Wait... wasn't the bombing of Dresden a borderline war crime because it almost exclusively targeted civilians? pic.twitter.com/bQFeCswAD3

— Reddit Lies (@reddit_lies) February 6, 2025

!Nonchuds Mask off moment

"but muh civilians" Nazis deserved all that they got just like Japs deserved to get nuked

Two genders confirmed canon in the lego universe.

balancing like 3 books right now. finished a muriel spark in the middle of the night last night while eating salami out of the fridge.

We're playing the Dawn of Civilization mod for Civilization IV that replicates world history. !g*mers

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

Part 7 Part 8 Part 9

We're getting into the Modern era endgame, which typically for Civilization is the point that you've already won and you're just mopping up dudes with longbows with tanks while you listen to John Adams. Dawn of Civilization attempts to avoid this snowball effect and is generally successful unless you've maintained a hueg empire like we have.

I've for sure hit the snowball effect here as I'm an era+ ahead of everyone with near 10x the military of the rest of the world.

We have researched Spaceflight and our vision of Romans on Mars is coming into view.

Mediolanum gets to work on putting our first satellite into space while Rome develops the internet.

Also working on the Empire State Building in Rhegium. Bros the wonder video for this is adorable. It's like 90s FMV I could probably post it here but I'm going to make you install the mod to watch it instead.

We're nearing the end of the tech tree. Now researching Globalism

It's 1838AD so we're 100+ years early.

The AI is generally at their appropriate spot in history, developing railroads and factories and shit. I would slow down research and allow the rest of the world to catch up and resume all this stuff in the 1950s, BUT I'm approaching Legendary culture in a number of cities so if I don't try to win it's possible I'd accidentally hit a Cultural victory instead of a Space victory. That would be lame.

We could pretty well win most of these original victory conditions at this point. I would just need to conquer 5% more of the world for Domination. Russia and America as my vassal provinces are likely going to accomplish a good bit of that on their own just through natural expansion. The United Nations is being built in Greece but I'm not sure about Diplomatic because a lot of the world hates me. Conquest would be tricky too but I'm sure it's doable.

Instead, I'm generously trading away techs to everyone just to make things a lil more interesting.

Some stuff to get out of the way.

Last game Sweden became Communist and we discovered a cosmetic bug where Sweden lacked an official title under communism. I requested something to rename them to.

Communist Sweden will henceforth be known as Bimothy. @BimothyX2 !friendsofbimothy

Portugal has restored itself as a Republic under Maria, top Dawn of Civ waifu next to Cleopatra.

It hurts my vassal Spain a little.

Ethiopia has collapsed, following our nuking of Aksum and conquest RIP bozo

Marrakesh has been my main naval center and since researching flight London has been my primary aviation center. Independent Scotland and Ireland have been hostile to me most of the game and the Scottish have now decided to poke some of my old musket-wielding mine-guarding military with sticks. I promote them to modern infantry and decide to deal with Scotland.

Ireland too. I'll remind you I liberated these ungrateful frickers.

Since these are independent cities I don't think I get any diplomatic penalties. Can't remember if there's something like base game's "Global Warming" effect from excessive nuking. I don't care anywhere, we're about to go to freakin Mars, frick Earth

Ireland reforms as a civilization shortly after getting nuked.

There's another missing String for the modern civilization, so instead of being the Republic of Ireland or whatever it's TXT_KEY_CIV_CELTS_REPUBLIC I'm gonna have to just let this one be.

Good luck with that land

We've hoarded enough Great People and I want to get our space projects moving so I have another Golden Age

With the Eiffel Tower we only spend 3 people max.

A Great Scientist is born during this golden age. Frick it. We'll have another one too.

20 turns of Golden Age now.

We've researched Satellites after putting our first one in space from Medioladum.

Satellites can join a city for a science, commerce, or espionage boost. Rhegium has become our new commerce city with a Central Bank and the Empire State Building while Rome has shifted to Great Person generation, so I'm starting to put satellites there.

With the research of Satellites we reach the Digital Age. Now the end of the tech tree is in sight.

Japan is working on putting our first man into space

The United Nations has been finished in Greece.

We are elected to head over Kangxi of the Great Qing. We don't even get the necessary votes but enough of the world abstained from voting, I guess because they hate both of us.

We can establish a single currency to boost trade.

Kyoto puts a man into space. The japs get to work on a Lunar Landing. Rome is developing an International Space Station.

We begin to experience the consequences of Sid Meier's 90s-early 00s "nuclear bad" environmentalist mentality.

And Global Warming starts to hit in England due to our nuking of the British Isles.

Once we research "Renewable Energy" we can build solar panels onto this Cornish desert.

Canada, the latest spawning unique civilization, appears in the 1860s

Peru enters the game too, but I believe this is just a resurrected Inca civilization. They go to war with Colombia.

Canada eventually pledges loyalty to the great Dragon along with Austria. Korea falls under the protection of Iran. My Mandebros accept fascism and become the "Military Committee of Mali". Bimothy is Bimothy.

Japan succeeds with the Lunar Landing and we're treated to another lovely FMV

It triggers ANOTHER Golden Age. Three consecutive so far! Japan is doing well enough that they can get to work on the Mars Mission as well. It will only be an issue if they suddenly declare independence.

Dorylaion in Turkey can get to work on sending the Golden Record

>Roma celebrates "We Love the Dictator Day"!!!

Once the japs make it to Mars we can start the real Space Race.

Similar to Base Game, we have to build a bunch of different components. The more we build the higher chance of success.

We're going to start building the Framing components in Australia, since it's not at risk of secession.

We're starting the Power Sources in the Italian mainland for similar reasons. Rome is working on a Lunar Colony, which will speed all of these projects up.

