This is like some overly complicated spy movie that developed over a month so it's pretty long, but literally nothing makes sense and things drastically changed from day to day so hopefully it's still an interesting read I'll use the same marseys to distinguish between the candidates and their respective parties to help everyone keep track

Quick background information that you should know

Romania was never a democracy and it will probably never be one either, it's a known 'secret' that the country is controlled by our secret services. After the revolution we never disbanded the secret service responsible for all the horrible shit happening during communism, we just asked them to stop killing people and left them to do whatever they were doing. So they just rebranded under a different name, retained all the control they had over the country and shaped the new 'democracy' and it's political landscape to fit their needs. Per capita, Romania has the most known secret service agents in EU, but the exact number of people employed is kept a secret, we just know that there are more than the official number. We don't even know how many glowie organizations we actually have since some of them are completely hidden, we just know that more organizations exist out there but nothing else. The secret services have no transparency and answer to no one, they have to give a briefing to the parliament about their activities every now and then, but beyond that no one can actually check on whatever they're doing. Obviously, there are a frick ton amount of conspiracy theories surrounding them and they are blamed for every unusual thing that happens in the country. And this is exactly what I'll be doing here

Second thing, we're an extremely docile nation who accepted pretty much everything those in power did over our history. Even during the revolution we calmed down immediately after killing Ceausescu and his wife, meaning that no one else was made to answer for the atrocities that happened during communism. Which is why the former generals and politicians still remain in politics today and why the secret services still control the country. So while reading this just remember that the population barely reacted to everything going on, aside from bitching on the internet a lot

On to the parties! We have three main political factions:

• the classic parties (PNL and PSD) They are the first parties established after the communism's fall and have people in all the state's institutions in order to control them. They are also known for closely working with the secret services and basically being owned by them. They make sure the glowie wishes are being fulfilled (for example it's accepted that the constant pro-EU and pro-NATO attitude Romania has has been enforced by the secret services) and in exchange they are allowed to steal as much tax money as they want. They have ruled for decades, each playing opposition to the other, while happily mooching money together. But they also neglected to do literally anything for the country so the population got increasingly fed up with them. While PNL started to fall to the side, PSD remains the biggest and strongest party in the country and is accused by every other party of manipulating the elections every single time. And yes, they actually do it every single time

• the woke parties (mainly USR) The party was created after people got fed up with the other parties for not doing anything to improve anyone's lives. They have modeled their program after the lib parties in Europe and America (mainly gay stuff but with some pro-Palestine messages too recently) but have libertarian tendencies. They infight a lot and split up in ever smaller parties all the time.

• the far right parties (AUR, SOS, POT) Newest and the most untested faction we have. Parties of all sorts of -ists, generally pro-Russia and anti-EU and NATO. Also lots of antisemitism, this will be important later. They argue a lot with each other but still try to form coalitions. All of them have been accused of being russian spies.

And lastly the candidates!

Lasconi

• Exceptionally stupid, has no idea on anything going on in the world despite wanting to become president

• Leader of the 'gay party' but tried to pretend to be trad and a christian. Nobody bought it.

• Believes that Israel should do a ceasefire because Hamas and Hezbollah are fighting each other in Gaza

Georgescu

• Massive schizo, internet conspiracy theorists could learn new conspiracies from him

• Independent, but part of the far right faction

• Believes romanian language was the one that created the latin language not vice versa

Ciolacu

• Average Eastern Europe politician - corrupt and with no actual principles, will change opinions to keep his power

• Leader of the biggest party in the country and the candidate with the most control over the institutions

• Doesn't know english despite wanting to be president and meet other world leader

Simion

• Closeted gay gypsy. Politely doesn't mention he's a gypsy so we mostly pretend we don't notice

• Leader of the AUR party

• Yes, aur as in gold. Gypsies will forever remain gypsies

Sosoaca

• Very fat and vey angry all the time. Will fight literally everyone at any moment, even her 'allies'

• Leader of SOS party, also yes named after her

• The last two aren't that important on their own, but since Georgescu basically didn't exist until voting started they were the most important representatives. Both fell to the side after Georgescu appeared

Before the elections

Quick note: we had two different elections recently, the presidential ones (in two parts) and the parliamentary ones. So, since we only vote on sundays, three weeks of voting in total.

