BMEWS
 
Sarah Palin's enemies are automatically added to the Endangered Species List.

calendar   Tuesday - July 28, 2020

three cheers for global warming

Northwest Passage Open From Greenland East To Central Canada

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Russian LNG Tankers Take The Short Route

The spike in shipping along the remote Russian Arctic shipping route comes as sea ice melting over the last weeks has reached unprecedented levels.

According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, ice levels on the 15th of July stood at 7.51 million square kilometers, which is 330,000 square kilometers below the record for the time of year set in 2011.

A key reason for the major sea ice melting is the heat wave that in May and June moved across the Russian Arctic coast, leading to very low sea ice extent in the Laptev and Barents Seas, the researchers say.

Already in mid-July, the Northern Sea Route (NSR) was almost ice-free and by 20th July there was completely open waters across the vast seaway.

Ice maps from the Russian Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute show that also the Vilkitsky Strait and the East Siberian Sea, the most icy and difficult parts of the sea route, has easy passage for ships.
Many ships

More than 50 vessels are currently sailing on the route, figures from the Northern Sea Route Administration show. Several of them are tankers bringing petroleum products from Arctic fields to Asian markets.

The first LNG carriers made it across the route already in late May, the earliest voyages on the route ever.

Ships from Asia are going the other way too, up north past Japan, around Kamchatka, and then west across the Arctic Ocean to Irkutsk.

The Northwest Passage is fully open from southern Greenland, east to north of Iceland, east to well north of Norway and Finland, east across the Barents Sea north past the island of Novay Zemlya into the Kara Sea. A slight choke point of ice just west of Bolshevik Island slows things down, but the passage is not iced over there. Once into the Laptev Sea, it looks like clear sailing if ships keep close to the Siberian coast into the Chukchi Sea and then south past Alaska and into the Pacific. Or the more daring could brave the narrow but open corridor across the Northwest Territory of Canada about as far as the Amundsen Gulf. After that the ice takes over, east through the small islands up there way north of Hudson Bay to the west side of Greenland.

Sail quickly comrades; this won’t last.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 07/28/2020 at 08:20 AM   
Filed Under: • EconomicsInternationalRussia •  
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calendar   Friday - July 10, 2020

Karens Down Under

Major lockdown still in place in Australia. Karens hard at work ensuring adherence.

An all-night KFC gets an order for a lot of chicken at 1:30 in the morning. They rang it up on a credit card, cooked up the food, and tipped off the cops, who followed the delivery guy and then busted everybody at the destination where an illegal gathering of less than two dozen people was taking place. Fined them $18,000. No word on whether they got to enjoy the chicken.

A group celebrating a birthday party in Melbourne, Australia, was slapped with a $18,050 fine for violating coronavirus lockdown rules after police followed a KFC delivery order to its destination.

The partygoers had apparently ordered 20 meals at a KFC in the Melbourne suburb, Dandenong, at around 1:30 a.m. Friday, The Guardian reported.

The group was issued 16 fines for breaking lockdown orders.

Police were reportedly tipped off about the large order. The officials then followed the delivery car to the townhouse that had placed the order and discovered the gathering – despite guests attempting to hide in the backyard and under beds, the outlet shared.

The group was issued 16 fines for breaking lockdown orders.

The Victorian police commissioner, Shane Patton, called the behavior “absolutely ridiculous” in a statement to The Guardian.

The police commissioner did not call the citing of the fine ridiculous, he was referring to a small group of people having the temerity to actually have a party in somebody’s home. HOW DARE THEY.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 07/10/2020 at 03:32 PM   
Filed Under: • CrimeInternationalPandemic Pandemonium •  
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calendar   Wednesday - July 01, 2020

Jihadi Drug Lords

Hey remember when they all laughed at President Bush when he said the terrorists and the drug cartels were working together? What if the terrorists were the drug cartels??

Italy Seizes $1B Of Amphetamines Made By ISIS

Italian police said Wednesday that they had seized a world record 15-ton haul of amphetamines made by ISIS in Syria. The drug, in the form of 84 million Captagon tablets, was worth about one billion euros ($1.1 billion), police said in a statement, describing the operation as “the biggest seizure of amphetamines in the world.”

