I hope you get decisively rid of this illness, and wish you luck. :)
perestroika
joined 2 years ago
People are made vulnerable to their idol going haywire - by the need to rationalize having supported him. Thus the 50% of Republicans who bluescreened with "great leader always correct". If they have time to read up on the issue, it will drop a bit.
"What are they intending to do with this capability?", I asked when going to read the archived link.
The masses of the smaller boats could also act “as missile and torpedo decoys, overwhelming radars or drone sensors with too many targets,” said Thomas Shugart, a former U.S. naval officer now at the Center for a New American Security.
This seems a reasonable explanation. Provide cover for those who must travel undetected. Obstruct those who must be prevented from traveling or seeing stuff.
A mass of fishing vessels loitering some miles away may actually blind a surface-based radar to things beyond them. Too much reflective metal, one would have to dial down sensitivity or only look high.
They could do worse, though - they could add wind generators to fishing boats for Doppler effect. Radars look for quick moving objects by detecting Doppler shift. The tips of wind generators move at drone-like speed.
If 10% of that becomes actual reality in schools, it might be an acceptable outcome.
In the context of sending more troops to stare down the barrel at Kurds' positions, maybe or maybe not.
Context:
The leader of Kurdish-led forces in Syria announced Friday that they will withdraw from a contested area in northern Syria, potentially heading off a major clash with government forces.
The announcement by Mazloum Abdi, the leader of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, came as the Syrian military announced it had begun striking SDF positions, while the SDF reported “intense artillery shelling” in the town of Deir Hafer east of the city of Aleppo.
Hours earlier, a U.S. military designation had visited Deir Hafer and met with SDF officials in an apparent attempt to tamp down tensions.
The U.S. has good relations with both sides and has urged calm. A spokesperson for the U.S. military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Abdi said in a statement posted on X that “based on calls from friendly countries and mediators and in a demonstration of good faith,” the SDF would redeploy its forces to areas east of the Euphrates River Saturday morning.
Shortly before Abdi’s announcement, interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa had announced issuance of a decree strengthening Kurdish rights.
Source: Kurdish-led forces to withdraw from contested area in Syria
My interpretation: Kurds are trading territorial control for rights, under threat of violence. If Syrian laws prove to be more than "ink on paper", maybe it will be good. But many people are leaving their homes and withdrawing together with SDF troops, because they don't dare to live in territory ceded to the Syrian central government. For them, that is pretty damn bad.
As for the river - it does provide a logical (natural) border, with SDF on the eastern bank and government troops on the western bank. I guess Western countries urged SDF to fall back to a defensible position, and government troops shelled them to emphasize that their current position was not very defensible. The new Syrian government resembles the old one in this sense - it has such a friendly way of giving reminders.
It is sad to hear of their defeat.
The business of revolution is such: for a revolution to win, it must grow and spread decisively and fast. A revolutionary drops out of the calculation after being imprisoned. Since revolutionaries typically cannot detain people, a riot cop will return next day - unless disarmed and put in hospital condition. Thus, sadly, a revolution cannot afford to lose mass engagements and lose many people as prisoners. If it is opposed, it needs to be decisively violent. :( If it's not being opposed, it can be peaceful. To prevail, revolutionaries need an big numeric advantage, coordination (know where to strike) and rapid action (don't give a chance of defending). If opposed, they need weapons.
If a state manages to mobilize armed agencies to supress a revolution, military units must be either persuaded to defect (approach them with beer), bribed to switch sides (approach them with money), or defeated. Option 3 is the hardest, only possible if the population is well armed and organized.
