the experiences around Helene and Milton are just an extreme continuation of a trend where the public is increasingly getting its information from extremist figures online rather than experts
Sadly, all true.
I’ve had to remind people several times that “if you go reading Twitter, please put on your intelligence analyst glasses”. To find a grain of truth in that truckload of dust.
Speculation has it that either “Palyantsia” (small turbojet drone) or “Neptun” (sizable cruise missile, antiship with ground strike capability) were used. Since part of the Russian facility was hardened and underground, I would ordinarily favour the hypothesis of “Neptun”, but it’s supposed to be out of their range and the videos recorded over Russia featured a turbojet sound and the video you linked has a small explosion (this would fit “Palyantsia”, since it’s small).
As a happy user of Signal (no bugs or incidents from my viewpoint), I regardless chime in to say a word for decentralization. :)
Signal is centralized:
There exist protocols like Tox which go a step beyond Signal and offer more freedom -> have multiple clients from diverse makers (some of them unstable), don’t have centralized registration, and don’t rely on servers to distribute messages - only to distribute contact information.
In the grand comparison table of protocols (not clients), Tox is among the few lines that’s all green (Signal has one red square).
Sadly, until the IDF starts investigating and prosecuting their members for war crimes (and stops assigning people without the required education, skills and psychological traits to essentially do police duties) - some parts of the IDF will continue to perform the role of recruiting Palestinians into extremist and militant organizations. :(
I would not be surprised if one of the dead man’s relatives decides at some point to take up weapons.
If they overcome / disable ad blocking, they will lose browser market share - and people don’t design websites for marginal browsers with exotic features.
None of these countries would permit an abortion at 28 weeks, let alone let her keep the babies remains.
The article sheds no light on why she needed a late-term abortion. If something is permissible and publicly funded, chances are a person gets it done early, in a clinic, without hesitation. In case of wanting an abortion, delay is harmful, having to travel, smuggle something or fear something (or gather money) is harmful. Also note: those countries have a separate schedule for normal and exceptional conditions. Which is generally not possible in a political environment that has banned abortion (some cities in Nebraska - yes, in the US, cities can regulate abortion, very strange for me). Some examples that I know of:
Estonia:
Finland:
Latvia:
Ideally, people should try to get them Jas-39 Gripen with MBDA Meteor missiles to back up the F-16 fleet.
Currently, the situation seems to be: F-16 pilots are still inexperienced and their missiles are outranged by some missiles that a Su-35 could be carrying (e.g. R-77M with 190 km range). When a Su-34 (fighter-bomber) conducts glide bombing runs from a distance of 40 km, a Su-35 (air superiority fighter) typically provides it air cover. Under such conditions, it’s a difficult task for an F-16 pilot to fire an AMRAAM at the bomber (at best 180 km range) and evade counter-fire from the fighter. Fortunately they’ve got shiny new ECM pods and hopefully Russian planes haven’t got decent radars.
However, a plane with longer range weapons (Meteor can fly for 200 km) would deter even a fighter escort of the Su-34, and likely end glide bombing as a tactic.
Alternatively, one can hope that the actual range of AMRAAM exceeds the advertised range or the actual range of R-77M falls short of advertised range - or that they have better radars, or can somehow backport Meteor to F-16, or that their ECM can beat the electronics of R-77. However, as far as I’m aware, firing an AMRAAM from maximum range needs a really big target (actual bomber, not a fighter-bomber).
Either way, good to hear it happened. :) If it happens more, it might finally deter glide bombing. So far, air defense ambushes have also temporarily deterred it and drones have struck airfields where the Su-34 planes get equipped, but nothing has stopped it for long.