junebug2

countries on the persian gulf exported around 18 million barrels of oil per day in 2022 (according to wikipedia). now, ~1.8 million of those were from Oman, who’s kinda on the outside, and Iran themselves. i think there’s an argument for this collapsing the global economy specially because of knock-on effects with China’s oil imports almost entirely coming through the Gulf, but i think there’s an earlier problem.

crude oil has ‘flavors’, namely light or heavy (referring to the length of hydrocarbon chains) and sour or sweet (referring to the relative amount of sulfur). the upshot of that is that oil refineries are built to take in specific flavors of oil. part of the reason Chevron is so mad about Venezuela is that, for fairly obvious geographical reasons, Venezuelan oil fits the refineries for the USA pretty well. shorter carbon chains have higher boiling points (more butane and less boat oil) and sweet oil does not need to have the sulfur removed from it. for instance, Saudi Arabia’s most common crude oil export is called ‘Arab Light’, which is a medium and sour crude oil. if Iran strikes at oil rigs, refineries, and distribution centers, there is no guarantee that other, unaffected infrastructure can actually do the same job. refineries built for sweet crude can not refine Arab Light. there could be barrels and barrels of oil sitting on boats and in pipelines, unable to be refined.

all of that is to say, depending on how and where Iran strikes oil infrastructure, the issue could very quickly become whether or not certain petroleum products are available at all, not just if the price is spiking. the price would also spike. there would be rationing and restrictions on international trade, most likely. in the areas most affected (hard to predict without knowing details), there would be pressure to declare ‘move it or lose it’ wars, with ‘it’ being all the fuel you currently have in stockpile. desperation and material interest can erase all alliances. the flip side of what could be several regional wars is that people are aware that those wars could happen. Saudi Arabia recently denounced genocide in Palestine (too little too late), and had meetings with the Iranian military. it’s certainly not a coincidence that Saudi Arabia didn’t start changing its tune until after True Promise II. Iran discussing strikes on oil infrastructure is as much a diplomatic tool as actually striking the infrastructure

they claim that the Luxemburg was an anti-militarist who wanted to achieve communism through democratic institutions. in order to ‘follow in their footsteps’, you have to complete focuses called “Civil Liberties” and “Embrace Democratic Institutions”. the shit-cherry on top is that your reward is to turn your neighbors into special puppets called “Volkskommissariats”.

now first off, Rosa Luxemburg is probably most famous for her 1899 book Reform or Revolution. she was opposed to reformism, and argued conclusively. i would not personally describe her as “embracing democratic institutions”. she is called by some a dem soc, and many argue that the lesson of the Spartacus League is that it was too much democracy, but paradox isn’t putting any nuance into this. they physically put this part of the tree right in the middle between communism and democracy. someone else could probably explain the details of her politics better.

the Volkskommissariat thing is actually the worst part. they are obvious reskins of Reichkomissariats, a game mechanic representing Nazi Germany setting up puppet regimes in occupied Europe. These were real institutions broadly responsible for managing forced labor and ethnic cleansing, but due to paradox policy against depicting war crimes, they are puppets that are easier to exploit. using the term ‘volk’ instead of people is always a weird red flag. it’s especially odd because in real life the USSR called their departments people’s commissariats (though that is not featured in the game). they somehow managed to smear Rosa as both a liberal and a fascist

they also explicitly added decisions to sell uranium to the highest bidder and focuses that sell Congolese gold and diamonds to fund Belgian reconstruction. both of these things are portrayed as buffs/ positive for the Congo. they also added the ability for Belgium to alter their colonial policy up to annexing and coring the Congo in a few months, ez pz. every single focus tree they add outside of the main area of WW2 is just creating save bloat, and of course paradox has to create racist and historically illiterate save bloat. don’t even get me started on what they did to rosa in this new dlc

i found an article mentioning thermobaric Shaheds from December 2023. The source is pretty mediocre. i also found this article from yesterday, which has some good technical information. Apparently, the factory that makes this particular warhead was hacked, so there’s a lot of information about what it can do.

In war reporting, i think thermobaric explosions or fuel-air explosions are often brought up to sound bad. It brings to mind terrorism and a cruel-seeming death. When the USA uses them though, they are precision weapons on account of the fact that a rapidly expanding explosion is more devastating to bunkers and fortifications than open air (it still obliterates things in the open air). As Russia moves through the last defensive lines from before 2022, i would expect them to use and need fewer anti-fortification strike tools.

43% of the votes have been counted. That 53% ‘no’ vote represents about 23% of the total expected votes. Broadly speaking, the first votes counted are from small and rural areas, and the last votes counted are from mail-in and urban areas. The first group tends to lean conservative, and the last tends to lean liberal or progressive or whatever. California is frequently pretty dogshit politically, but we aren’t going to know any results until like tomorrow afternoon at the earliest. People are happy to call it for Harris because it’s California, but for actually competitive issues it takes hours if not days. Something like 30% of votes were mail-in this year, and they couldn’t legally open those until the physical polls were closed.