Random samples:
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in 1936 in parts of Spain, population was highly organized and dual power structures prepared for rebellion: they overcame military units and took their weapons in some regions, but not others, civil war followed
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in 1991 in the USSR, dual power structures were already well developed and democracy was expected - the military delayed with implementing orders, negotiated about whose orders to implement and essentially defected to the side of the population
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in 2010 during the Arab Spring, protest expanded so fast in several countries that goverment could not mobilize forces to supress it
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in 2011 in Syria, protest was suppressed with violence in central areas, but protesters overcame government in less central areas, civil war followed
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in 2014 in Ukraine, government was divided (president vs. parliament) and the military refused to choose a side, after which protesters overwhelmed riot police and the president fled
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in 2025 in Nepal, protest expanded so quickly that protesters overcame civilian branches of government, drove ministers into emigration and torched the parliament, before the military could choose a side
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in 2026 in Iran, protest grew too slowly, government was very prepared for repressions, and had enough time to mobilize armed supression and used heavy violence, prevailing :(
I believe the article is true. However, I would like to know what the rates are among Palestinians.
I expect there's a bigger rate increase and numerically far more broken people among them. And most likely, they aren't getting assistance.
Initial working hypothesis: subsonic ammunition in the context of a crowd chanting. The sound is that of bullets hitting, not shots being fired. The gun is, after all, some distance away.
I have never been shot at, least of all with subsonic bullets from a silenced gun. To validate my answer, I watched some gun nuts deliberately record getting shot at (behind a considerable amount of earth) from this combination. Start at 3:30 to skip the boredom and ads and listen to how .22 sounds (bigger projectiles will follow).
However, basing on reports that I have read so far, subsonic + silencer is a very big exception. The biggest damage was done with ordinary assault rifles, shotguns with pellets and truck mounted machine guns.
Edit:
Some folks recorded coming under fire, and the death (despite attempts to administer aid) of their co-protester. Incoming fire from rooftops sounds like clicks or mild cracks to me. They probably didn't approach the shooters to ask if they had a supressor or silencer, subsonic or supersonic ammunition. The video is very old, from last week's Thursday, January 8. The worst part was yet to begin. Content warning: blood and death.
There is no need to manufacture anything against a regime that uses everyday death sentences, supression and violence, especially during a time when it suddenly kills thousands of people.
The exact number of thousands is very hard to determine in the conditions of communications blackout and widespread protests. As much as I hear, getting infromation out of Iran can sometimes mean a motorcycle trip to the nearest border. Just like in case of earthquakes, when you first hear of 50 casualties and later hear of 50 000, an experienced person should be able to calculate in probabilities.
Side note: in the US, people are outraged over 1 protester getting shot.
Thanks. You are the first one who pointed out their new owner, and new editor in chief.
For those who haven't heard yet:
In October 2025, Paramount Skydance bought The Free Press for $150 million and installed Weiss, who had no prior experience in broadcast journalism, as editor-in-chief of CBS News.[1][73][74] She reports to David Ellison, the head of Paramount Skydance.[75]
What passed according to the article: Syrian government troops were supposed to take a batch of land on the western side of Euphrates, but launched a larger offensive, forced Kurdish troops to retreat and crossed the river at two points at major dams.
Personal opinion: the president's decree, while it looked friendly to Kurds, was most likely a simple feint, and being a decree (not a law, elections haven't been held and there is no new parliament) can be taken back and isn't worth the paper it's written on.
For some reason I'm not fully aware of, January is the typical time of wars and offensive operations starting in Syria. At this time, the Syrian central government cannot be trusted for more than 60 seconds. Sadly, the SDF is not what it used to be, and has likewise worn down its trust among people. It is not a very effective fighting force.
Against the much larger Syrian army, Kurds are going to lose, unless they retake their riverside at the dams + find a channel for obtaining drones and antidrone tech (getting more artillery is likely an unattainable goal for them). At this point, I don't think they can retake those points or obtain sufficient technology.
They likely know they're in danger, as they proceeded with blowing up some bridges across the Euphrates. The problem is: this still leaves them holding some Arab-majority areas which the Syrian governement definitely wants.
French and US diplomats and military are trying to calm down the conflict without participating in it.