• At this point in time Georgescu was completely unknow to anyone so the older parties were expecting to fight only two parties, both ruled by loud and stupid leaders. and parties have been mortal enemies for years while the are fighting both groups while also screaming at each other. Despite the rightoids slowly growing in power nobody thought they can do much in the elections.

• Sosoaca has been forbidden by the Constitutional Court to candidate for the president position because she made some 'unconstitutional' statements - anti EU/NATO and for some antisemitism. This is a huge breach of the Court's duties because they have nothing to do with how the elections are organized, other institutions are responsible for this. But the Constitutional Court answers to no one and their decisions are law (I'm sure you can see a pattern) so she got kicked out of the race despite all her angry screaming. The decision was later retracted but oops too late to rejoin the race

• The Constitutional Court is made from judges appointed by different parties, mostly the ones, so everyone was aware that are manipulating the elections again. But since Sosoaca is annoying and since she's suspected of working with Russia nobody really cared.

• In a rare public announcement SRI (main secret service organization for internal affairs) announced that the AUR party is suspected of having ties with Russia too. This wasn't news for anyone but it's nice to have an official confirmation I guess. But they also said the there is no proof of any external interference in any political candidate's campaign so they won't interfere with the elections in any way (it's still unclear if the last statement applied to Georgescu as well or not since he basically didn't exist at this point).

• Ciolacu who has been accused by everyone to work with Simion to win the elections reacted angrily to this. Basically, he'll support the party to reach the second voting session and there AUR will be this huge threat that will scare people into voting for Ciolacu in exchange of whatever political benefits he promised them after his win (like naming their leader prime minister). Anyway Ciolacu accused SRI of overstepping it's boundaries. They didn't react to this. Everyone else was angry that PSD is manipulating the elections again and even of risking Romania's security by working with a russian spy, while some even accepted that they'll manage to win. But beyond these points things moved on smoothly.

• This section is mostly important as a contrast to how the secret services and other political institutions reacted to potential russian spies (keep an eye out, open communications, quick decisions) and how they'll react from now on.

First presidential election!

• The battle was supposed to be between Ciolacu and Lasconi Ciolacu should win most votes inside Romania but Lasconi could beat him with the votes gathered from diaspora.

• A news article about a 'surprise' coffee house meeting between Ciolacu , Simion , the other party's leader and a secret service officer was written sometimes in the last weeks before the elections and someone rediscovered it. Lasconi's voters are annoyed. This is clear proof that PSD is once again manipulating elections.

• Voting happens and after that the counting starts. For awhile things were normal: Lasconi first, then Ciolacu, Simion and on the fourth place some independent candidate nobody heard about, Gergescu . Who is he and how the frick did he get so high?

• Then Georgescu climbed on the third place replacing Simion No seriously, who is this guy? Nobody heard of him.

• Then he dethroned Ciolacu from the second place. This was quite shocking because the idea of PSD not ending in the last presidential election tour was unthinkable. This were the last results most people witnessed before going to bed. The counting will go throughout the night and the official results would be announced in the morning. Lasconi's voters were naturally overjoyed.

• Morning came... and Georgescu was on the first place, way in front of the other candidates. just happened?

The week before the parliamentary elections

• The parliamentary elections happened a week after the first presidential elections. Obviously it was a very busy week after such a weird turn of events

• Everyone was confused as shit and started to search who the frick Georgescu even was. Turns out that he was a complete nutjob: he believes in all sort of new age shit (mystical energies, crystals, communicating with spirits, natural healing bullshit) every conspiracy theory out there (moon landing is false, covid is a hoax, aliens, jews control the word, satanic NWO, you name it), is very against NATO and EU to the point where he wants to pull Romania out of them, and praises Russia at any given opportunity while hating Ukraine and considering it a fake country. He also praised our version of Hitler and called him a hero

• So, where did this schizo came from? All of his campaign happened on TikTok. No media appearances, no poster, no fliers, nothing. He just gathered a following on TikTok through his insane ramblings and convinced these people to vote for him. Since he was deepthroating Russia's peepee left right and center, and since Russia is known for manipulating social media through an army of bots, everyone (aside from his voters) started to get worried that he's yet another russian spy trying to overthrow our democracy.

• Wtf are our secret services doing? What's the point of them eating so many of our taxes if they can't even defend the country from Russia? How could they miss this huge attack on our country? But every one of them remained silent and didn't react in any way to all this chaos.