Drop Site News also reports that the leaks show the USA acknowledges the existence of “israeli” nuclear missiles. The second image, bottom left corner, says that they think such missiles are not being considered, for whatever it’s worth

Chevron has been developing a methodology for pushing back on attempts to regulate it. In 2022, they (and Aera, another oil company) spent $8 million to defeat a county measure. Ventura County has roughly 500,000 registered voters (for roughly 850,000 residents). That is, generously assuming that all those people voted, oil companies spent $16 per voter and achieved the desired result. Compare that to the cost of having to rip out and replace on shore and off shore oil rigs in order to comply with environmental regulations.

Their main innovation in methods for dealing with voters is relentless test messaging. They did not use the mass texts and form letters ‘from’ the candidate or the party, as we see even the current presidential candidate do. Instead, they made up five characters, hypothetical locals who would have their jobs and bills impacted negatively. i think most residents ended up getting messages ‘from’ two or three of them. To someone used to political texts or following events, not much of a change. But to someone used to skimming over or ignoring a form letter that’s way too long for a text message, there was a tighter emotional core. Go marketing! They also tried a nonsense television campaign about foreign oil leading to higher electricity prices (that’s not how California makes power).

i don’t know what Chevron might do differently for influencing assembly people, but the last time they tried to influence the law they got exactly what they wanted and didn’t get punished. Probably comes down to whether Caesar Newsom wants it or not. God help us all

shoutout to the combahee river collective statement, absolutely critical text. if people like that one, i also recommend cathy cohen’s “Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens”

If you look up ‘beyul khenpajong’ on yandex or duckduckgo, you get almost exclusively articles about Chinese aggression and some tourism stuff. Most of them came out between March and August 2021, and the original source in English appears to be a Foreign Policy article from February 2021. That same article is what they are following up on, here. They also all use some variation of a phrase about the valley (which is what ‘beyul’ means) being sacred to Buddhism or important to the royal family of Bhutan. The smug phrasing about how awful and aggressive China is sets my teeth on edge.

Reading between the lines of this article, China and Bhutan have had a number of territorial disputes since the 80s, running down from the PRC liberating Tibet. In the FP article, they even quote a Tibetan exile slaver who refuses to comment on whether Tibet has a right to the lands in question even though he says China does not. The point of these articles is to create a unfalsifiable sense of truth. If there are ten articles, all saying more or less the same thing, from different sources, across months or years, then they must be on to something. It hardly matters if it’s the same three claims from the same source, repackaged over and over.

It looks like China is building up in two valleys or villages in the hopes of switching them for the ones they actually want. i do not know what areas, specifically, they want or why they want them. Taking over an important valley and giving it infrastructure improvements in hopes of a swap seems to reflect a rational negotiating strategy. Any and all mention of fortifying the border with India or provoking India is journalistic malpractice if they do not mention that this is the border where members of the Chinese and Indian army cannot have guns, and beat each other with pole arms. This region is rough terrain, to put it mildly, so there is no risk of an army from either side sneaking in via a handful of extra runways and helicopter pads. If China was actually the devil, they would take the land they wanted by force of arms or they would offer some BRI project or debt relief plan that Bhutan couldn’t refuse

i blame you, personally, for this loss. Fucking Miami sleeper agents in my news thread

Even if it turns out that Mr. Ghaani has been killed, this article is mere Western speculation. The mention of Iranian media does not erase the original source: the New York Times. Many others have posted these rules, but they bear repeating. Most especially:

Never spread the occupation’s propaganda, and do not contribute to instilling a sense of defeat

i mean no disrespect, comrade, but you can see how this could be bait to reveal information about Ghaani, right? Or bait to demoralize parts of the Resistance, or to provide cope for zionists. If the general is dead, Iran will tell us so in a matter of time. i do not personally think it is reasonable, at least outside of the PR-based warfare of the West, to provide photos of your general while they are presumably planning and coordinating in the field as Lebanon is invaded

https://www.aei.org/op-eds/the-u-s-navys-missile-production-problem-looks-dire/

An article from the ~~Burger Eagle Freedom Center~~ American Enterprise Institute from a few months ago about the Imperial Navy’s missile production. The two USA ships that attempted to intercept Iranian missiles on Monday launched 12 missiles between them. The 2025 military budget, and allocations for the next five years, will produce 12 SM-Block IIA missiles annually. While about a hundred of another missile type has been ordered, this is apparently 10% of the number ordered in 1985. This year, the White House has passed several budget cuts for USA Navy missile production. Point and laugh.

https://archive.is/cGiyS

Warning for Haaretz, but it’s the absolute other end of perspective on “20 F-35s destroyed”. And they give satellite imagery of the Nevatim base after Monday. The cope about missile interception might be entertaining for some. While the destruction of 20 F-35s is probably exaggerated, the F-35 has something like a 30% mission capability rate. So while the warning from Iran likely let them get some of their F-35s in the air, at most a third of them were actually capable of missions. Now i am not a plane person, but i believe a plane that isn’t fully mission capable can still be flight capable. So if we very generously flip that ratio and say only 30% of F-35s could not fly, there were at least 6 planes grounded when the missiles hit. The red circles in this top image are a bit strange to me, because the entire top row of cubbies (?) is covered in what look like blast marks to me. It’s possible only one plane has been destroyed, but individual F-35s fail all the time. Maybe “israel” has too much invested in its reputation to come up with a training accident story, but it seems likely several were damaged if not destroyed.