To quote once again:

For all of the money we are spending, NASA should NOT be talking about going to the Moon - We did that 50 years ago. They should be focused on the much bigger things we are doing, including Mars (of which the Moon is a part), Defense and Science!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 7, 2019

More Great People born in Rome. We're able to trigger another Golden Age.

Croatia and our West Iberian cities are also safe, Spain doesn't mind us having them. These cities get to work on Mars Laboratories while Rome works on the second most expensive part, the Excavator.

Actually, we're gonna pause the Excavator for a minute. One more Golden Age from the Interstellar Probe will push us through to the end.

We get an incredible late game event. Sorry lolbertarians

-25% inflation is AMAZING in a game this long.

~500 gold per turn slashed like that We can (kinda) afford to fund science 100% now

The five habitats begin construction in 'Straya

Hydroponics centers start in mainland Italy. Even our dedicated military center Padua is repurposed

We're facing aggressive espionage harassment at this point. Buildings keep blowing up. There's a Great Firewall wonder we could build but our Mars projects are the priority.

Scottish r-slurs are throwing bombs at us now.

We're just gonna have to conquer them to get them to stop annoying us.

We've completed the tech tree. Transhumanism functions the same as "Future Tech" in the base game, spreading happiness and health. We can continue researching it to further improve the empire.

In Civ5 this improves your score. Who the frick cares about score? That game sucks balls, seriously.

Roma completes the Interstellar Probe, giving a final Golden Age. The extractor is built and we get to work on the final component, the Mars Control Center.

One more Great Statesman is born in Roma. We can use Diocletianus for a final government change.

We're going back to a Bureaucracy and embracing Multilateralism to speed up construction in our capital. It has poor stability compatibility with fascism but we're about to establish a new government on Mars. Don't care.

We are however sticking to unrepentant capitalism. Despite a large Capitalism Bad penalty from corporations, we have enough happiness to offset it.

^{I think the OH YEAH! is from Transhumanism}

The production boost will allow us to complete the Control Center just as the golden age concludes.

We are ousted from our position as head of the U.N.

The rest of the world will regret this.

The golden age ends and our control center is complete.

We're going to space neighbors

13 turns left on this gay planet. The cucks stuck on Earth aren't gonna let us get away that easy. Morocco attempts to secede again. This may have been the fault of our government change dropping us from Solid stability. Luckily we didn't build any ICBMs here. ICBMs can't be moved from cities and I think they could have fallen into the hands of the secessionists

Our first real modern conflict

The Qing emperor attempts to frick us up by calling a vote to liberate Arabia

They fail.

These fools are going on a list:

Later they try to take capitalism away from us

Again, failed.

Often in base civ when you're close to victory everyone will declare war on you. They aren't doing that, maybe because I so obviously could destroy everyone, but they are annoying me with spies. Right before mission completion I complete the great firewall

Neat Would be cooler if we weren't already 2 turns to victory

I get to watch the history of my world now

Just one more turn. I have some unfinished business.

Nuking Canada

Nuking China

Nuking India

Nuking Iran

Nuking Bimothy

Nuking Brazil

Thank you all for reading!!!

Since some people seem to enjoy these I may make more condensed posts on individual games/civilizations in the future but this daily post thing will get old fast and this was more to show off this mod in honor of Civilization 4 week

Now I seriously need to touch grass

What our Modern Executive gets done

Most Based Comments

Basedness: 🔥🔥🔘🔘🔘

That's not how you do a Nazi salute, is this trolling or are you guys serious...? (-53)

Basedness: 🔥🔘🔘🔘🔘

That's a, from my Heart to yours But I could see how it could be taken out of context (-30)

Basedness: 🔥🔘🔘🔘🔘

People not realize this dude is just goofy? You guys blood pressure must be insane (0)

Angriest Comments

Angriness: 😡😡😡😡😡

[removed] (8881)

I don't know about y'all, but I sure as heck didn't come down from the goddarn Smoky Mountains, cross five thousand miles of water, fight my way through half of Sicily and jump out of a frickin' air-o-plane to teach the Nazis lessons in humanity. Nazi ain't got no humanity. They're the foot soldiers of a Jew-hatin', mass murderin' maniac and they need to be dee-stroyed. That's why any and every son of a b-word we find wearin' a Nazi uniform, they're gonna die. Now, I'm the direct descendant of the mountain man Jim Bridger. That means I got a little Injun in me. And our battle plan will be that of an Apache resistance. We will be cruel to the Nazis, and through our cruelty they will know who we are. And they will find the evidence of our cruelty in the disemboweled, dismembered, and disfigured bodies of their brothers we leave behind us. And the Nazi won't be able to help themselves but to imagine the cruelty their brothers endured at our hands, and our boot heels, and the edge of our ... (4069)

Angriness: 😡😡😡😡😡

What the FRICK. This shit is not ok. God darn! As a military member, this makes me want to cry. Not even a century after the blood, sweat, tears, death, and tragedies of WW2 and we have this apartheid frick Seig Heiling on Americas national platform. This is bad. I fricking reject this. I'm going to say it too, I think they fricking cheated. THIS IS NOT MY AMERICA. 🇺🇸 frick you elon and frick trump. (2)

Angriness: 😡😡😡😡😡

What will be the line where they stop making the worst excuses to justify the worst things from the worst people? So far I hasn't been a felony conviction, r*pe, insurrection, lying, cheating, infidelity, libertarianism, incompetence, or treason. Murder, maybe? (1)

Biggest Lolcow: /u/Steampunky

Score: 🐮🐮🔘🔘🔘

Number of comments: 3

Average angriness: 🔘🔘🔘🔘🔘

Maximum angriness: 😡😡😡😡🔘

Minimum angriness: 🔘🔘🔘🔘🔘

NEW: Subscribe to /h/miners to see untapped drama veins, ripe for mining!

autodrama: automating away the jobs of dramneurodivergents. Ping HeyMoon if there are any problems or you have a suggestion

The rate of obesity in particular rose steeply, doubling in adults between 1990 and 2021 to more than 40 percent — and nearly tripling, to 29 percent, among girls and women aged 15 to 24.