• People started to get more confused and more videos of Georgescu saying insane shit were uncovered. More and more voices started to scream about russian interferences, but a few people pointed out an uncomfortable truth - PSD was always viewed as the party that supports the current political 'system' and USR as the anti-system candidates but that was when USR was founded. Now it's been years since then, USR won some important political positions and did nothing important with them or messed up... they've became part of the system just as much as PSD. The are voted mainly for being new faces against institutional corruption rather than because people agree with their insane positions. How do you earn these voters back now that they're about to throw Romania into Russia's arms out of spite?

• Vote observers from small villages came forth and said that PSD told them to count their votes to AUR's tally to propel them into the final round so he can have an easy win ("We fricking knew PSD is manipulating elections once again!" ). But it turns out that they were giving their votes to Georgescu as well. Wut? Did they know about him?

• Meanwhile Georgescu declared that he received zero money for his campaign and that he also spent no money during it (this is important for later). This lead to people saying that this is proof that Russia financed him in order to destabilized the country. Also multiple people were fined for still campaigning on the voting day with is illegal, and to everyone's annoyance Georgescu's supporters, who were doing it too, were completely unaffected

• Ciolacu and the leader of the other party stepped down from their leadership positions due to their embarrassing defeats (this will be important later on too).

• Now some weird accusations start to appear Sosoaca accused Georgescu of being a Mossad spy while an AUR member accused him of being a CIA asset instead. Both of these parties like to scream hysterically at everyone else so nobody really took them seriously. A former president known for his collaboration with the former communist secret services told everyone to calm down since there is no proof that Georgescu was financed by outside actors. He was actually financed by individual inside the country. Wtf does this means?

• Research into Georgescu's past revealed further oddities. Man was probably part of the old communist secret services (very few people were allowed to travel outside the country and despite being completely unremarkable he was allowed to go out multiple times), has been working with the KGB (to spy on them), has been a member of the Club of Rome (think tank for helping humanity develop sustainably or some shit, the important part that another romanian politician with ties to the secret services was there too), he was part of the UN and has been a freemason (for the last two he claimed that he left them because of all the evil shit happening inside the organisations). He also has been arrested in the past for his support of nazis but his cases were mysteriously closed with no explanation given

• A handful of r-slurs protested every day since Georgescu won the first tour but nobody cared

The recount and the slow death of Romania's democracy

• A few days after the official election results come in an independent candidate who only gained 1% of the votes decided to contest the elections despite having no chances to win. He wrote two different complaints, one against Lasconi and one against Georgescu The accusation against Georgescu was rejected because it was made after the three days limit expired, despite the complainer's insistance that he made the contestation in time. But the accusation against Lasconi was accepted. His declaration stated that in three different locations the votes that were supposed to go to Ciolacu were actually counted for Lasconi. The Constitutional Court once again overstepped it's boundaries and ordered for all the votes to be re-counted.

• At this point people were starting to get worried. Half of them were accusing PSD of preferring to burn down democracy rather than accept that they lost the elections for the first time (again, most of the judges appointed to the constitutional court came from the two main parties). Basically, since you didn't vote for our candidate we'll remake the elections until Ciolacu enters the final round. And since the difference between Ciolacu and Lasconi were really small while Georgescu was way ahead of both of them, it means that Lasconi will get kicked out of the race in favor of Ciolacu, which means a landslide victory for Georgescu due to the anti-system voters.

• The other half noticed that up til now everything happening favored Georgescu He avoided every possible consequence despite multiple irregularities in his campaign unlike other candidates (for example Sosoaca was pulled out of the race for saying milder shit than him) and all this scandal would further raise his popularity as the anti-system candidate. Is it possible that the secret services are actually protecting the nutjob? It would explain why they haven't done anything to stop him. They haven't even said anything to reassure the population that things are fine. Shit...

• Some politician made a petition for TikTok to be banned in Romania for the duration of the elections to prevent Georgescu from campaigning. People were torn between considering this yet another hit on democracy but enough of us were happy to do anything to stop Georgescu (same thing for the recount actually). The petition wasn't approved and later on he apologized for trying to shut down the funny videos app for everyone.

