news

Former Russian minster Roman Starovoyt found dead in his car. Gunshot wound just hours after sacking http://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2025/7/8/russia-probes-ex-ministers-death-after-body-found-hours-after-sacking

"Death to idf" is honestly the centrist position at this point.

https://mondoweiss.net/2025/07/poll-overwhelming-majority-of-jewish-israelis-share-genocidal-belief-there-are-no-innocent-people-in-gaza/

So, apparently during the 2024 campaign, Kamala Harris did an interview with the liberal podcast @SubwayTakes that was SO bad that they decided not to even release it because the host didn’t want to get blamed for her losing…

https://x.com/Zigmanfreud/status/1942426170823201065

Of course that Iraqi Kurdistan goes straight into civil war mode the moment I start looking for plane tickets. I'm still seething over my canceled trip to Iraq because of that fucker Netanyahu btw. In slightly related news, my son turned 1 yesterday, and he celebrated that by somehow pushing over a drawer and destroying it in the process. Fucking Mossad agent.

In other unrelated news, I should probably address the current instability in Lebanon here, as the government is openly colluding with Israel in an attempt to disarm Hezbollah. At the same time, I'm genuinely tired hexbears, the barrage of bad news just isn't stopping these days. This is probably counter-revolutionary or defeatist or whatever, but I still haven't recovered from the martyrdom of Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah. I have struggled to engage with any Hezbollah news or content in the past few months, I just can't get over that he isn't with us anymore. The death of my own grandparents didn't affect me even 10% of Nasrallah's martyrdom. I desperately want to go to Beirut soon, but it's still risky security-wise and I'm just dreading the thought of actually seeing his grave, I just can't do it.

On Russian long range air attacks on Ukraine, since another is taking place.

Russia has fully committed to Geran 2/Shahed 136 one way attack drones for the bulk of their long range strike capacity, as the optimal way to deliver the payload of a 80-100kg warhead. The jet powered Shahed 238/Geran 3 has seen limited use still, with no signs of that changing. It's not long before we start to see 500 Gerans, and 1000 one way attack (OWA) drones total (including decoys) being launched per attack. Current highest numbers are around 300 Gerans and 600 OWA platforms per attack. Even at a very optimistic 90% interception rate, 300 Gerans is 30 impacts, 500 is 50. Sure it's not a half ton warhead from a ballistic or cruise missile impacting at high speed, but dozens upon of impacts per attack is not sustainable for Ukraine.

Some of the Gerans have been upgraded with a electro optical sensor (infrared camera), an onboard Nvidia Jetson mini SoC for image and video processing, and a potential datalink capability. This should allow for Automatic Target Acquisition (ATA) and Automatic Target Recognition (ATR) at minimum, with Digital Scene Matching Area Correlator (DSMAC) navigation being possible. In short, these Gerans should be able to navigate, recognise and accquire targets independently without the use of satellite navigation (GPS/GNSS/GLONASS), like the Tomahawk Block II cruise missiles used in the Gulf war. This would make jamming efforts futile. Russia should look into putting similar systems on their glide bomb kits.

If the datalink capability works as intended and is not jammed, in flight updates to the mission and target set, the ability to hit moving targets, and human-in-the-loop guidance can also be used. Again, Russia should seriously look into putting such technology on their glide bomb kits.

There has also been a serious ramp up in the production of decoys, called Gerbera. These are made of polystyrene/styrofoam, shaped like a hybrid of the Iranian Arash 2 and Shahed 136, and often have no warhead at all. Given the above, they are very cheap and easy to make, similar to many hobbyist projects. Up to half of the OWA drones launched per attack are Gerbera, to act as decoys and overwhelm air defence systems.

With the losses incurred to the Russian strategic bomber fleet, Russia has massively increased the use of the Iskander-K system to launch cruise missiles to supplement cruise missile attacks, to make up for the less frequent and lower number of attacks by Russian strategic bombers. Iskander-K is a ground launch platform for Kalibr cruise missiles, launched from TELs similar to the Iskander-M ballistic missile TELs. While the Kalibr cruise missiles are not as advanced or stealthy as the Kh-101s launched by Russian strategic bombers, they are filling in for now.

On the ballistic front, Russia has switched from using longer range Iskander-1000 or Kn-23B ballistic missiles, back to the Kinzhal air launched ballistic missiles, for striking targets at longer ranges (greater than 500km). The Iskander-M and regular Kn-23 have still seen plenty of use.

crashed out for a bit there, what did I miss?

Pam Bondi says missing minute from Epstein security camera footage was routine procedure

From today: Eyewitness accounts at U.S.-run Gaza aid site say accusations of Hamas attacking GHF employees are fabricated

After the U.S.-run Gaza Humanitarian Foundation accused Hamas of attacking two American employees at its distribution center, eyewitnesses and local journalists say the GHF fired grenades on the crowd first before aid-seekers threw them back at them.

Further supporting the witness accounts:

Although the sites where GHF distributes aid are monitored by cameras from all angles, it did not publish any video or photo evidence to support its claim that Hamas members threw hand grenades at its staff, a local journalist told Mondoweiss. Had the story been true, the journalist said, such footage would have been widely broadcast.

Iran’s renewable revolution with solar-hydro synergy

It looks like Elon/xAI finally managed to get their "AI" Grok to not be woke, after saying that it needs to be 'retrained'. Now it is talking about 'leftist Jews' and praising Adolf Hitler (directly by name!). The funny thing is that it is also using the vocabulary of the soy right, like 'facts don't care about your feelings'.

But don't worry, this is all OK because Elon supports Israel.

[edit] From the RollingStone Magazine;

xAI has disabled Grok, deleted a slew of its antisemitic and neo-Nazi posts, posted a statement, and are evidently rolling back the prompt that made it identify as "MechaHitler," but this new low for Elon Musk's chatbot will live in internet infamy:

The billboard has been defaced

https://t.me/PalCommie/5431

Russian forces liberated the Zaporozhye oblast town of Kamenskoye today.

Some combat footage from during the town's liberation: https://s5.cdnstatic.space/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/kamenskoe.mp4?_=1

And a map: https://s5.cdnstatic.space/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/8july2025_Ukraine_Kamyanske_Pyatykhatky_map.jpg

🇮🇶⚡A short explanation of what is happening in Erbil, Iraq:

The Kurdish Peshmerga forces’ attempt to capture a leader of the Harki tribe, Khurshid Harki, has escalated into a large-scale armed conflict between the Peshmerga forces, the Harki tribe, and allied tribes, with both sides continuing to mobilize their forces in the Khabat area of ​​Erbil province in northern Iraq, where the fighting is currently concentrated.

Source: ResistanceTrench

would love to hear y'alls thoughts and any info to share

Some more commentary on the passage of the Trump BBB bill;

Mechanically what Senate Rs did was refuse to meet with the parliamentarian because they knew she’d say no. That way, when they did this anyway, they could pretend they didn’t technically ignore her advice.

So instead they had the presiding officer invent a new rule in the spot.

What’s going nuclear? That’s when you have the presiding officer follow the rules of the Senate and then have the body of the Senate vote that the rule was misapplied, thus creating a new precedent to change the rules.

What if the presiding officer chooses to ignore the rules and just assert different rules? Well, then you have to follow what they say, unless you have sufficient votes to appeal that ruling.

tldr: The presiding officer of the Senate (usually the Vice President) can just do WHATEVER, the same goes for the Senate itself, as long as they have the majority of the votes.

New tensions between Bogota and Washington over coup plot reveal

News comm post: https://hexbear.net/post/5503570