“We know that the Islamic State finances its terrorist activities mainly by trafficking drugs made in Syria, which in the past few years has become the world’s largest producer of amphetamines,” the statement added.

The shipment was hidden in three containers found in the port of Salerno, just south of Naples.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 07/01/2020 at 12:29 PM   
Filed Under: • CrimeInternational •  
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calendar   Saturday - May 23, 2020

Ingenious But Morbid

“Pandemically Perfect”

Cardboard Box Company In Columbia Designs Fold Out Instant Hospital Bed

Fold It The Other Way And It Becomes A Coffin

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Worried his country’s health system might at some point be over-taxed, Rodolfo Gomez, whose company ABC Displays usually produces marketing material, designed the cardboard bed-coffins.

“We saw what was happening in Ecuador, that people were taking dead family members out onto the streets...what’s happening also is that funeral services are collapsing with the pandemic,” said Gomez, 44. “So we started to develop a bed that could be converted into a coffin.”

The beds have metal railings, wheels with brakes and can be inclined up and down. They can support up to 150 kg. (330 lbs.). He said the biodegradable bed-coffins cost between $92 and $132.

Gomez hopes their low cost will mean local and provincial governments can outfit rural or under-funded hospitals cheaply. Converting them to coffins if a patient dies will also reduce possible contamination, he said.


Company manager Rodolfo Gómez said he was inspired to find a way to help after watching events unfold recently in nearby Ecuador.

Families in the coastal city of Guayaquil waited with dead loved ones in their homes for days last month as COVID-19 cases surged. Many could not find or were unable to afford a wood coffin, using donated cardboard ones instead.

“Poor families don’t have a way of paying for a coffin,” Gómez said.
...
At least one doctor was skeptical of how sturdy a cardboard bed might be. He also warned that any corpses should first be placed in a sealed bag before being put in a cardboard coffin to avoid potentially spreading the disease.

The plastic bag might be Ok for a funeral viewing, but after that ... cardboard burns quite well. Cremation is probably the best solution here.

The metal handles are probably the most expensive part of this creation. They work as bed rails, and also as coffin handles. Taking a really harsh and low-cost view, they could probably be cleaned and reused on the next bed-box.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 05/23/2020 at 08:56 AM   
Filed Under: • InternationalMedicalNeat Inventionspandemic and epidemic diseases •  
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calendar   Saturday - February 22, 2020

Stockholm Syndrome In Stockholm

Nobody says the “J word”. Or even the “M word”

Violent Swedish Gangs Are All Lead By Immigrant Muslim Jihadis

A Swedish news outlet has revealed that 17 of 32 gang leaders committing violence in Stockholm were born overseas, with the other 15 born in Sweden but from migration backgrounds.

The 32 men are believed to be leaders of various criminal gangs in the Swedish capital and have been the focus of Stockholm police as part of Operation Rimfrost, a nationwide police operation to tackle the growing violence among gangs in Sweden, according to an Expressen analysis quoted in a Nyheter Idag report.

Of the 15 gang members who were born in Sweden, just one is said to have a Swedish-born parent, while the rest reportedly have parents who migrated to Sweden.

“I’m not naive. There are other crimes where the deportation and migration issues are more relevant, but when it comes to the leadership layers of the worst criminal gangs in Stockholm, it is obviously a failed integration,” Expressen journalist Fredrik Sjöshult wrote.

The report echoes a prior report in the city of Malmo in September of last year that revealed the majority of the shooting suspects in the multicultural southern Swedish city were also from migration backgrounds.

A total of 20 cases were reviewed by Swedish newspaper Sydsvenskan, which found that 14 of the 20 individuals were born to parents who had migrated to Sweden from Africa, the Middle East, or elsewhere.

And then PC and Stockholm Syndrome get in the way of things ...

While some have pointed to a lack of integration, ghettoisation of no-go suburbs, and other immigration factors to explain the rise in gang violence, Prime Minister Stefan Löfven has rejected such claims.