• Our secret services still said nothing at this point, and the EU decided to finally do something in their place. They called the owner of the application and demanded explanations for the bot filled campaign. Georgescu's voters got angry at this and said that this is proof that EU interferes in Romania's business and that we should distance ourselves form it. The investigation didn't reveal much, lots of bots, some russian but not all. No real proof of election interference

• Our current president finally decided to react to the panic and said that the secret services hadn't given him any warnings about Georgescu

• As a shock for everyone, Ciolacu came out and said that he disagrees with the Court's decision and that he'll pull out of the race if he's declared winner after the recount. B-but all this was supposed to be his plan to steal the election to enter the final round, wtf is going on? If he doesn't want this then who does? Predictably, most people realized that he's bullpooping and that he'll walk this back if he actually wins

• Now things get nasty. A weird facebook poster claimed that he was accidentally added to a mail list between multiple former secret service agents that were discussing using Georgescu to stage a coup. Basically the members of the former communist secret services were upset that the country distanced itself from Russia and wanted to forcefully bring us back into it's influence zone. One mail specifically said that we should become a satellite of China (?). Panic started to settle now, this was proof that at least some secret services wanted Georgescu to win and since they control the country then there's nothing we can do to stop them After this news people discovered that the parties (all of them) have the largest number of known former secret services officers as members, further cementing the conspiracy theories that our own secret services are dragging us all towards Russia

• Oddly enough Georgescu started to soften his positions. He declared that he doesn't actually wants to take us out of NATO and EU, he just wants us to stop agreeing unconditionally with everything they decide (like helping Ukraine), that America is Romania's most important partner, and despite being an actual nazi, he started sucking Israel's peepee hard. He said that on the first day after he's declared president he will move our embassy to Jerusalem, declare the arrest request for Bibi as unconstitutional and that he'll invite him to visit Romania, and that he'll not only make antisemitism a crime (it already is just not really enforced) but that he'll expand the definition of it as well You'd expect his nazi followers to be upset at that but they barely reacted at all. There were a few disappointed messages but they got over it in less than a day Leftists were more affected than them because muh war criminal muh genocide

• Anyway, moving on, we still have so much more to cover After the Israel stuff some guys noticed a few odd things about Georgescu's videos. He praised Orban and mentioned stuff about Romania tightening ties with Asia, which was also present in Orban's declarations. Since Orban, and a few other eastern european leaders, refused to arrest Bibi, since his speech mirrors Orban's, since he wants to remain an ally to Murica but wants to sever ties with Western Europe and since he has similar ideas of 'befriending' Russia as Trump, rumours started that Georgescu is an american and/or israeli spy. Basically, Trump wants to break ties with Western Europe but still wants to keep control of Eastern Europe and get it closer to Russia and China, who America will become friendlier towards, and Georgescu is meant to force Romania to play it's part in this plan. So, what where those accusations about him being a CIA/Mossad asset again?

• This didn't reassure anyone because Trump is already viewed as Putin's friend and OMG America is going to force us back under Russia, and how the frick is a shithole from Eastern Europe supposed to defend itself from the CIA and/or Mossad? Especially since our secret services, the ones supposed to protect us, seem to agree with all of this? At this point the general mood became depressed and fatalistic

• Rumours started that RFK jr and Tucker Carlson will come to Romania to show support for Georgescu Some journo even showed a letter from Murica's embassy in Romania with Trump's signature as proof. But nobody on murican side confirmed any of this. Later on, one of Trump's former campaign managers also hinted at coming to Romania for this but in a really vague way. Everyone was confused

• A new party appeared for the parliamentary race, POT, considered Georgescu's unofficial party. They had the exact same TikTok strategy as him, but if we can assume that Georgescu managed to hide long enough from the secret services through TikTok how did these guys slip through? Surely, at this point our secret services are aware of this electoral interference, right? Why aren't they stopping it?

• Leader of this new party visited Beijing at some point and promised that Romania will have closer ties with China if they win. Why is everyone trying to make us China's allies anyway, we didn't had much ties with them in the first place?

