Image is from this Bloomberg article, depicting world oil inventories plunging towards the operational floor at which pipelines and refineries cease operating, which is expected to occur in September at current rates.
A pretty short preamble below, in spoiler tags.
summary
The conflict continues to be kept at a relatively low level despite Iran’s fiery encounters with US destroyers. I think it’s only becoming increasingly obvious that the US is trying to cobble together some major clandestine operation mixing special forces, the air force, and naval destroyers to either seize Iranian uranium, take control of Iranian seaports, or both. Given a) how the Istafan op went, b) further Iranian preparations around sensitive sites, and c) a seeming strengthening of Iranian air defense around the Persian Gulf (multiple drones and manned aircraft have squawked emergency codes and potentially been shot down over the last few weeks), I find it difficult to imagine this operation fulfilling its objective, and even if did somehow work, why the removal of uranium would necessitate Iran ending the blockade and the war. On that note, I’ve seen reports that Iran is saying that if the US attacks their oil tankers again, they will resume firing on US military bases.
Additionally, Aragchi has stated that not only has Iran’s missile/launcher stockpiles not gone down from pre-conflict, it has actually increased by 20%. This is unsurprising given the total war that Iran is now in; all resources within reason must now be funnelling towards drone and missile production.
Atrocities in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon are continuing. The toll that FPV drones are taking on the common Zionist soldiery are quickly becoming apparent, as we are receiving ever-increasing amounts of footage of vehicles and gatherings of soldiers being struck by Hezbollah’s drones. The casualty situation is, as expected, being hidden, but any kind of serious occupation of even the border villages of southern Lebanon (let alone up to the Litani) seems unsustainable.
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The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on the Zionists’ destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
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.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
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.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
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/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
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/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
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.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
A quick caveat. Not all Norse Pagans are Nazis. Nazis have appropriated alot of Norse Pagan Iconography, particularly runic script, but there is a substantial community of Norse Pagans (particularly in the Minnesota and Wisconsin area) who are Norse Pagans because it is a large part of their Norwegian and Swedish tradition, though in the past there was a veneer of Christianity that has been shorn with modernity. These people have traditional Norse beliefs in gender and sexuality, which is that gender and sexuality are independent choices by people, fluid throughout their lives, and even potentially situationally. They are generally not nationalists, but they are typically some form of incoherent libertarianism.
The large problem within these communities is that they have a serious Nazi bar problem, especially at their festivals, as, being libertarians, they are of the opinion that their money spends the same as everyone else’s, and as long as they aren’t actively causing issues or have open swastika tattoos, they shouldn’t be ostracized.
That said, the white supremacists are constantly ridiculed for their lack of actual historical knowledge on the subject, especially in their use of Runes, which they treat as a grab-bag, when there are two distinct sets.
Yeah, that makes sense. I even told her when I got into it that I don’t know much about Norse Paganism and was more just reflecting a mirror back into what she was saying. Due to the fact that she doesn’t have community in Norse Pagans that aren’t Nazis, I think it leads to her buying into a lot of Nazi stuff from them without knowing she’s buying into Nazi stuff. One of the reactionary things she was saying that she related directly back to Norse Paganism was her feeling worthless as a disabled person.
She has such broad theologic knowledge that I think it would benefit her to start looking into making her own belief structure. But then again, I think one of her major character flaws is needing to told by someone else what to believe/do, so I’m not sure it’d benefit her as much as a think it would. Idk, I hadn’t slept for 2-3 days when her and I had the conversation that made her realize all this stuff, I’m sure I could have handled it better.
Idk, the thinking of anyone who is getting into a religion that isn’t directly related to their parent’s cultural heritage is usually fairly suspect to me, as they have tendency (especially if they are autistic) to take the tenets of the religion far more seriously than someone who was born and raised in the religion, not understanding the developed unsaid cultural norms, or thinking of those developments as perversions. And this is especially true for people getting into more recently developed religions, such as Norse Neo-Paganism.
People like that are, in my experience, almost impossible to talk to, regardless of their mental state, because their natural tendency is to live entirely within the ideology they have constructed for themselves in their head. They simply do not have a similar mechanism of cause and effect, which means that it is extremely difficult to have a reasonable conversation.
I am happy that you were able to bring them down from the ledge, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they get back up there with either something different or the exact same thing. As my anthropology professor used to say, “An idea shared by many is the basis of a culture, an idea held by one is the basis of a psychosis.”
Best of luck seriously, I have done the same for my own friends suffering in similar ways (literally talking a guy out of going to Ukraine).