Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[THE_WIZARD_]

It won't come down to the 4-1 split in Nebraska. Dumbasses.

[Hannibal]

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[Hannibal]

I assume that if Nebraska had changed their system, Maine would just do the same thing and it would be a net zero gain.

[iam416]

Another huge loss for the Rs. Hard to see them having any meaningful power in 7 months.

[Dr. Strangelove]

MAGA efforts to change how Nebraska apportions electoral votes fail bigly.

[Mike]

You gotta be shitting me.

[crashcourse]

well at least Fort liberty didnt become fort rachel levine which I sure is coming soon enuf. it just got its 4th star

[Mike]

Go Benji, Go!

[Jeff Buchanan]

In other military related news with significant implications:

On April 1st a suspected Israeli air strike flattened a building at the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus. The blast killed seven people, among them several high-ranking Iranian officers. It was a serious escalation in the long shadow war between Israel and Iran, hitting a target that should have been off-limits under international norms. The question now is how Iran will choose to respond—and whether it does so by attacking Israel itself or its main foreign backer, America.

The strike killed General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a commander of the Quds Force, the expeditionary wing of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (irgc). He had served for years as the group’s head of operations in Syria and Lebanon; Arab and Israeli analysts say he was close to Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizbullah, the Lebanese Shia militia and political party. His deputy and five other irgc officers were also killed in the blast. The general was the highest-ranking Iranian commander to be assassinated since America killed Qassem Suleimani with a drone strike in 2020.

I don't believe this will be the match that lit the fuse that blows up the ME. All the proxy military parties on Iran's side and Iran itself are reluctant to escalate on a large scale. Iran has it's own internal problems and the Israelis have decided Iran is vulnerable and this is a good time to lay in some licks.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I've always had concerns for America's vulnerability to a cyber attack from their enemies that shuts down critical infrastructure. On March 29th, a hobbyist that was trouble shooting an issue with the internet discovered an attempt to shut down the entire system with malware. How could this possibly be done? Well, the Economist reported that it has been well known by security experts that the internet teeters on one piece of integrating software that has been maintained by hobbyists. The internet supports the operations of government and commercial parties. Aside from the potential to compromise government classified information, while that kind of compromise is significant, it does not come close to the damage a massive internet outage on commercial interests would have on the trillions of dollars transacted daily by companies and banks.

The Russian SVR, Russia’s foreign-intelligence service, which in 2019-20 also compromised SolarWinds Orion network-management software to gain extensive access to American government networks, is the prime suspect. Shocking, right? The guy that tracked this down is a Microsoft Engineer but he didn't do this on contract from the US Government or on company time. He did it on his own time. He's a hobbyist.

The Economist article laying out the story is paywalled. It's some scary shit. You may find the article has been released for publication in other news feeds.

[Mike]

Yeah, SERE is at "Ft. Bragg" which has since been changed to Fort Liberty.

[crashcourse]

These are the dudes...

https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2024/04/01/last-survivor-of-uss-arizona-dies-at-102/

That SERE program is a bitch. army version you survive with nothing getting from point a to point b over a 3 day period about a 100 mile trek--seems like it was at ft bragg NC

anyway RIP truly great american

[THE_WIZARD_]

El Bingo.

[Mike]

As they should be.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Lol. They are terrified of this issue.