• Recounts start. Constitutional Court ordered all recounts to be done behind closed doors, with no camera or supervisors. Shit, it's happening, we're getting couped Ciolacu entering the final round won't help anyone since his party is completely controlled by the secret services and he won't do anything to fight their plans. Basically between him and Georgescu we're fricked no matter who wins

• Another handful of r-slurs gathered to protest but were quickly told to go home. Nothing else happened

• Oh, and that part about Gerogescu declaring zero donations and expenses? Turns out the institution responsible for checking up the candidates' campaign finances 'forgot' to publish the financial declarations for nearly a week, which is why his absurd declaration flied under the radar. Also, it's too late to do anything about it now, contestation time limit has long since passed

• But plot twists! Turn out RFK jr won't actually come to Romania, turn out Georgescu wasn't even a member of the Club of Rome, just part of some affiliated organization, and the same thing happened with his UN membership. Wtf, does this guy even exists at this point? But wait! He was actually part of the UN... but no one knows who appointed him there in the first place Clearly this is some glowie shit and we already know he was a glowie and that he's supported by glowies

The parliamentary elections

• These are actually the most important elections since the president barely has any power here. The parliament makes the laws. Candidate parties need to meet a certain voting threshold to win and the winners will make alliances with each other. While a dominant alliance that owns over 50% of the seats is preferred for a stable parliament we can have multiple smaller alliances negotiating each action, but that's a really unstable situation.

• The recounts are still going. Everyone is stressed and demoralized. Why do we even bother to vote if the Constitutional Court will just throw away the results again?

• Turns out the other party managed to get itself kicked out of the diaspora voting lists for not listing a woman candidate among their member lists. Funny lol r-slurs but once again, why is every happening favoring Georgescu ?

• Voting happens and the votes are counted. Because of PSD's bullshit not everybody can vote in these elections (you need to vote in the place you live in, so students or workers who travel for their jobs are eliminated) and diaspora's votes barely count. So the results now are different. All three factions failed to reach a majority. No matter what, the parliament is split in three and they need to negotiate with each other to make a majority

• Since diaspora's vote didn't count here PSD got most votes and become the most important player. No matter what, they will join the ruling alliance, and again the parliament actually controls the country not the president. This could be good or bad depending on whether they are actually trying to coup the country or if they just want to keep being able to steal tax money (later one means that they won't pull us out of EU) But if they ally with the parties and if Georgescu wins the presidency and if Georgescu appoints Ciolacu (or someone else from their party) as prime minister then together they will effectively control all parts of the country. And again, if the conspiracy theories with the secret services forcing us towards Russia is true then no one will be able oppose that plan

• Yet no one moved to make any alliance at this point since the recount haven't been finished and nobody even knows who can become president yet

Current situation!

• The recounts are finally finished! ...and nothing changed. All the panic and all the conspiracy theories were in vain. The second tour of the presidential elections will go without any changes - pro EU Lasconi vs pro-Russia Georgescu Last voting session will still happen this weekend But then what was the point of all this bullshit and chaos? Best anyone can come up with is that PSD tried to steal the first elections but either failed or waited to see how the parliamentary elections faired to settle on one strategy. And since they basically won the important election there's no point in remaking the first elections. Politicians

• Ciolacu revealed that he won't actually step down as PSD's leader. What a surprise Everyone is waiting to see who PSD will support both as president and as an ally for the parliament but they still haven't decided. Shit maybe they do actually want to ally with ?

• Until this point our secret services still said absolutely nothing about the situation, so Lasconi finally gathered the courage to do something that should have been done since the beginning: ask them directly what the frick is happening here She made a petition for them to make public the files they have on Georgescu Which they agreed (but only gave a rapport rather the actual files)

• It don't reveal much: some 'state actors' helped promote him on TikTok in a way that proved that they were very familiar with the algorithm and with how to keep themselves hidden from the state. The campaign had lots of similarities with the disinformation campaigns happening in Ukraine and the election interference happening in Moldova, both carried by Russia. But they don't name Russia as Georgescu's backers directly. Still, it's clear that Russia was behind this right? The secret services just can't reveal everything and endanger national security, yeah? The cops have decided to finally start investigating Georgescu and the media is calling him a traitor. Ciolacu came out and officially said that he supports Lasconi for president and that his party will join with her party and the other parties to form a pro- west parliamentary majority in order to block out the parties. It's finally over and Romania is saved

• Well, you see, it's too late to remove the russian asset from the presidential race since the contestation time window is over and we can't kick him out any longer Yes, he might be a literal traitor trying to sell the country to Russia, so what?

