, they are a US protectorate. The US, New Zealand and Australia have arrangements like this with several of their former territories. The upshot is that this is exactly the same legally as if it were a US ship. Note that earlier on the 29th, the Maersk Kensingtonwhich IS US flagged, was intercepted and ordered to heave to in the same area but refused. There is more on this here. It appears the the Navy is going to be convoying US ships through the straits of Hormuz.
Finally, there has been some good news. There are reports that ISIS head Al-Bagdadi has suffered a case of extreme chiropracty due to some US bombs. This could strike at the heart of the caliphates legitimacy. More verifiable, is that 200 schoolgirls in Nigeria have been rescued from Boko Haram. These are not the girls who were kidnapped last August but some of the many other girls that have been kidnapped by the Islamist group.
While there have been rather more spectacular incidents involving Russian poking of NATO and nearby countries in recent months, this would seem to be one of the more worrying. If the Russian subs are are able to elude detection in the Irish Sea and Gulf of Mexico, then there may be a bit of a problem with our and our allies anti-submarine measures that warrants some attention.
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