A reminder that as the US continues to threaten countries around the world, fedposting is to be very much avoided (even with qualifiers like "in Minecraft") and comments containing it will be removed.

Image is of the first nuclear icebreaker ever built, the Lenin, which entered service in 1957 in the USSR and decommissioned in 1989. It is now a museum ship in Murmansk. I just think it's neat.


My weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.

preambleThe last week has had a lot of Trump admin dipshittery that isn't important enough to be worth remarking on, so I'm just going to skip right past all that. The sanctions campaign against Iran appears to have stalled before it even left the starting line, with China saying that, nope, they aren't going to cut off their ally for the sake of their enemy. From what I've gathered from Naked Capitalism's (albeit limited) reporting on the state of Iran's economy, the impression I get is that while inflation is running kinda wild, everything else, including state revenues, are doing sufficiently well that there isn't going to be an economic collapse this year nor probably next year if we assume a continued no-deal situation over Hormuz.

The underlying geopolitical situation has had some interesting little developments. Iran and Oman appears to have worked out their plan for joint control over Hormuz. Ansarallah is continuing their explosive campaign against the Saudis, who are now begging the US for help. Additionally, the ever-barking never-biting Türkiye is showing some signs that they might soon, finally, after three years of witnessing outright genocide, do 1 (one) (the first numerical digit) action that isn't to the Zionist's direct benefit, by putting up a modicum of resistance in defence of their puppet in Syria; but, quite frankly, I'm not holding my breath on anything truly substantial happening while Erdogan's in charge.

The state of oil flows in and around Hormuz are very hotly debated right now. Many of the oil flow numbers can be dismissed out of hand because they aren't reflective of the reality of Iranian control and vision of the strait. Due to the narrowness of the strait, full visual coverage of the ships travelling through the channel can be achieved with technology no more advanced than a dozen people with binoculars and a not-especially-tall mountain. However, figures that are around 3-5 million barrels per day (compared to the pre-war 20 million per day) seems plausible when including Iran allowing some allied vessels out (notably Iraqi and Chinese vessels, among others). This, plus China's rather odd actions in the oil market over the last six months, have resulted in the US's SPR now draining at "only" 4-6 million barrels per week, compared to 8-9 earlier in the war. However, the war's impact on fertilizer and diesel stockpiles and prices are now unignorable even to those with their heads in the sand, with anxiety steadily building in the mainstream media about food crises next year.

Meanwhile, Trump has decided to pick fights with Canada due to their strange unwillingness to graciously hand over their sovereignty to the US, with the two countries now in a tariff war. That being said, oil seems to be one product that neither side wants to fight over: the US needs a producer, and Canada needs a customer. The only other country in the vicinity with major oil reserves is Venezuela, who has been in the news a lot lately for precisely this reason, but they simply don't have the production to do much of anything to alleviate the US's stockpile issues and likely still won't by the time Trump has left office, and so they can be safely dismissed as a significant player in this ongoing global energy conflict.

On the subject of naval trade routes, a fascinating development is that Russia has finally unveiled the Northern Sea Route as a regular maritime passage, with a small fleet of eight Chinese vessels taking the route as a test run in mid-August. From Shanghai to Hamburg, the route is a little over 7000 nautical miles and goes through no chokepoints (though I suppose the Bering Strait could hypothetically become one), compared to the Suez route which is nearly 11,000 nautical miles and goes through three chokepoints (Malacca, Bab el-Mandab, Suez). Russia has the world's only nuclear icebreaker fleet, and the increased power from those reactors is necessary to provide the sheer force to break up the ice along the route, making them even more uniquely situated to benefit from the route. Many countries, China foremost among them, have identified the advantage of not being subject to chokepoints and hostile waters as the US navy continues its rapid transition to outright piracy, so it'll be interesting to see to what extent the route is adopted in the coming years.


Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.

Please check out the RedAtlas!

The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.

The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine

If you have evidence of Zionist crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

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:

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.