• Plus the files also revealed that the secret services were aware of Georgescu's campaign and his ties with Russia all this time. Good thing they aren't incompetent, right? I mean, they literally rule the country But then, why didn't they do anything until it was too late to kick him out of the race? Why the frick aren't them kicking him out now? He's a literal russian agent that betrayed his country to serve Russia and frick us all, surely there must be some exceptions to the 'too late' rule The president knew too, and Ciolacu (current prime minister) revealed that he was also aware of this but couldn't say anything since it was a state secret... but why didn't he at least throw his support for Lasconi earlier? He could have done this without revealing anything else... What is going on? Why isn't anyone doing anything?

• Besides, despite making an official alliance with the pro-EU parties, PSD can still either break the alliance at a later date and join the parties, vote alongside the pro-Russia parties despite their promise, and even if Lasconi wins the parliament can force her out of her position and call for new elections. Plus the parliament is more important than the president and they have the biggest share of it... maybe those conspiracy theories were right after all?

• The police and other authorities said that they received no warning for Georgescu no message or documents, nothing despite the secret services having files on him for who knows how long. They are just as shocked as anyone else. Even if they start investigating him now it might take awhile to arrest him. The elections might be done already. Sure, they could still cancel his mandate on treason charges, probably, but will they? And what does 'state actors' even means? It could just mean our secret services. And even if they specifically mean foreign state actors, we can go back to the CIA/Mossad conspiracy theory

• Are we still getting couped? Do they care so little about our opinions that they will tell us straight to our face that we'll join Russia and that there's nothing we can do about it?

Today

I wrote all this yesterday, so here are the latest developments

• Gergescu is still in the race. Yes, there are hints that some secret services support Georgescu , presumably the others are against him... hopefully

• We have notified NATO, EU and our neighbours that there were hostile foreign interferences into our elections

• A criminal investigation on him by multiple institutions has started, but it's unclear if it will help with anything. What will happen if he wins the election?

• EU demanded TikTok to not delete his campaign data

• The guy who demanded a recount came back and asked for both elections to be cancelled. Nobody knows what's his problem

• America asked us if we're ok. We still don't have an answer to this question.

• No seriously, why aren't they arresting him yet? Why didn't they actually do anything all this time?

So, this sunday I'll go vote in an election that might have it's winner already decided or might just get cancelled after the votes are counted An one of the candidates is an admittedly traitor to the country. And last week's elections might have been the last real elections I voted in, even if Georgescu loses this is the perfect opportunity for PSD to tighten it's control over the country even more But the whole shitshow is still going strong so I'll keep you up to date

Happy continued Civilization IV week !g*mers We're playing the turboneurodivergent Dawn of Civilization mod that replicates world history. Following last game, we have just recently gone from the "Roman Kingdom" to the "Roman Empire" following the conquest of Greece. We control up to Byzantium (Constantinople).

The Persians (probably) razed Sfard so there's nothing left to conquer there. We need to settle one more city in Anatolia at some point. India (Gupta Empire) has a higher score than us but is behind us technologically. Persia (Achaemenid Empire) is very stable, prosperous, and more advanced than us.

Athens is a huge boon to us and a Great Person will be born there soon, either a Great Merchant or a Great Prophet. We need Currency for our first victory condition, so hopefully it's the Great Merchant. I decide to go ahead and research Law. If the GP turns out to be a Prophet we'll get Aesthetics which will put us a step closer to Architecture, one of the technologies we need to research first for the third victory condition.

Law allows us to enable Citizenship

The High Upkeep is going to suck when our empire gets big, but it will help a lot with getting buildings up for the "Bread and Circuses" victory condition. Hopefully the quick libraries will offset the cost of upkeep a little.

Since Carthage opened borders with us when we were in a mutual war with Greece, we're able to spy on them a little. They control the Levant including Jerusalem and their original capital of Surru (Tyre) when they were the Phoenicians.

Surru is lightly defended, but I have to attack fast because the Phoenician Unique Power allows them to quickly raise mercenaries. They have a Silk Road trade route and built the Great Cothon there instead of Carthage so it will be a strong prize along with the holy city of Judaism.

While snooping around the area we establish contact with the Nubians

The Roman Empire is stable as heck. We have strongly booming economy (+9). The way economy works in RfC and DoC is based on commerce GROWTH. Not treasury gain, not commerce alone, but the amount of commerce () gained per cycle whether it be from citizens in cities working tiles or through trade.