I am so happy for our girls

"Obesity comes from genetic, physiological and environmental interactions," she said. "It's not the fault of any one individual who has the disease."

I agree father mother skinny daughter fat, genetic not her fault

Completely unsurprised. Have been watching this happen for about the last 20 years. Watching school kids get more and more overweight, compared to my high school days in the 80's, where there were only 2-3 what would be called "obese" kids in my class of 300. And they weren't even THAT big.

Go to a flea market in the U.S now on a weekend. That is a real eye-opener, to the current mass obesity phenomenon ..

We are headed for the space ships of Wall-E ...

I spend 3 years in high school with 12 foid classmates and 2 were overweight rest obese to super obese. I respected them a lot

I remember once's when they started talking about guys and what they like I was like this

Because I thought they were delusional to think they don't deserve what they want obviously, they first and all were for me genderless persons.

So they coped by calling me gay because I never hit on any of them

(link)

Astronomers have been left red-faced after announcing the discovery of a new near-Earth asteroid — only to realize that the supposed space rock was the remains of Elon Musk's cherry-red Tesla Roadster and its spacesuit-clad driver "Starman."

The misidentified object, which was launched into space on board a SpaceX rocket in 2018, highlights a growing problem in astronomy that could lead to costly errors, researchers say.

On Jan. 2, the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center (MPC) added a new object, dubbed 2018 CN41, to its list of near-Earth asteroids. The supposed space rock was identified by an unnamed amateur astronomer in Turkey using years of publicly available data, Astronomy.com reported. However, just 17 hours later, the MPC released an editorial notice retracting the discovery after the citizen scientist realized they had made a mistake.

The Tesla Roadster, which was previously used by Elon Musk, was launched into space on Feb. 6, 2018, as the test payload for the maiden launch of SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket. The publicity stunt garnered widespread attention at the time, partly due to Starman — a mannequin in the car's driving seat that was wearing a likely defective spacesuit and "listening" to David Bowie's album "Space Oddity" on loop.

The car and its driver headed toward Mars after escaping Earth's gravity and were supposed to enter a stable orbit around the Red Planet, which raised alarms at the time that it could become a potential Martian "biothreat" if it accidentally crash-landed there. However, the pair overshot their target and instead entered a stable orbit around the sun. Now, it circles the sun and occasionally zooms past Mars.

The Tesla has now completed roughly 4.5 trips around the sun, traveling at roughly 45,000 mph (72,000 km/h), according to whereisroadster.com. This means that the car has now exceeded its initial 36,000-mile warranty around 100,00 times.

However, the car is probably unrecognizable now after being exposed to years of intense radiation from the sun and bombarded by tiny fragments of space rocks, which have likely stripped the outer layers of the car and shredded Starman.

This is not the first time that human-made objects have been mistaken for near-Earth asteroids. The MPC has temporarily listed a number of spacecraft as space rocks over the last two decades — including the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft, NASA's Lucy probe, the joint European-Japanese BepiColombo mission and others — as well as rocket boosters and other debris, according to Astronomy.com.

This type of confusion will also likely increase as more human-made objects are launched into space.

These misidentifications could lead to more false alarms for near-Earth asteroids, which could in turn result in costly errors, Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard and Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told Astronomy.com. "Worst case [scenario], you spend a billion [dollars] launching a space probe to study an asteroid and only realize it's not an asteroid when you get there," he said.

While space agencies and private companies are required to accurately track their products in orbit around Earth, there is currently no legislation that forces them to do the same for spacecraft and debris that escape Earth's gravity, like the Tesla Roadster.

However, "such transparency is essential for promoting space situational awareness, reducing interference between missions, [and] avoiding interference with observations of natural objects," members of the American Astronomical Society warned in a 2024 statement.

!nonchuds

DISCLAIMER: I don't mean non-consensual or obligatory s*x at all. Men do not have a right to a woman's body just because you're in a relationship. I am a woman and I do think of myself as a feminist.

I was just wondering what people in general think about the idea of having s*x even if you don't necessarily 'feel like it' for the good of the relationship because you love your partner.

In my experience, my s*x drive isn't that high and I don't get an impulse to initiate s*x very often. It's not because im not attracted to my partner or don't enjoy s*x, I think im seriously just lazy and need to overcome that to keep my relationship strong. It's like, when I do have s*x with my partner I almost always enjoy it, the idea of it just doesn't sound good beforehand. Separately, I also notice that if my partner and I have not done it in a while, our relationship gets worse and we argue more, etc. So when I realize it's been awhile and I see an opportunity, I'll just initiate even if I don't really want to in the moment. Or if he initiates and my first instinct is no, I'll think about why im saying no before I respond. If there is a legit reason beyond me being lazy that I don't want to have s*x, I say no.

When I read dead bedrooms posts or talk to friends in bad relationships who tell me they haven't had s*x in 3 or 6 mos or whatever I've wanted to bring this up and ask if they've ever thought about it like this but I worry this is some weird internalized misogyny or patriarchy thing that im just trying to justify. What do the people of rsp think?

@treehollows this is like your question

Shot Show, a big firearm manufacturer convention, was this last week in Las Vegas. Some small manufacturing and machine shop by the name of BSD Fabrication & Works showed up promoting that they would be building copies of Russian VSS firearms, which would be a cool item to own.