In November, the Swedish leader stated: “The segregation is because there is too low employment and too high unemployment in these areas. But that would have been the same regardless of who had lived there. If you put people born in Sweden under the same conditions, you get the same result.

Right. Because in 3000 years there have never been poor people in Sweden, or unemployed people in Sweden, or even unpopular people in Sweden, who haven’t turned en masse to violent crime. Riiiight.

And there is no mention that the other people in these gangs are also nearly exclusively of the same background. Oh heck no. Everybody knows that all the grenade tossers, rapists, arsonist, muggers, killers, drug pushers, and thieves are blonde, blue eyed Swedish milk maids. They just happen to be lead, accidentally I’m sure, by despotic psychotic jihadi types who are as naturally Swedish as last week’s sashimi.

Riight.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 02/22/2020 at 12:10 PM   
Filed Under: • CrimeInternationalPolitically Correct B.S.Stoopid-PeopleTerrorists •  
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calendar   Monday - February 17, 2020

Somewhat Lost In Translation

India Impounds Chinese Ship Carrying Missile Tech Bound For Pakistan

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yeah, that’s what I call impounded. Like, forever.

Rather confusing news articles say the bad stuff aboard was for launching missiles, but it turns out to be a 58 foot long industrial autoclave, which can be used to bake the liners for solid fuel rockets.

Indian customs officials have detained a ship bound for Karachi’s Port Qasim for trying to pass on an autoclave as an industrial dryer. The vessel bearing a Hong Kong flag was carrying a machine that is used to launch ballistic missiles.

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this does not look at all like an autoclave

Custom officials have intercepted a ship going to Karachi port in Gujarat. The ship carrying the flag of Hong Kong contained goods that could be used in the launching of ballistic missiles.

Actually, the ship has loaded autoclaves (containers that are used for chemical reactions or other processes at high temperatures and pressures). The crew on the ship gave it incorrect information and called it an industrial dryer.

The ship was halted at Kandla port in Gujarat on 3 February. It is currently under intense investigation. The Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) engaged in the investigation of the ship, will send another team of nuclear scientists to investigate the autoclave.

The ship sailed from the Jiangyin port on the Yangtze river in China’s Jiangsu province to Qasim port in Karachi. On the way, it was stopped at Kandla port by Indian custom department.

The ship was intercepted after receiving information from intelligence agencies and top security institutions. According to the report, the name of this ship is Da Cui Yun.

The vessel was intercepted on the basis of intelligence tip-off, and one DRDO team has already inspected the 18x4-metre autoclave on board. The autoclave – a pressure chamber to carry out various industrial and scientific processes—has been prima facie certified as a “dual-use” item, which means it can be used for civilian and military purposes.

A second high-level DRDO team of missile scientists will go to Kandla port on Monday to further examine the cargo, according to an official who asked not to be named. If this team upholds the findings of the first team, Customs will seize the cargo, and charge the vessel and its owners for violations of Special Chemicals, Organisms, Materials, Equipment and Technologies (Scomet) export regulations.

...
Indian security officials are concerned because the nuclear nexus between Pakistan and China dates back to 1989, when Islamabad signed a deal with Beijing to purchase 34 solid-fuel M-11 ballistic missiles. The M-11s, which can deliver a 500kg payload over 300km, are at the core of Pakistan’s ballistic missile capability with all its other delivery platforms a derivative of the Chinese weapon.

The single stage M-11 missile is only 7.5m long and .8m thick, including the warhead, so the engine area is much shorter. This autoclave could churn out a dozen liners at a time, easily.

OTOH, that statement about the Paki missile arsenal is misleading. They also have one called a Shaheen and another one called the Ababeel, which is a MIRV nuke platform. Both are much bigger than the Dong Feng-11 (M-11) with greater payload and range. All of them are solid fueled. While India’s liquid fueled IRBMs may be technologically more advanced, solid fuel missiles can be set up and fired off very quickly. Who cares if they don’t have precision accuracy? With horseshoes, hand grenades, and especially MIRV nukes, close enough is more than good enough.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 02/17/2020 at 05:32 PM   
Filed Under: • Internationalplanes, trains, tanks, ships, machines, automobiles •  
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calendar   Tuesday - January 21, 2020

Slow TV

And you thought there was nothing on TV. Up In Norway, Really Boring Is Really Popular.