The coins and bigass money bags are units of commerce, also available through Trade Routes in the upper left (these show the cities we're trading with, right now Athens is trading with Carthagian cities). Athens is rich and we just built a Silver mine in Tarragona, so we're booming. The drawback is that if we can't sustain this growth we'll crash into a recession. Fortunately we also have very compatible civics for the Classical age (Domestic +8).

Most importantly, there is plenty of room to expand. Trade routes be darned, it's time for some Punic Wars

Surru falls. Even attacking over a river, our City Raider legion take out the defenders easily. The last troops are rushed mercenaries (the blue glow meaning they're so fresh they haven't even been promoted yet) and go down like a b-word.

Surru is great. The Silk Road trade route disappears once conquered and it's a little cramped next to Jerusalem, but The Great Cothon adds production to their coastal tiles and a Great Scientist is settled there.

Where Hannibal is successful is in harassing the shit out of our warships guarding the Iberia/Italy coast with a swarm of galleys. Motherlovers are like locusts

Our Great Person is born in Athens - it was 50/50 a Merchant or a Prophet and we got the Merchant (aka mercenary commander) Pubius Sittius. This will allow us to finish Currency quicker, allowing us to build Forums for our "Bread and Circuses" goal, with some additional spillover to Navigation. With Law and Currency we can now research Politics, one of the technologies required for the third victory condition. Persia, our chief technological rival, can't research this yet so we should be in good shape. If we can get a Great Prophet or Artist next we can blow through to Architecture.

Jerusalem falls next. We now have access to Judaism, our first official religion, giving us access to religious buildings. We could convert to Judaism now, but that would be silly. Jerusalem also has a Great General settled in the city, which is neat, but probably can't be utilized that well because it's not a strong production center.

Somehow I missed this but Carthage had also pulled the Nubians into war with us right after we invaded and they start to come for the Levant. Killing just a few of their dudes gets them back off with miniscule tribute.

Fine by me, I got more important shit to do.

Caption this:

The Roman Empire has successfully conquered the Levant and Hannibal has successfully annoyed me enough with his boats. Great Generals are born in both Rome and Carthage, Gaius Marius in Rome and Hasdrubal Barca, brother of Hannibal in Yglgl. Generals can either join individual armies for a bonus and unique upgrades or be settled in a city (like the one in Jerusalem) for a +XP boost to all troops built there.

We come to an agreement. The Carthagians are sufficiently buckbroken now and willing to offer tribute.

We'll turn our attention back to Carthage eventually, but with these buttholes off our back we can benefit from a peace treaty and safely get our fishing ships back up along the coast.

We are now Very Stable with continued conquests and economic growth. We've pissed off the rest of the world a little, but oh well. There's still room to expand, and we have a large army stationed in the Levant. Where to?

Oh, you. You want some free shit, do you? And you're upset because Hannibal was "your friend"?

Time to die

Egypt is stronger than I expected. We have a 1.5 military advantage (see the diplo overview) but her core is tighter () and her army is consolidated.

I see Persians at my border and I about shit, but they aren't invading. Darius, the fricking r-slur, is seriously about to resettle the city he burnt to the ground. I don't really want to frick with him. Maybe I could get super lucky and cause this city to flip, but more likely I'll have to settle my fourth Anatolian city in Crete. Unfortunately, these tight borders are probably going to cause some tensions.

With two more Forums built we accomplish the "Bread and Circuses" victory condition ahead of schedule

Now, we can focus on colonization and conquest.

A Great Prophet, Claudia Quinta is born in Athens, allowing us to speed up the research of Architecture, one of the necessary technologies for the third victory condition. This is lucky, as Persia has been able to research this tech for a good few turns

We could have also had her found the Temple of Solomon in Jeruslaem, and embraced a Jewish Roman Empire if we wanted to get weird with it. But I don't want that.

This was the toughest siege yet. Only one casualty (a City Raider III at 96% win odds ) but it took a looong time to wear down defenses and had to supply reinforcements and fend off Egyptian chariot raiders constantly running into the Levant.

Surru is suffering and not returning as much $$$ as we'd like due to the ongoing war. It might be worth considering a peace treaty.