Ian McCollum of Forgotten Weapons interviewed them and posted a video yesterday about his conversation with them, in which he expresses skepticism about their ability to do so (for example, Ian finds their comment about how "easy" it is to stamp metal concerning) but genuinely does hope for the best.

He also makes a comment about this in a private Facebook group, informing people that he does not recommend giving them deposits beforehand.

In any case, the owner of the shop starts sperging out on his personal Facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1BNtQxTwmp/

Most comments are from people supporting him as he continues whining as much as he can.

Although there are instances of people pointing out that these are mild concerns and criticisms.

There's about 70 comments in the facebook post.

Redditors in the /r/nfa sub (dealing with laws and regs created from the National Firearms Act) also learn about this:

https://old.reddit.com/r/NFA/comments/1iafjns/has_anybody_seen_ians_video_on_the_bsd_vss/

BSD is a clown and a C tier machinist. Charged an arm and two legs for simple machine work in the old days of the form 1 community.

For the curious about his history. This guy even used to bead blast his parts to hide chatter on threads

ETA: the HUBRIS of BSD with the stamping question. Lol. Lmao, even.

If memory serves, he got banned from /r/NFA because he was constantly hawking his services.

Link referencing his history is further down.

The guy is a meth head and an absolutely terrible machinist.

The history referenced in that first comment is this link here (bunch of pictures in this post):

https://old.reddit.com/r/NFA/comments/16j4e0b/heads_up_about_bsd_fabrication_works_llc/

Ah the first picture explains his pricing. When I heard what he was charging for those Surefire conversions, I thought he was smoking crack. Turns out it's actually meth.

Anyways yea this r-slurred meth addict reeeing about a mild critique is definitely going to re-engineer a niche firearm and sell it to the masses.

!firearms

The first time I watched this movie I gradually went from "this movie is so fricking butt" to "man this movie rocks." Bravo Frank Dux you r-slurred hack

KUMITE KUMITE KUMITE

Coming soon! pic.twitter.com/BETCBf4s3N

— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) February 5, 2025

pic.twitter.com/J8iDhSEewa

— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) February 5, 2025

The Trump Resort, Gaza in 2030 pic.twitter.com/8ERR1Nyiz5

— Shelley G (@ShelleyGldschmt) February 5, 2025

🫳🏼
🇵🇸
🗑️

— Hashem (@HashemAllMighty) February 5, 2025

Thoughts? pic.twitter.com/5zn6HMLSJd

— Jews Fight Back 🇺🇸🇮🇱 (@JewsFightBack) February 5, 2025

Think bigger pic.twitter.com/vxZJpXvxEq

— Kitty Surprise (@KittySurprise1) February 5, 2025

Confetti was needed 🎉 pic.twitter.com/H5TP1H2AIE

— Caт Вee ✡︎🪶 (@CatShoshanna) February 5, 2025

https://old.reddit.com/r/xxfitness/comments/1iciz0r/comment/m9r2mgb/?context=8

epilogue: lol a few top level comments seething that I don't even post there and am not a woman got deleted and banned and someone in the jannie response got banned too

All the karma I lost on the nms sub earlier trying to explain that Elon is a neurodivergent African American immigrant has been recouped too and I am safe from a shadowbanning

Sure, I've neglected everything else I'm supposed to be doing but look at that view count.

BREAKING: LOS ANGELES POLICE HAVE LOST CONTROL OF LARGE PARTS OF DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES pic.twitter.com/zFcSGDnk7j

— News Rated (@NewsRated) February 3, 2025

/r/The_Donald discusses sending in Marines to declare martial law

Greetings Dramatards

In 1987, the SAL (Suid-Afrikaanse Lugdiens), or the SAA (South African Airways), operated a small fleet of Boeing 747-200 Combi variants, for its international flights. Boeing was at its peak, and the 747 was one of the worlds most infamous and popular commercial aircraft ever produced.

One of these Being 747-200s was the "Helderberg", which operated often between the Johannesburg Jan Smuts airport (now modern day O. R. Tambo International Airport), and various international destinations.

On the fateful day of 28 November 1987, an uncontrollable catastrophic fire broke out in the cargo area of the 747-200 Helderberg. At some unknown point this fire caused, the breaking and snapping the airplane in half, and the airplane to drop like a stone into the Indian Ocean, a distance away from the Island off of Mauritius.

INTRO: INCONCLUSIVE INVESTIGATIONS AND CONSPIRACIES

"An extensive salvage operation was mounted to try to recover the aircraft's flight recorders, one of which was recovered from a depth of 4,900 metres (16,100 ft)." But due to the inconclusive findings on the cause of the fire, events would lead to conspiracy theories, due to the political tensions between the Apartheid-regime and the rest of the world's Western democracies, and between the 1st and 2nd world during the Cold War.

There was (among radicals the) belief that the Union of SA regime had conspired to assassinate one of the passengers for being a severe critic of the Apartheid government, although who specifically amongst the 159 dead onboard, was supposed to have been singled out for assassination, was never specified aptly or elaborated by conspiracies.

On the other hand, the Bureau of State Security (BOSS), the SA equivalent of the CIA and NSA rolled into one ominous organization, was a very powerful and secretive mechanism of the Union regime, which enacted counter-insurgencies, imprisoned high-level ANC and communist members, and was known to ACTUALLY have assassinated political dissidents during the High Apartheid era.

Additionally, the incredible blanket of secrecy and censorship against media and journ*lists at the time, constantly beget conspiracies or distrust against the Apartheid government, even and ironically ESPECIALLY, amongst the white minority it served to uphold as the dominant class, who themselves began to distrust their own government less and less. By 1987, the year in which the crash took place, the walls were also closing in for the Union regime, and there was already widespread open talk of Apartheid ending, or possible Civil War building, as sanctions had crippled the regime and brought it to its knees. Additionally, the Soviet Union was busy imploding - and with it, the arch-enemy, and external threat the regime had justified for the past 40 years, to enable it to curb the rights and freedoms, of blacks, and ironically whites of the nation state as well, as justification for the regime's existence.