Norway: New Hit TV Show Where One Episode Runs 9 Solid Days

Slow TV to feature Svalbard round the clock for nine days

Fascinating viewers for hours and days, the Norwegian slow TV concept takes it to the ultimate with the longest ever program starting on January 31st.

«Svalbard minute by minute» was recorded last August and can be viewed on the national broadcaster’s NRK2 channel from January 31 at 18.00 to midnight on February 9.

NRK launched the idea of slow TV on the 100th anniversary of Bergensbanen, the railway from Oslo to Bergen in 2009. With cameras in front, inside, on the sides and along the route, the entire 7 hours 16 minutes journey became a big hit with 1,2 million Norwegians tuned in to the show (Norway has a population of 5 million).

The success was followed up by the Flåmsbana (Flåm railway) minute by minute in 2010 and the big hit «Hurtigruten minute by minute» in 2011 on board a cruise vessel sailing all along the coast from Bergen to Kirkenes, a voyage and TV show lasting almost seven days.

In 2012, Nordlandbanen, the railway between Trondheim and Bodø across the Arctic Circle was recorded for 9 hours and 50 minutes and was followed by 1,2 million viewers.

So, my question is, are these shows just background noise, or is life so slow that Norwegians actually veg out and watch this stuff all day all night for days on end?

Is this some kind of escapist, alternate reality, life in the Matrix kind of thing? Or are they all so stressed out by the already slow pace of living there that they need to immerse themselves in the utterly dull and boring? Maybe they’re all stoned out of their minds most of the time.

Nearly 1 out of 4 Norwegians are huge fans of this kind of show. What does that say about them? (Yeah, it’s bloody cold, and dark, and it’s cold and dark for months and months at a go. And you can only have so much sex or football.)

Most of Svalbard is Arctic wilderness and about 65% of the land area is protected as national parks.

Project manager with NRK, Thomas Hellum, names the Svalbard slow TV as the ultimate production so far.

«We believe everyone in one or another way has a dream-relationship to Svalbard. A voyage is for many unachievable, but here everyone can join from the sofa,» Hellum says in an NRK article about the program.

Yes, a dream relationship with some empty islands way the heck up in the Arctic. A place of even more dark and cold than regular Norway. Frozen tundra, icebergs, and one filthy Russian coal mine doing it’s best to pollute the place. About the only fun thing that ever happens is when a eco-warrior ship full of greenies hell bent on exploring the ravages of global warming gets stuck in the ice pack that they don’t believe exists.

This is not the first time a ship carrying climate change activists has run into trouble in polar ice floes. In the CNN video below, a ten thousand ton Chinese icebreaker, the Snow Dragon, became trapped by antarctic ice on its way to rescue a Russian vessel, the Academic Shokalskiy. The ship was carrying a team of global warming scientists and had become stuck in the ice floes several days earlier. The team’s mission?  To gauge the effects of climate change on the region.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 01/21/2020 at 08:08 AM   
Filed Under: • International •  
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calendar   Friday - January 17, 2020

Dems In Denial, Trump In The Nile

River Wars? Khartoum II?

Team America: World Police and Mediator

Against the backdrop of continuing tension in the Middle East, the United States is playing a peacekeeping role in a dispute among Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia.

You won’t read about the Trump administration’s mediation in the mainstream press because it doesn’t fit the meme of a war-mongering president.

So here goes. The three countries agreed to meet this week in Washington to tackle problems over a dam project on the Nile River that may greatly affect water resources in Egypt and Sudan.

