your vigilant palsposted:
Update on Russian-linked activity on Tumblr
Dear [accountname],
As part of our commitment to transparency, we want you to know that we uncovered and terminated 84 accounts linked to Internet Research Agency or IRA (a group closely tied to the the Russian government) posing as members of the Tumblr community.
The IRA engages in electronic disinformation and propaganda campaigns around the world using phony social media accounts. When we uncovered these accounts, we notified law enforcement, terminated the accounts, and deleted their original posts.
While investigating their activity on Tumblr, we discovered that you either followed one of these accounts linked to the IRA, or liked or reblogged one of their posts:
1-800-gloup
bellygangstaboo
blackness-by-your-side previously known as: black-galaxy-magic, fullyfurrymiracle, u4guy, ufo-pilot-and-his-sexy-spouse
cartnsncreal previously known as: feelmydragonballs
everydaycutenesstherapy
gogomrbrown previously known as: go-mrbrown, infectedv0ice, todd-la-death
hustleinatrap previously known as: thenaturecanpost, tumblercube
info-mix previously known as: americanstatistics, crazypolitician, girlsagainst, illegalmom, just-stat, rochelbarr
lagonegirl
mooseblogtimes
morningwoodz previously known as: 5cubes, bangbangempire, empireofweird, gifemprireohh, innerpicsempire, picsempire
postingwhileblack previously known as: ghettablasta, heygeraldmartinjohanssen, honestinjun, nativewolveshere
sumchckn previously known as: blondeinpolitics, blvckcommunity, classylgbthomie, hwuudoin, politixblondie
swagintherain previously known as: blacklivesmatterusa, carzwithgirlz
thetrippytrip previously known as: matrixpath, themostpost
thingstolovefor previously known as: the-inner-mirror
voteforwest2020 previously known as: mrbadasscat
You aren’t in trouble, and don’t need to take any action if you don’t want to. We deleted the accounts but decided to leave up any reblog chains so that you can curate your own Tumblr to reflect your own personal views and perspectives.
Democracy requires transparency and an informed electorate and we take our disclosure responsibility very seriously. We’ll be aggressively watching for disinformation campaigns in the future, take the appropriate action, and make sure you know about it.
this is insane
lo posted:so what kind of things were they posting
i pretty much exclusively used my tumblr to reblog cool images, so, cool images i guess. but now i know they were evil, russian, disinformative cool images
The fact that the state's subtextual inner excuse for silencing dissent has become the explicit text of the press establishment is I think evidence of the final apotheosis of the Pentagon's uncontested dominance, now they can openly impose the psychosis of their internal culture on the world at large instead of having to be coy about it.
Large sections of the ruling class have lost their minds and even the softest domestic peace Movements or detente moderates are cowering.
They are cutting off diplomatic channels and engaging in direct wars killing Russians on multiple battlefields while hooting to kill more.
I just hope that Russia showing some fangs with the superweapons will stir some of the saner ghouls within the deep state.
shriekingviolet posted:Imho there won't be a direct war because the Pentagon knows it is now so hyperspecialized around asymmetrical warfare that a real engagement with a similarly modern military would be devastating. There will just be a thousand more "justified" excuses to rain bullshit and misery on the rest of the world in perpetuity.
The US killed lots of Russian mercs and syrians last month in an ambush.. Russia covered it up but has made commitments that it will shoot down US planes and ships if this happens again with regular troops.
The US has been positioning itself to do the same again.
What happens if this kicks off?
xipe posted:What happens if this kicks off?
we're all fucked!!

shriekingviolet posted:Imho there won't be a direct war because the Pentagon knows it is now so hyperspecialized around asymmetrical warfare that a real engagement with a similarly modern military would be devastating. There will just be a thousand more "justified" excuses to rain bullshit and misery on the rest of the world in perpetuity.
this is bs as far as the navy and airforce are concerned if only cos asymmetrical warfare renders them completely useless and they havent liked it
Dimashq posted:Hypothetically if WW3 remains conventional, then the opening stages of the war would last like a couple weeks at most before the 10 billion dollar gizmos are all destroyed/spent. I read awhile ago that a single mechanized brigade requires almost constant maintenance and a huge logistical supply chain an order of magnitude larger than what was needed in WW2, so obviously mass production of modern weapons of war on the scale of WW2 is impossible since you can't feasibly make 100,000 M1 Abrams and deploy them on a "front". It would seem that conventional maneuver warfare would be limited and the war would be forced either to an early settlement after a trillion dollars in military equipment is vaporized by ballistic missiles or it would have to develop into nuclear "city trading" game of chicken to see which side folds first. This would all take place <1 year. Anyways, assuming humanity comes out the other side without going extinct, it seems like an interesting scenario to ponder; every war between Great Powers from 1870 to today has unleashed a social revolution, each time increasing in scale. So what I'm saying is, world communism by Christmas if war breaks out.
I find this thought interesting because the lack of war clearly has something to do with the overwhelming stasis of society in the west. What would happen if this period of ossification ended?
US Ambassador to Russia called this 6 slides "highly convincing". pic.twitter.com/p1bGobC3iC
— Military Advisor (@miladvisor) March 27, 2018
Slides from the presentation the Theresa May gave other NATO EU Govs, who accepted the storyline and expelled diplomats.
Seems like these 'events'/media frenzies - from mh17 shootdown, to 'the election hack', to this 'chemical incident in London' (I'm surprised they didn't add the 'chemical incidents in Syria' to this, which they made sure to blame Russia for) - are each a cacophony of accusations that become solidified as we move on to the next story, forming a drum beat with an accelerating tempo.
The thing about it is there is never any proof at all, and never will be.