Lastly, and why I go on this long tangent, to explain why this particular crash was fuel for distrust of the government, and why it played such a large role in the late 1980s zeightgheist for conspiracy (at least for the SA whites), was that just 2 years before in 1985, Angolan Communist forces had utterly humiliated the Union of South Africa by parading captured POWs in front of the international world audience!

https://rdrama.net/post/228216/marseyflagsouthafrica-1985-south-african-recces-special

I made a Longpost about it a year ago. But the context is that the public trust (of whites) in the Apartheid-regime and the Union of SA government had been permanently shattered. It was a Watershed-moment, similar in theme as the public trust of yanks being shattered in their government, when the Tet Offensive contravened the Military/Politician narrative that the US Forces were close to defeating communist forces in Vietnam. In 1985, during the long long Angolan-SA Borger Bush War (which primarily occurred on the northern border of Namibia which was part of the SA Union), young men of RECCES (the South African Special Forces; equivalent to Delta Forces), had been captured during a really stupid and unlucky moment during a highly classified covert operation, in which they were operating behind enemy lines in Angola.

The RECCE men were disgorged from a submarine under the cover of night, and made their way into enemy territory in Angola, under pitch darkness. Only to discover to their horror the next morning, that they had camped in an empty field; what they had though was a dense jungle, was in reality nothing but an island of dense plant growth within a sea of flat grass and crops. And their boot tracks upon the night dew had been discovered almost fricking immediately, leading to their capture.

After a brutal firefight, the survivors would be paraded by the Angolans on international TV, embarrassing the SA government who had denied the presence of SA forces inside Angola, to the world at the UN, and more importantly their own citizens, while also shattering the trust white Safricans had in the regime. Combined with the coming home of crippled and wounded white young men from the Angolan border all the time, where they were forbidden from even telling their families where they lost their limbs, with the government lying about the perpetual expanding of operations, there was growing discontent.

In this context, it can be more easily understood why this specific Airplane crash, in this specific unique moment in time, would cause such consternation, when compared to the rest of the world's plane crashes, where the circumstances were comparatively benign.

But the distrust towards the Apartheid regime was so extreme, that many rejected the inconclusive findings of Flight SA295's crash and/or cause of the fire in the cargo area, which led to speculation or conspiracies that the government had planted bombs or incendiary devices to scuttle the plane during its vulnerability over the Indian Ocean, as part of an elaborate assassination attempt.

And to be clear these conspiracy theories weren't just the usual UFO nutjobs and allegations were so extreme, to the extent that even the ANC TRC (Truth-and-Reconciliation-Commission), a Commission which investigated Apartheid crimes in 1994-1996 under the Nelson Mandela administration, that they reopened the crash-investigation a near decade later, because so many of the dead passengers relatives disbelieved the government investigation from back in 1987, and had petitioned for the new liberal order, to reopen the investigation!

THE EVENTS:

https://tailstrike.com/database/28-november-1987-south-african-295/

====(from tailstrike article)

Flight 295, called the Helderberg and flying in the aircraft livery and colours of South African Airways, took off from Chiang Kai Shek International Airport (now known as Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport), on a flight to Johannesburg via Mauritius. Dawie Uys served as the captain of the crashed flight.

Flight 295 had 140 passengers and six pallets of cargo on the main deck. The master waybills stated that 47,000 kilograms (100,000 lb) of baggage and cargo were loaded on the plane. A Taiwanese customs official performed a surprise inspection of some of the cargo; he did not find any cargo that could be characterized as suspicious.

At some point during the flight, a fire developed in the cargo section on the main deck. The crew's checklist advised the crew to initiate recirculation of the air in the cabin and to open the cabin doors to let toxic gases out of the aircraft. However, the checklist operated under the assumption that the fire had been extinguished.

Since the fire was probably never extinguished prior to impact, the recirculation fed smoke and toxic gases to passengers, and the opening of the door allowed in oxygen that fed the fire. A crew member went into the cargo hold to try to fight the fire, but he left behind a charged fire extinguisher either because he could not access the fire, or because it was too hot to stay in the hold. Investigators later found molten metal on the fire extinguisher.

At 23.49h the crew reported Mauritius Approach control they had a fire on board. An emergency descent to FL140 was carried out. Mauritius ATC cleared the aircraft to FL50, followed by an approach clearance. The captain's response was the last radio contact with SA295. The aircraft had somehow lost control, broke up and crashed into the Ocean.

====(end tailstrike)

After communication with Flight SA295 was lost for thirty-six minutes, after midnight, air traffic control at Plaisance Airport (Mauritius) formally declared an emergency.

The investigation by South African authorities had concluded that the fire began to destroy the aircraft's important electrical systems, resulting in loss of communication and control of the aircraft. At exactly 00:07 UTC (4:07 local time), the aircraft broke apart mid-air, the tail section breaking off first, due to the fire beginning to burn the structure of the aircraft, and crashed into the Indian Ocean, about 134 nautical miles (154 mi; 248 km) from the Plaisance airport.

Other theories given for the ultimate demise of the aircraft were that the flight crew eventually became incapacitated by the smoke and fire or extensive damage to the 747's control systems rendered the plane uncontrollable before it hit the ocean.

LONG FLIGHT:

Now one thing peeps need to know is that commercial Airplanes don't always like flying over oceans, as they tend to be actually more dangerous to land on land. Thus, many international flights prefer to hop over land stops, even on a detour for international flights. Typically an international flight would prefer to fly across Egypt, then towards South Africa, and avoid flights over large bodies of water, like the Indian Ocean.