The differences among the three countries date back to May 2011 when Ethiopia started building a dam, which is known as the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

The $5 billion hydroelectric dam would exist on the Blue Nile near the Ethiopia-Sudan border. The reservoir would hold up to 67 billion cubic meters of water and take at least seven years to fill, which would decrease the river’s flow for at least that period by 25 percent. For Ethiopia, the dam would aid water needs and economic development, as it is set to supply the country with more than 6,000 megawatts of electricity. But it could be devastating for Egypt, which relies on the river for irrigation, fishing, and transport.

The river is so vital that Egyptian officials have made it clear that military action may occur if Ethiopia doesn’t come to an agreement.

Enter the United States as the mediator. Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia agreed to a series of four meetings in Addis Ababa, Cairo, Khartoum. This week’s meeting in Washington is the fourth in this round of negotiations.

It’s unclear whether the United States will be able to help settle this longstanding dispute. But it’s readily apparent that Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia think the Trump administration may be able to help.

How classic that Egypt wants to smite Nubia again. They’ve been doing that for 6,000 years.

Hey Ethiopia: build your damn 100 feet higher. Take the whole damn Nile. It’s your water to begin with.





The Nile flows south to north. The Nile River as you probably think of it really begins in Khartoum in Sudan, never really part of ancient Egypt. [ although the area was so heavily influenced by them that the nearby city of Meroe (aka Saba {son of Cush (Kush) in the bible} ] built their own pyramids {but in the spiky Nubian style} ]

South of Khartoum in Sudan the Nile splits into two smaller rivers, the White Nile and the Blue Nile. Further north in Sudan, downriver, the Nile gets bigger where the seasonal Atbarah River joins in, also in Sudan.  However, the Blue Nile, and the Atbarah Rivers both flow from Ethiopia, where they drain the moist highlands.

The White Nile comes up from Lake Albert and Lake Victoria way down in Kenya, but is also fed by Ethiopia’s Baro River, which flows east to west across Ethiopia and in turn is fed by the smaller Birbir and Geba Rivers, which meander all over Ethiopia. The White Nile is the source of more than half of the water in the upper Nile, whereas almost all the good fertile silt that made the Black Land of Kemet of this very Egypt comes from the Blue Nile.

So a whole lot of the water in the Nile originates in Ethiopia. Most of these rivers are damned in several places, with hydroelectric generators.