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[–] 51 points 1 day ago (3 children)

https://archive.ph/aPfXA

Toilet paper and human error led to 11-hour USS New Orleans fire, investigation finds

A U.S. Navy command investigation into a fire aboard one of its ships last year didn’t identify a root cause but said human error and poorly placed necessities exacerbated it.

more

On Aug. 20, 2025, an 11-hour blaze broke out aboard the San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock USS New Orleans off the coast of Okinawa, Japan, leading to approximately $12 million in damage. Sailors successfully extinguished the blaze, leaving two service members with minor injuries. “As of the signing of this report, the NCIS investigation is ongoing, and the precise ignition source of the fire is unknown,” the report said. “As other causes (e.g., electrical, weather) have been ruled out, NCIS’ initial findings attributed the fire to human interaction, either intentional or due to negligence.” The fire took an abnormal amount of time to suppress because 100 boxes of toilet paper blocked sprinkler heads inside a special clothing storeroom that would have otherwise helped douse the flames, the investigation found.

tito-laugh

The toilet paper acted as kindling for the fire, making it grow larger and increase in duration. Hazardous materials, such as aerosol cans, that were not supposed to be in the storeroom were also found present after the fire. The ship’s crew and investigators who responded to the fire also failed to locate the fire promptly, even though an alarm pointed them toward the special clothing storeroom, the report said. Investigators were finally able to locate the fire in the storeroom, but they were unable to break in as they didn’t have the proper forcible entry equipment. The report said that if they had these resources at their disposal, as well as proper training, there was a greater likelihood they could’ve addressed the fire at an earlier time. The investigators were also forced to flee the area outside the storeroom after a firefighting system designed to protect a flammable liquids storeroom nearby deployed too early.

fucking slapstick comedy ass navy

This, coupled with the fact that fire investigators didn’t properly set fire and smoke boundaries, made it so that smoke spread through the ship, and water flooded the forward vacuum, collecting, holding and transfer tank. Setting boundaries can mean closing openings to make sure the fire doesn’t grow. In addition, the command investigation said that leadership aboard the New Orleans didn’t understand how to properly use the ship’s firefighting system, which included sprinklers and a ventilation system. Crews should have focused their efforts on the ventilation system, but instead they used too much water when trying to suppress the fire, creating steam, reducing visibility, flooding spaces and making it harder to travel to the origin of the fire.

After the fire, the USS New Orleans returned to its homeport for planned maintenance in November 2025 and rejoined the service in January 2026. The ship went on to help enforce the U.S. Navy blockade of the Strait of Hormuz after the start of the Iran war. While the service still looks to figure out what caused the fire, it said it has learned from its mistakes. “The insights gained from this incident have been integrated into damage control training and inspection requirements across the Navy, helping ensure that Sailors and Marines throughout the force are better prepared to respond when casualties occur in the future,” a Navy spokesperson told Military Times in an emailed statement.

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  • [–] 24 points 1 day ago

    The ship’s crew and investigators who responded to the fire also failed to locate the fire promptly, even though an alarm pointed them toward the special clothing storeroom

    Ah they're like me in 3D video games: Have to have an overhead arrow or something else I get hopelessly lost.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    it said it has learned from its mistakes

    Now that is an absolute lie. They may have put it on the “Lessons Learned” slide on a PowerPoint, but I doubt they learned a damn thing. They’ll crack down on improper storage and documenting firefighting training for a couple of months at best, but they will never address root causes.

    Aerosol cans are kept in inappropriate places because leadership sets unrealistic timelines and supply can’t be assed to open the hazmat lockers. When the calculus is “spend two hours waiting to get hazmat” vs “stash hazmat and spend those two hours napping,” the nap will always win.

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  • [–] 19 points 1 day ago* (1 child)

    Investigators were finally able to locate the fire in the storeroom, but they were unable to break in as they didn’t have the proper forcible entry equipment. The report said that if they had these resources at their disposal, as well as proper training, there was a greater likelihood they could’ve addressed the fire at an earlier time.

    The report elaborated that while the likelihood was indeed greater, there was still a possibility that misuse of the proper forcible entry equipment as a result of spending that time in training whispering and passing notes could have further compounded the issues responsible for the delays.

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