But in 1987, South Africa was a Pariah State, and suffering Sanctions from like half of all members of the United Nations, including the majority of Western Liberal Democracies, and significantly, the majority of African states, which by this timeframe had decolonialized and obtained independence from their Eurocuck overlords, and most of whom were Subsaharan black peeps, not too pleased with the maltreatment black people received in the segregated Nation State of the Union of South Africa, and thus forbade trade, diplomacy or even the landing of aircraft in their airports, or the docking of ships at their docks.

Thus, for international long-distance flights, to far away places like Japan and East Asia, Safrican commercial airplanes, were pretty much forced to fly across the Indian Ocean

The makeup of the passengers included South Africans returning home, as well as Japanese, Taiwanese and some Australians.

https://www.key.aero/article/flying-springboks-great-detour

FLIGHT RECORD:

https://asn.flightsafety.org/asndb/326653

Now the reason why the type of airplane of SA295 or Helderberg was mentioned, namely the Boeing 747-200 Combi, was to illustrate the makeup of the plane. The Boeing 747-200 Combi consisted of a passenger area (the 1st 2/3rd of the airplane), and a cargo area (the last 1/3rd of the airplane). The fire would start at some place within the cargo area, away from human eyes, which is why it took longer than average for the crew to identify where exactly the fire was originating from, when the cockpit fire-alarm warnings began to be activated.

Picture of reconstruction of the airframe as by the Investigation Report.

In the flight recorder, it could be heard that the cockpit crew become surprised when fire-warning alarms rang out of nowhere, several hours prior to the last contact and crash of the plane. The strain in the pilot's voices could be heard as this unholy nightmare scenario was one of the worst possible things to experience, for an airplane midway over an ocean.

The pilots desperately pulled out their manual checklists to determine the origin and cause of the fire-alarm. This might seem stupid to us laypeople, but apparently locating a fire source is especially difficult, as the idea is to do so well before it can do any damage, and fires on a commercial airplane can occur in many of the nooks-and-crannies of a vast aircraft like the 747.

In these flight recordings the sound of more circuit breakers popping (I don't know what precisely that means - i presume warning circuits to show electric flow between systems have ceased), and the pilot can be heard swearing in Afrikaans & English: "Dis die feit that albei fokken afgegaan het, wat my versteur" / "It's the fact that both turned off at the same time, which disturbs me"

These circuit breakers going off one after the other indicated that electrical wires were being eaten by flames somewhere in the airplane, and the horror of this comprehension could be heard in the voices of the pilots. The alarms did indicate that the fire was occurring within the cargo area, however.

But the real gal of this event! Was that some of the very wires the fire was busy eating, was that of the flight-recorder itself, which would only exacerbate the conspiracy and mystery of the events of Flight SA295.

ZUR TAPES:

Now because of the burning of the onboard Flight-recorder, the only audio records we have of the entirety of Flight SA295 was those of the beginning of the Flight-recorder, before the electric wires got burned and the interaction of Captain Uys and the Mauritius Airport control tower recording, when Captain Uys requested a declaration of emergency, and the subsequent complete radio silence less than an hour later.

https://www.avcom.co.za/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=261611

However in South Africa, in Johannesburg, South African Airways, also operated an International Radio Station called ZUR (frustratingly I could not locate any explanation for the acronym), which kept track of all of the South African Airways planes around the planet. The reason for this?

Remember when we talked about how South Africa was a Pariah State? And how they basically had to skirt the airspace of most of Africa, and many Western Democracies? Well ZUR allowed SAA to keep track of its fleet of aircraft, and direct them if problems or emergencies arose. It was only one of 2 Nation States on earth which provided such a service - the other being Bongland's British Airways.

WELL GUESS WHAT

The ZUR tape-recorders were missing. These ZUR tape-recordings are supposed to run all day 24/7, as the fleet of South African Airways' Springboks commercial airliners travel across various timezones, well outside the waking hours of Safrica, and the communication between the ZUR Johannesburg base and international flights preserved.

The tapes for the ZUR base communications for the night of 27 November 1987 was available. The tape for 29 November 1987 was there. But NOT the fricking tape for 28 Nov 1987

As you guys can only imagine, it was this discrepancy in the aftermath crash investigation which exacerbated conspiracies, even during the era of extreme censorship, as word-of-mouth discontent and suspicion broiled. The missing ZUR tapes are apparently legendary for Safrican airplane neurodivergents, though that is beyond my own capacity to verify.

Thus, the missing ZUR tapes indicated a sinister cause of the fire.

https://www.avcom.co.za/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=261611

Some forum posts by aviation neurodivergents regarding "Two-Fire" theory regarding Flight 295 about 12 years ago.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/helderberg295/posts/10161117563728150/

There's even a Facebook page about SA295

CONSPIRACY:

So what exactly is the conspiracy theories exactly about, according to South Africans? Why was there a cover up by those disbelieving the official government crash investigation reports. There are 2 schools of thought.

Assassination:

It's believed that one or some of the passengers aboard the Helderberg were liberals or anit-Apartheid advocates with influence coming to South Africa to stir dissension and groomercord, amongst both black and white South Africans, or were reporters coming to expose more crimes-against-humanity of the Union regime or whatever. This would not even be an unprecedented action by organs of the state like BOSS (Bureau for State Security), which in fact DID assassinate ANC and other communist leaders, often outside of South African borders, because the Apartheid authorities liked to remove dangerous agitators away from SA shores, because they desired the veneer of authenticity.