So there needs to be something outside of this setup if this process is to be stopped.
I will say it again: Anybody who tells you this nerve agent must have come from Russia is a liar--a complete and utter liar. They are simple compounds:https://t.co/Xk5rQz3xpz
— Dave Collum (@DavidBCollum) March 27, 2018
Hey Chemists: I need a poll. Any PhD organic chemist in any country could make Novichuk nerve agents shown above (maybe at great risk but still slap them together):
— Dave Collum (@DavidBCollum) March 27, 2018
a234 has been in the NIST database since 98 (at the very minimum this means that this edgewood researcher has had a a234 sample to measure MS):
Igor Rybaltschenko (head of Russian OPCW lab) shows the 1998 listing of Novichok A-234 in the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) Mass Spectral Library on Russian TV. pic.twitter.com/Fk3mPngF6v
— Michael Kobs (@MichaKobs) March 26, 2018
one of the FOLIANT main researchers admits that the weaponized chemical has been illicitly sold to several non-state actors in the past:
https://www.novayagazeta.ru/articles/2018/03/22/75896-rezhim-novichka
if you can read russian i recommend reading the whole article, it's very interesting
nerve agent poisoning is very easy to diagnose (as noted in theresa mays powerpoint lol) which easily discredits the theory that the perpetrators thought the poison would go undetected
etc etc
this story is an absolute joke
Denying Hacking Germany, Russia Says It Only Broke Into Bundestag in 1945
https://www.haaretz.com/amp/world-news/europe/russia-denies-hacking-germany-last-time-we-broke-in-was-in-1945-1.5961705

HamHorn.aiff
littlegreenpills posted:shriekingviolet posted:Imho there won't be a direct war because the Pentagon knows it is now so hyperspecialized around asymmetrical warfare that a real engagement with a similarly modern military would be devastating. There will just be a thousand more "justified" excuses to rain bullshit and misery on the rest of the world in perpetuity.
this is bs as far as the navy and airforce are concerned if only cos asymmetrical warfare renders them completely useless and they havent liked it
strongly disagree; the navy's only purpose now is the pursuit of asymetric warfare as invincible battle patforms from which to launch planes drones and cruise missiles. Under convetional warfare conditions those carrier groups would be on the bottom of the ocean very quickly
similarly im sure the airforce fantasises about dogfights over the south china sea but they're just wagon drivers delivering missiles to weddings and funerals, fully reliant on the inability of their targets to shoot back, no one really knows how they would stand up to current AA systems, but it would be bad
One point (not citing anything unfortunately) made in this article is that the US military estimates that it won't be able to militarily defeated Russia after 2020.
I wonder if this hysteria and tension is because NATO is at a similar point to where its NAZI forefathers were in 1940: the closing window where they are still strong enough (according to the optimistic advisors they choose to listen to) to invade their rivals but know they will be eclipsed by them soon.
Turkey is already basically out in a lot of ways, the paper designation just hasn't caught up. but if some kind of russia-iran-turkey-deplorables axis solidifies, how will america be able to stop itself from starting ww3? they will be slavering over their red buttons.
(or is it that it's already solidifying, and what we see in the media is the part of the US-UK saliva that leaks out)
if some presumed friendly minor country withdrew from nato and publicly made it about being anti-war, it might help a little. but maybe nothing can help. except maybe China being such a huge threat that US-UK is paralyzed in fear
xipe posted:https://ejmagnier.com/2018/03/28/will-america-accept-its-defeat-or-will-it-challenge-the-russian-bear-and-the-chinese-dragon-2-3/One point (not citing anything unfortunately) made in this article is that the US military estimates that it won't be able to militarily defeated Russia after 2020.
I wonder if this hysteria and tension is because NATO is at a similar point to where its NAZI forefathers were in 1940: the closing window where they are still strong enough (according to the optimistic advisors they choose to listen to) to invade their rivals but know they will be eclipsed by them soon.
Anytime I ever read American think tanks on Russian military capabilities, it’s always that Russia is teetering on the edge of collapse/Syria is the next Afghanistan/Russia is a paper tiger. The one thing that’s completely unanimous across the board is that “China in the next decade is gonna fuckin roll us over in a war oh god oh god”
drwhat posted:i wonder if nato can really stand the strain of belligerent anglos pissing all over everything, considering the "ooh sorry nothing we can do" official line on the brexit referendum result. if the UK is willing to immediately and in a shockingly disorganized fashion tear itself out of the EU/EC, then is it really unthinkable for some other state to "realign" itself outside of nato?
not sure the two are really comparable. the EU is fundamentally a bureaucratic body and so all it takes to leave is a formal bureaucratic process. nato is more like a mafia. you'd have better luck checking out of the hotel california.
Petrol posted:drwhat posted:
i wonder if nato can really stand the strain of belligerent anglos pissing all over everything, considering the "ooh sorry nothing we can do" official line on the brexit referendum result. if the UK is willing to immediately and in a shockingly disorganized fashion tear itself out of the EU/EC, then is it really unthinkable for some other state to "realign" itself outside of nato?
not sure the two are really comparable. the EU is fundamentally a bureaucratic body and so all it takes to leave is a formal bureaucratic process. nato is more like a mafia. you'd have better luck checking out of the hotel california.
turkey seems to be in a good position to be helped out the door
Edited by rolaids ()
Porton Down experts unable to identify 'precise source' of novichok that poisoned spy https://t.co/FzIou1KZII
— Sky News (@SkyNews) April 3, 2018
"We have not identified the precise source, but we have provided the scientific info to government who have then used a number of other sources to piece together the conclusions you have come to."
" it is not our job to say where it was manufactured."