• 7 Posts
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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 11th, 2023

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  • Just when one thinks IDF has reached rock bottom depravity, some war criminal finds a way to go deeper.

    I hope the pepetrators (and if a command was given, their commanders, and if directions were given, the political leaders) are held responsible.

    It will take a lot of time and maneuvering. Politically, Israel must lose status and become considerably weaker before justice can occur. Meanwhile, the ICC must gain status and become considerably more influential. Then…


  • Yes, it involves assumptions.

    On the background of Hamas having tortured and killed opponents before, and on the background of demonstrations having occured against them in Gaza at the end of Ramadan, as reported here

    Videos verified by The New York Times showed groups of Gazans in the half-ruined streets in the northern town of Beit Lahiya. Some carried more neutral signs that opposed the continuation of the war, while others chanted slogans calling for Hamas to get out.

    …it is not a big assumption that Hamas leaders would ask their security service to find out who organized protests against them, and to kill those persons. They are not shy. It is not news that they kill civilians. It is not a big assumption.

    However, time will clarify things. People will be asking Gaza residents if they know someone who knows someone named Oday Nasser Al Rabay, and soon enough we should have more information. If such a person isn’t found, or turns up alive, it will be news too.


  • Checking one’s sources implies that you read them, see what evidence they offer (e.g. relatives’ posts, photos or videos from burial ceremonies), cross-check if the material is new or has been placed into a different context… and decide if you trust the material. The source can be direct or another publication. A journalist is better equipped to do that, since they can ask from quite many colleagues. They have the benefit of experience.

    Material that gets re-published can usually be considered somewhat credible.

    Material that does not get re-published, typically is not.


  • Not really.

    The only veteran with weight here is Petro Poroshenko, the president who took office after Yanukovich fled, and left office after losing elections to Zelensky.

    Sadly, Poroshenko has been harassed quite considerably (charges are being considered, his properties have been sanctioned)… for things he did as a president, did openly, and at that moment, did for the benefit of Ukraine. One of those deeds was buying coal from Russian-occupied territories - until coal could be obtained from other places.

    To me, the accusations against him have seemed more than a bit unfair - a man who did what he could in 2014 has been held against today’s standards and found wanting. It is natural that Trumpists would seek out Poroshenko and try to talk him over to their side. Him being pissed off, he might not reject their advances.

    Former President Petro Poroshenko, the de facto leader of Ukraine’s opposition, said following the scuffle that he wouldn’t criticize Zelensky “because this is not what the country needs now.”

    Following his team’s reported meetings with members of the Trump administration, the former president changed his tune and lashed out at his successor.

    He criticized Zelensky for the sanctions imposed on him and said that Zelensky is the “unfortunate leader of the team who moves the nation to dictatorship.”

    However, on the background of today’s Ukraine, the person with the biggest amount of support - ex-commander of the armed forces Zaluzhny - has probably not been approached, or has rejected them.














  • I’m not from the US, but I straight out recommend quickly educating oneself about military stuff at this point - about fiber guided drones (here in Eastern Europe we like them) and remote weapons stations (we like those too). Because the US is heading somewhere at a rapid pace. Let’s hope it won’t get there (the simplest and most civil obstacle would be lots of court cases and Trumpists losing midterm elections), but if it does, then strongly worded letters will not suffice.

    Trump’s administration:

    “Agency,” unless otherwise indicated, means any authority of the United States that is an “agency” under 44 U.S.C. 3502(1), and shall also include the Federal Election Commission.

    Vance, in his old interviews:

    “I think that what Trump should do, if I was giving him one piece of advice: Fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people.”

    Also Vance:

    “We are in a late republican period,” Vance said later, evoking the common New Right view of America as Rome awaiting its Caesar. “If we’re going to push back against it, we’re going to have to get pretty wild, and pretty far out there, and go in directions that a lot of conservatives right now are uncomfortable with.”

    Googling “how to remove a dictator?” when you already have one is doing it too late. On the day the self-admitted wannabe Caesar crosses his Rubicon, it better be so that some people already know what to aim at him.

    Tesla dealerships… nah. I would not advise spending energy on them. But people, being only people, get emotional and do that kind of things.


  • Travel advise: prepare for a trip to the US like you’d prepare for a trip to Russia or China. (Note: being an anarchist who thinks Putin, Xi and Trump don’t deserve a separate rope for each, I wouldn’t consider a visit.)

    Don’t bring your real computing device. Bring an empty device from which you can VPN to a system that actually has your data.

    If you need to bring an encrypted device, consider the possibility that authorities will attempt to coerce you into unlocking it (and will cause you great disruption and indignity if you won’t). You might be safer bringing a concealed + encrypted microSD card and a device loaded with an OS intended to be searched. If the data matters, make sure you cannot unlock your device under coercion.

    (Trivial method: send your friend in the US a snailmail letter. Ask them to keep the letter until your arrival. Into the letter, steganographically embed the OTP key material to obtain the passphrase to decrypt your device. Now to decrypt the device, three things will be needed: your cooperation and knowledge, the device, and the letter. And you can deny that the letter contains anything.)

    Edit: upgraded advise - mail your local contact an encrypted MicroSD card. Cross the border with a Raspberry Pi in factory packaging, or buy it locally (they’re still permitted, despite their widespread use by anarchists).