Classically, the regions along the lower Nile are defined by the cataracts there. Aswan is at the first cataract and has always been Egypt. The old kingdoms of Kush and Nubia lie along the second to fifth cataracts, which are all close together. Khartoum is well south of the sixth and final cataract at Meroe. After that it’s all Deepest Darkest Africa.

~~~~

Footnote, and some Daily Geography

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The above story would not exist if it weren’t for the Eastern African Rift, that ancient tectonic plate action that tore Africa off of Asia 25 million years ago, created the Red Sea and the Ethiopian highlands, and a bunch of volcanoes down in central East Africa.

You know how when you look at a global map and you see how eastern South America fits perfectly against western Africa? The same thing goes for that pinched bit of the Red Sea by the Straits of Hormuz. On one side you’ve got Yemen on the south end of Arabia, and on the other side you’ve got Djibouti on the coast, just northeast of Ethiopia.

That little area is known as the Afar Triangle, and it’s a scar of what happened a long long time ago. The land ripped apart sideways as well as vertically; the Afar Triangle is a depression, whereas the Sarawat Mountains on the Arabian side of the Red Sea rise up 12,000 feet. Plate tectonics, awesome stuff.

This is the part of the world where people originated. And moved the heck away as soon as they could: the west end of the Afar is bound by the appropriately named Awash River, which is flows lightly all year long except for the rainy season when it really really floods everything, then evaporates into salt pans, because the Afar area is the WORST PLACE ON EARTH, being terribly dry and unbelievably hot (120°) most of the year.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 01/17/2020 at 01:15 PM   
Filed Under: • International •  
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calendar   Wednesday - January 08, 2020

Escalations In Iran

So last night it was at least a dozen surface to surface missiles, but they didn’t hit anything. This blatant act of war follows closely on the heels of the attack on our embassy in Iraq, another blatant act of war, that was orchestrated by this Saleimeni salami guy, who we took out. And so the bloody ping pong ball goes back and forth again in this ongoing low key war.

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Hours after the missile attack: This morning a Ukrainian airliner fell from the sky and all 176 people onboard are dead. Plane took off from Tehran, climbed to 8,000 feet, and then suddenly lost all contact. Somehow the skin of the plane is all full of shrapnel holes. Bystander video shows the plane falling, burning. Nothing to see here, move along. Don’t think about how tight Russia may be with Iran and how unhappy they are with Ukraine. Don’t think about any other airliners in the past that have crashed or been shot down when tensions with Iran were high. Oh, and the Ukrainian embassy there says no terrorism, don’t worry. Ignore the news that Iran has already stated that they won’t hand over the black box when they find it.

Sure, it could be a total coincidence. And the plane was another one of those problematic Boeing 737-800s. Sure, maybe. Or maybe not.

President Trump to address the nation this morning at 11:40am. With the reassuring message that “All is well”. Uh huh.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 01/08/2020 at 10:02 AM   
Filed Under: • International •  
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calendar   Saturday - December 07, 2019

More non-news

How do you say “Nothing to see here, move along” in Urdu?

Investigators Find 629 Pakistani Christian Women Sold To China As Brides In One Year
Investigation Shut Down To Appease Chinese

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) – Page after page, the names stack up: 629 girls and women from across Pakistan who were sold as brides to Chinese men and taken to China. The list, obtained by The Associated Press, was compiled by Pakistani investigators determined to break up trafficking networks exploiting the country´s poor and vulnerable.

The list gives the most concrete figure yet for the number of women caught up in the trafficking schemes since 2018.

But since the time it was put together in June, investigators´ aggressive drive against the networks has largely ground to a halt. Officials with knowledge of the investigations say that is because of pressure from government officials fearful of hurting Pakistan´s lucrative ties to Beijing.

At the same time, the government has sought to curtail investigations, putting “immense pressure” on officials from the Federal Investigation Agency pursuing trafficking networks, said Saleem Iqbal, a Christian activist who has helped parents rescue several young girls from China and prevented others from being sent there.

“Some (FIA officials) were even transferred,” Iqbal said in an interview. “When we talk to Pakistani rulers, they dont pay any attention. ”

What the Hell, they’re only females. Worse, Christians. So who cares?


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 12/07/2019 at 04:04 PM   
Filed Under: • International •  
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calendar   Sunday - April 17, 2016

Turtler’s Game Corner: UFO Alien Invasion

After about half a month of preparing for moving, working on a few odd jobs, and getting school in order, I can finally come back and hack out a post on here. Well, thanks for holding down the fort Drew. Life has kind of been a bugger for me lately, though I should be thankful it is still better than many. Please keep your prayers and thoughts with Peiper and his wife.

