Imagine a terrifying world where we are all ruled by monsters of every stripe. And not hot ones like werewolves, but instead decaying zombies and mummies who are both insensitive to, and actively benefit from the immense suffering they cause on a daily basis. The top echelon of society, filled with profit-seeking, bloodsucking vampires. And the worst of it is that they repeat on a daily basis that what they are doing is not only just, but there is no other possible way to do it.
Pretty spooky, right? What if I told you that this world... was our own?
Happy Halloween!
Friendly reminder: when commenting about a news event, especially something that just happened, please provide a source of some kind. While ideally this would be on nitter or archived, any source is preferable to none at all given.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
The Country of the Week is Lebanon! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Telegram Channels
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
Pro-Russian
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
Something going on with the Iron Dome Interceptors. Maybe it's a bad batch or maybe the system is being defeated in a new unique way but this video shows 2 interceptors launching then immediately flying straight into the ground. The second can be seen in the background.
This is correct. What has historically kept Israelis safe from Palestinian rockets has been the bunkers they all have to jump into in every building, the early warning system, and the fact that the rockets are (were?) little, unguided, homemade things packed with sugar and fertilizer. They tend to create potholes, break glass, and do minor structural damage. Hitting the ground is probably enough to prevent life-threatening injury if it's not landing right on top of you, but in any case Israelis are usually secure and comfy in their shelters by the time most of them land.
Iron Dome, as hyped as it is and as much as the Israeli and arms-manufacturer propaganda lies about it, is likely about 1-2% effective (same with other missile defense systems). In order to effectively destroy a missile in flight rather than just divert its trajectory a little and/or do cosmetic damage, it has to be positioned to approach that missile almost exactly head-on, which is very rare and basically just dumb luck.
Edit: just in case anyone doesn't know what the hell pig iron is, it's basically low purity iron that's so chocked full of carbon its brittle enough to break with your head, although you probably would do better just hitting it with a hammer or throwing it at the ground
And Lebanon's strike on the settlement all struck as well, along with a Hamas hit in Tel Aviv. If the dome is indeed falling, it opens up the possibility for Hamas to make offensive threats. This may be why they just released their first footage of their mortar corps.