Using a bomb, or an incendiary device to disguise the assassination device, to destroy the airplane over the Indian Ocean, away from prying eyes, and outside SA borders, would have been the type of methods employed by powerful entities like BOSS.

This conspiracy theory holds less weight amongst other conspiracy believers, because the idea of the SA Government sacrificing about 100 South Africans, and one of its commercial airliners just to kill one undesirable target holds little water, and would even be unprecedented for Apartheid authorities. The reason being is that the white government was neurotic about valuing white lives.

Whist it didn't value black lives at all, the incredible small white population of South Africa, meant that white populations were precious to the government, even the dissidents, and the government Police or even Military police seldom at any point from 1940-1993 ever killed whites, even white anti-Apartheid advocates like Breyten Bretenbach, whom they just jailed or exiled from the country.

https://af.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breyten_Breytenbach

So to wholesale murder 100 whites to silence even an influential detractor (the specific passenger whom isn't even decided) would be outside of the MO of historic regime behaviour.

Gun-Smuggling

During 1987, due to being sanctioned by basically everyone which mattered, the Union regime was on its knees in terms of the ability to self-sustainably construct domestic products, much of which they could not craft locally, like weaponry.

While South Africa could and DID in fact craft much of their own warplanes, tanks, armoured vehicles and small-arms, they could not do so for everything, and their industries were becomnning increasingly shackled. Thus, according to this school of conspiracy thought, the regime authorities endeavored to smuggle arms even via their commercial airliners from places like East-Asia which were mostly neutral with regards to Human Rights slapfights in the UN and more willing to trade on the black market with pariah states.

The military operations in Angola was bottomless in its thirst and requirements for equiment and ammunition. According to this theory, high ranking government officials, army leaders and South African Airways officials were all in on the conspiracy, and were the ones to immediately destroy the ZUR tapes pertaining to the Helderberg SA295, even under the fear that some of the weapons, bombs missile fuel chemicals, or God alone knows, they suspected were the cause of the fires upon the Helderberg, because the transport of military hardware had to be done under supreme secrecy and censorship.

Additionally, South African Airways would be breeching International Law, as the use of civilian commercial aircraft to smuggle weapons is forbidden. SA was already enough of a Pariah state, and the discovery, or at least proof of such cargo could lead to the banning of the SAA in many countries, or at least it is theorized such would be feared.

THE IMMEDIATE AFTERMATH:

Now it's important to understand that immediately after the Helderberg SA295's crash became news to South Africa, the 1st theories for its crash had been terrorism, as in ANC or other communist factions had planted a bomb to destroy the aircraft, in a similar way in which the ANC was bombing schools, police stations and courts within South Africa, to pressure the White government to end segregation and begin democratization. It was initially believed that somebody sympathetic to ANC communists, like chinese spies had smuggled an incendiary bomblet into the cargo of the Helderberg.

It was only after the ZUR tapes absence was noted, that the conspiracy theories and public turned hostile towards the South African government itself.

"Rennie Van Zyl, South Africa's head crash investigator, examined three wristwatches from baggage recovered from the surface; two of the watches were still running according to Taiwan time. Van Zyl deduced the approximate time of impact at 00:07:00, around three minutes after the last communication with air traffic control"

"Immediately after the crash, the press and public opinion suspected that terrorism brought down Flight 295. South Africa, then under the control of the apartheid government, was the target of terrorism both domestically and internationally, and offices for SAA, the country's flag carrier, had previously been attacked. Experts searched for indicators of an explosion on the initial pieces of wreckage discovered, such as surface pitting, impact cavities and spatter cavities caused by white-hot fragments from explosive devices that strike and melt metal alloys found in aircraft structures. Experts found none of this evidence. The investigators drew blood samples from two of the recovered bodies and found that the bodies had soot in their tracheae, indicating that at least two had died from smoke inhalation before the aircraft had crashed, and concluded that some of the passengers would have already lost their lives even if the pilots had successfully reached the airport.

https://www.politicsweb.co.za/news-and-analysis/the-helderberg-disaster-was-this-the-cause-of-the-

"Van Zyl took the voice recorder to the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in Washington, DC, both to show his goodwill and to ensure neutral observers. Van Zyl believes that if he had kept the CVR in South Africa he could have been accused of covering up the truth."

https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/32753-south-african-airlines-crash-combi-fire-mystery

Additionally the cargo manifest created at Taiwan could not be trusted by the investigators

DEEDSEA SEARCH:

Finding the black box and voice-recorder was a monumental undertaking. And the lead investigator Rennie Van Zyl, was incredibly disappointed when they found the recorder basically contained nothing of the flight log, as it was cut off by the fire basically just when the important action started. And you'll understand his frustration once you realize the magnitude of effort the SA government made to find it.

https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/fall-of-the-helderberg-the-crash-of-south-african-airways-flight-295-ef6261a01b46

"The search area is described as being comparable in size to that of the wreck of the Titanic, with the water at 5,000 metres (16,000 ft) being considerably deeper than any previously successful salvage operation. South Africa mounted an underwater search, named 'Operation Resolve', to try to locate the wreckage. The underwater locator beacons (ULBs) attached to the flight recorders were not designed for deep ocean use; nevertheless, a two-month-long sonar search for them was carried out before the effort was abandoned on 8 January 1988 when the ULBs were known to have stopped transmitting (at the time a ULB had to generate sonic pulses for thirty days)"

"Steadfast Oceaneering, a specialist deep-ocean recovery company in the US, was contracted at great expense to find the site and recover the flight recorders. On 6 January 1989, the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) was salvaged successfully from a record depth of 4,900 metres (16,100 ft) by the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Gemini, but the flight data recorder was never found."

TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION COMISSION:

Now again to put into perspective just how widespread distrust there was within South African society about the Investigation Crash report of Flight SA295, and how foul play was suspected by both black and white safricans, the conspiracy movement continued onwards for 7 full years, well unto 1993, when democratization took place, and the Mandela Administration took power under the ANC party. And that many of the dead passengers had applied to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) which took place from 1995-1996, where perpetrators of crimes-against-humanity during Apartheid were offered the chance of Amnesty by the Mandela Admin, if they confessed their crimes.

https://www.justice.gov.za/trc/

The whole TRC event is worth its own Longpost, as pretty much everyone was unhappy with the results. TRC could to force anyone to confess, only interrogate officials and was drama-central. Whitoids felt it was commies lynching revenge, and blacks felt apartheid officials got off scot free.

Point is the reopening of the Air Crash Investigation was authorized by the ANC, so it was a pretty seriously considered conspiracy theory!!

https://gist.ly/youtube-summarizer/flight-295-the-mystery-of-south-african-airways-tragic-journey

In the years since 1987, several pilots of South African Airways had allegedly come forward to claim that they were aware of South African airways were in cahoots with Armscor, the South African Armaments Manufacturer. Armscor apparently sued the pilots and journ*lists about these articles, but not much came from it as far as I can gather.

They still exist today, and still make weapons for the current government by the way

https://www.armscor.co.za/

KLATZOW INTERVIEW:

Basically, there was one guy called David Klatzow, who was a forensic scientists who was retained to work on the case by Boeing's counsel around the time of the official enquiry. He deeply distrusted the SA investigators.

https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/fall-of-the-helderberg-the-crash-of-south-african-airways-flight-295-ef6261a01b46

=====He subsequently criticised the Margo commission for spending an inordinate amount of time looking into "relatively irrelevant issues" and that the commission ignored the most important question, what was the source of the fire and who had been responsible for loading it onto the aircraft? Klatzow believes that there are certain irregularities in parts of the commission transcript that indicate that something on the CVR transcript had to be concealed.=====

=====Klatzow put forward a theory that the fire likely involved substances that would not normally be carried on a passenger aircraft and that the fire was not likely a wood, cardboard, or plastic fire. South Africa was under an arms embargo at the time; the South African government therefore had to buy arms clandestinely. Klatzow's theory postulates that the government placed a rocket system in the cargo hold, and that vibration caused the ignition of unstable ammonium perchlorate, which is a chemical compound used as a missile propellant.=====

Klatzow had argued that Captain Uys would have been in contact with ZUR station and as a SAAF reservist, he would have followed orders from the Union regime not to land the Helderberg at Taiwan once fire had been detected, because discovery of illicit cargo upon investigation of the fire could have led to South African Airways being banned from international flights.

He was the primary guy interviewed in 1998 TRC for the Helderberg.

This specific TRC hearing was very shit and inept.

"Klatzow was invited by the TRC to explain his theories and cross-examine witnesses. Unlike most other hearings of the TRC, the hearing into Flight 295 was conducted in camera, and without any representation from the South African Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). Klatzow considered the CAA untrustworthy because it had participated in the official enquiry, which he considered flawed. A number of key aspects of Klatzow's theory hinged on his criticism of the actions of Judge Margo during the official enquiry, yet Judge Margo was not summoned to answer any of the allegations made against him."

"The TRC concluded that nothing listed in the flight manifest could have caused the fire, a conclusion that was met with controversy within the public."

Basically it all went fricking nowhere, and everybody was upset. The former judges and investigators were upset, because they literally weren't invited to even stand in for their actions. The families were upset because they were cucked.

Here's the original transcript which TRC commission (alongside video tapes of the interviews) was pressured by the public to release in 2000, because the answers and the TRC's conclusions were so unsatisfying. It's very boring, and in my personal opinion mostly conjecture, which is probably why the TRCtards wanted to get on with other much juicier apartheid fish to fry.

https://sabctrc.saha.org.za/documents/special/helderberg/56321.htm

END:

And uhhh, that's pretty much it, the mystery is still pretty much unsolved, and the majority of the families decry the findings of the original Air Crash investigation and that of the TRC. Of course most accusations are in fact still hearsay, and the mundane reality is that the Helderberg crash could in fact have been due to unfortunate circumstances rather than conspiracy.

Some pictures.

!africans

People think the female sumo in Assassin's Creed Shadows is a joke, but it’s real. They added a female sumo who kicks and pulverizes Japanese chuds. Worse, in the Azuchi-Momoyama period, 'rikishi' meant 'man of strength.' With such a rich history, they chose this to mock Japan pic.twitter.com/N9k7jSA1X4

— LearningTheLaw (@Mangalawyer) January 28, 2025

!palestine

Stay tuned for the sleep deprived review and in depth analysis

Sneak peek: it's like 5 minutes in and I hate it so far

pretend this is a huge deal and it means he's gonna get rid of medicaid next. say there will be backlash when realize theyve been duped now that they heckin' wholesome random money for other countries fund and more tacpayer dollars will go to domestic issues! Noooo

https://old.reddit.com/r/news/comments/1igk9s8/elon_musk_says_usaid_is_beyond_repair_and_he_is/

edit: he needs to be heckin prosecuted and charged with treason

https://old.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1igpcas/musk_im_closing_entire_federal_department_down/

This dude has been a member of Ars Technica's forums for 24 years and somehow thinks that the AI bubble is bursting because... it's continuously getting better and new products are being launched? Maybe he's just talking about the financial side of things but even then I don't really see it.

Imagine the reportmaxxing potential on a 24-year-old account.

These guys make Redditors look smart.

I'm sorry that you missed the crypto boom, please get over it.

This is the most downmarseyd comment in the thread. Attacking China is BANNED.

This comment was also towards the bottom, but has 67 upmarseys so must be a fairly popular opinion.