I know there are dozens of things happening in the wider world for me to talk about, but right now it’s the start of a new week and I just want to catch my breath, kick back, and Relaaaax! So when I sat down I realized I wanted to make a post about something I enjoy doing in my off time, and which some of you might be able to enjoy doing as well. But which is still at least a little bit topical to the hell-in-a-handbasket way of the real world.

So without Further ado, allow me to present you with....

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EXPLOSIONS!!!!!


Ok, more specifically the explosions- and everything else- in a little thing called UFO: Alien Invasion. Some of you might have heard of it before, some of you might have played it before. But I figure that there are probably at least a few other videogamers out here who would enjoy it, and that in a time like this at least a few people who aren’t that would be able to appreciate it..

I figure the best way to introduce it would be to give a

It is the year 2084. You control a secret organisation charged with defending Earth from a brutal alien enemy. Build up your bases, prepare your team, and dive head-first into the fast and flowing turn-based combat.

UFO: Alien Invasion is a squad-based tactical strategy game in the tradition of the old X-COM PC games, but with a twist. Our game combines military realism with hard science-fiction and the weirdness of an alien invasion. The carefully constructed turn-based system gives you pin-point control of your squad while maintaining a sense of pace and danger.

Over the long term you will need to conduct research into the alien threat to figure out their mysterious goals and use their powerful weapons for your own ends. You will produce unique items and use them in combat against your enemies. If you like, you can even use them against your friends with our multiplayer functionality.

UFO: Alien Invasion. Endless hours of gameplay — absolutely free.


Yeah, you read that right… UFO: Alien Invasion is ABSOLUTELY FREE. It costs exactly NO MONIES. NADA. GOOSE EGG. You can (and I’d suggest should) download it from here: http://ufoai.org/wiki/Download

I’d probably have to rate this game as one of the real gems you can find online if you like strategy and tactics. It isn’t the newest thing in the batch and it doesn’t look like a modern Triple A title- though I do think it looks good in its’ old way, and the globe is breathtaking.

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(Yes, this is what it really looks like in gameplay.. and this still doesn’t really do it justice compared to how it Moves.).

But what really makes it sparkle is the sheer *Depth.* There is an awful lot of depth to the game, from being on the worldview map deciding where to place bases like you’re a command in chief pointing at a map, taking emails, and tracking allied and friendly aircraft. To being down on a base managing what it researches or builds, to probably the heart of the game: meeting the enemy on the ground, where your squad and theirs fights it out for the future of a world one turn at a time. All the while trying to keep your coalition above water and close the tech gap.

The storytelling is also pretty good. The backstory lore is… probably average to above average, with the world of 2083 being a rather peaceful, idyllic place where super-nations and federations live in relative peace and increasing prosperity and freedom, even for places like the Middle East. The actual backstory I’d say is hit and miss with a few liberal buzzwords thrown around but nothing that offensive (unless you figure working with the UN is offensive in and of itself.... and by the off chance you DON’T playing politics with your funding nations will swiftly change your mind). On the whole I’d probably say there are some things that come across as incredibly optimistic or off tone, but others that sound incredibly prescient (like what happened to the US because of reckless deficit spending and China’s totalitarian expansionism before it fell). But I’d probably say that it comes across mostly like they wanted to establish one big happy world to juxtapose it against the coming darkness.

But the actual story over the game is quite good and (from what I’ve been told and can figure out) relatively scientifically sound (or “hard") as far as Sci-Fi goes. Don’t expect the enemy to let you get complacent, because there will be a lot of twists and turns before the end, and it’s obviously where most of the lore attention and juicy technological red meat went into. And wisely so!

So, I’d highly suggest you give it a try, for something that *might* have you coming back a lot.

Now, I’ve tries to explain why I like this. But what makes it topical?

Well, this game- and ones like it- is probably one of the great anti-terrorist epics in recent game history.

Yeah, you heard me right. Because while the enemy are aliens and the game is set in a relatively utopian world (again, including the MENA, Africa, and Asia...), the means and messages are far more down to Earth than Angela Merkel is. You see, the enemy you face are terrorists in how they act and behave, they just happen to be aliens terrorizing the Human Race. You’re going to be facing an enemy that will spend much of its’ time dropping violent squads in cities, indiscriminately murdering whoever they can before trying to get out just as suddenly as they struck. Trying to identify and pre-empt these attacks and strike at the heart of those waging murderous war on you is the heart of the game. And it will not be an easy one, because this will be a rather long war and all the while you will have to keep a weak kneed public and their politicians from losing their cool and simply surrendering to the terror, and yourself from being wiped out by attrition against an enemy that seems to have no trouble replacing its’ cannonfodder.

Yeah, that’s not familiar at alllllll....

In a way, it’s a chance to spend some hours away in the kind of position that you might dream of. Or have nightmares of. The chance to lead a combined, international fight to understand and destroy an enemy that endangers everyone and seeks to shape the world in its’ image. To make the calls and avoid the mistakes that Merkel/Obummer/InsertNameHere has. But at the same time that means that you will have nobody to blame more for defeat than yourself.

So hope you guys enjoy. If things like this are popular enough, I might make these kinds of “Free Game Spotlights” a semi-regular feature. >/br>

I’ll probably will try and get more posts after a day or so. But until then, I’ll be killing some digital terrorists of the human and alien varieties.... 




Posted by Turtler   United States  on 04/17/2016 at 02:18 PM   
Filed Under: • Amazing Science and DiscoveriesFun-StuffInternationalMilitaryScience-TechnologySelf-DefenseTerroristsWar On TerrorWar-Stories •  
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calendar   Tuesday - March 22, 2016

BOMBING IN BRUSSELS!! Terrorists hit the Belgian Capitol!

EXPLOSIONS GUT BRUSSELS AIRPORT AND METRO


A few hours ago, near-simultaneous explosions tore through the Belgian capitol. It seems pretty clear- even with the sketchy information- that there were at last two targets. One was the Maalbeek Metro Station, and the other Brussels Airport. Initial reports indicate that we’re looking at dozens of casualties, including at least a baker’s dozen dead. I don’t think that number is going to go anywhere but up in the next hours. This map is the best one I could find on short notice showing the relative locations of the two.
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I’ll probably put more information- pictures I don’t trust putting above the fold, my two cents, and news articles- below the fold. But let’s make one thing ABSOLUTELY clear: This Had to have been a coordinated attack, and a daunting one at that. Half a dozen miles may not seem like a big distance but it can’t be easy to coordinate this kind of attack in a densely urban area like the heart of Brussels is. Which says nothing good about our security or the enemy’s capabilities.

God be with us all… I don’t pretend to know the full story behind this but I do hope that these savages get theirs.

See More Below The Fold



Posted by Turtler   United States  on 03/22/2016 at 05:30 AM   
Filed Under: • DisastersFRANCEGenocideHomeland-SecurityIllegal-Aliens and ImmigrationInsanityInternationalMilitarymuslimsNews-BriefsOutrageousplanes, trains, tanks, ships, machines, automobilesREALLY WORTHLESS and PUTRID PEOPLEScary StuffTerroristsWar On Terror •  
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calendar   Friday - January 29, 2016

invader riot at rapeugee center in sweden, and more sexual assault in the fatherland

I am reminded that Hermann Goring once remarked, “God help us if we lose this war”.
I don’t think he had this in mind, or he might have committed suicide years earlier.

What?  You expected something else?
OK ...
Later. But first, this.

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read here

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A 19-strong group of young men attacked staff at a centre for refugee children in Sweden with makeshift weapons, forcing them to barricade themselves inside a room.
The men in their care rioted at the accommodation centre in Emmaboda, south-east Sweden, on Wednesday night and staff members were only freed when police arrived.
The incident follows the stabbing of Swedish aid worker, Alexandra Mezher, 22, who died as she tried to break up a fight at a shelter for unaccompanied child refugees in the country.
‘They broke loose, and a total of 19 people banded together and did this,’ she told the newspaper, which reported that the men were carrying makeshift weapons.
The violence started after staff refused a request for a resident at the refugee centre to buy sweets, John Nilsson, from the local police force, told Barometern newspaper.
‘[They] became furious with the staff member,’ he added. ‘He collected together around 15 friends and the staff were forced to shut themselves in while they broke windows and did what they liked.’
According to RT, police arrested two of the young men. The 16-year-old suspected of starting the riot is in custody and another person has been released.
Sweden took in around 35,400 unaccompanied minors in 2015, nine times more than in 2014.
Tensions are rising in the country and on Thursday, Swedish Interior Minister Anders Ygeman said Sweden could send back 60,000-80,000 asylum seekers in the coming years. 

CONTINUED


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 01/29/2016 at 10:55 AM   
Filed Under: • CULTURE IN DECLINEDIVERSITY BSIllegal-Aliens and ImmigrationInternational •  
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calendar   Tuesday - January 26, 2016

the cancer eating its way through europe. and nobody with the nerve to wipe them off the planet

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I have nothing to say except that, these are just a handful of the headlines we see every morning. The stories can all be seen in detail at The Daily Mail.
Or for that matter, almost any Brit newspaper.

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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 01/26/2016 at 09:40 AM   
Filed Under: • Illegal-Aliens and ImmigrationInsanityInternational •  
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