As we have researched Politics, we now have the option to let her Capitulate, which she's willing to do after a few turns of War Weariness. She would become a vassal state called the Province of Aegyptus. As fun as it would be to keep Cleopatra as a pet slave, there's little point - with her capital's conquest and me occupying her core she's very unstable, and her land is more valuable directly controlled. However, it is worth it to take a new technology and some gold for tribute for a few turns of peace. The rest of Egypt will probably fracture soon.

And sure enough.

Taking Ra-Kadet is effortless, but annoyingly, the Nubians and Carthagians also had armies nearby. Carthage swoops in and takes independent Waset. I want that

I also notice that they now have Heavy Spearmen, meaning they've researched Steel. This is bad. They need to be dealt with ASAP. It's time for a Second Punic War

Carthage settled Alicante in Iberia right up next to Tarragona. It looks easy to take until Carthage starts rushing mercenary Heavy Spearmen. Promoting a Legion to Shock (+damage to infantry) allows them to take it, fulfilling the "Iberia" part of the Pax Romana victory condition.

Speaking of this goal, I need to get a settler up to colonize Britain soon. I concoct a plan to get my settler ready in Tarragona, slip a boat and warship through the Carthage controlled Strait of Gibralter while we're in conflict, and have the settlers take a Roman Road to meet and board in northwest Iberia. Did you know you can draw on the map in Civ4? It's so fun

Attempting to go straight for the jugular. Skirmishers harass my weakly defended ballistae weakening the city of Carthage (Qart-Hadasht) while I bring in reinforcements for the final push.

Good timing too cause these elephant neighbors start trampling my few soldiers guarding the ballistae

The reinforcements land and Carthage is finished The city falls and the empire collapses.

Now that the Mediterranean is mostly peaceful (save some barabarians and pirates) we can colonize Knossos, satisfying our fourth city in Anatolia, since the Persians settled Turkey.

I complete the Flavian Ampitheatre in Rome. Tbh these resources could have better been spent elsewhere but I felt like building it in Rome because it's cool. .

With Gaius Marius settled there too, soldiers built in Rome are hard as frick and cranked out every couple turns. These gigachad supersoldiers will make conquering Gaul a cakewalk.

We're running out of time, but a two pronged attack from Tarragona and the Gigachads of Rome should make this possible.

Another Great General is born from the Gallic conquests, Germanicus

With the conquest of Gaul and the colonization of London we control the territory necessary for our second victory condition, just in the nick of time.

With Pax Romana a motherflipping Golden Age begins

Orthodox Christianity was founded around 50AD (dunno where yet) and has already started to spread, so Pagan Temples are starting to disappear. The Pagan Religious Victory will probably be unattainable soon, which is fine. We should probably convert to Orthodoxy soon.

If we want to do the Historic Victory, we just need to research a couple more technologies before anyone else. I believe Persia is still our dominant tech rival but I'm sending spies out to confirm that.

We are incredibly stable. The Golden Age will be a super sweet time to take advantage of, but this ain't gonna last forever. Germanic barbarians are starting to attack. Orthodoxy spreading is going to start to upset some religious unity. The economic growth is not going to be sustained. Our income kinda sucks in general, but we're getting Jails up everywhere which will help with that by reducing maintenance. Eventually, the Eastern Roman Empire will split and eventually France, Spain, and England will start to become their own civilizations. At some point even the Northern Italian City States will want to flip. This will really suck.

Next time we will probably win Historic. I still want to go to space, but things are going to get tougher from here. New plan: next time we will win a Historic Victory and then reload and fail it so we can win a separate Space Victory

For now though, we will bask in victory for conquering (almost) Trajans borders.

Part 3

This is the most female Reddit thread I've ever read.

https://old.reddit.com/r/starbucksbaristas/comments/1ibmuqn/iced_cherry_chai/

Also average /r/starbucksbaristas logic:

https://old.reddit.com/r/starbucksbaristas/comments/1ibtwsk/double_standard_is_crazy/

"Why should anyone donate to a homeless charity that will support them when they could just hang out in my Starbucks all day and overdose on heroin in the bathroom?"

Trump frees another neighbor from the tyrannical Dems

The letter notes "independent reasons" as to why Adams' case was being tossed — including that the case was retribution for him speaking out against the Biden administration for its handling of the migrant crisis.

"It cannot be ignored that Mayor Adams criticized the prior Administration's immigration policies before the charges were filed, and the former US Attorney's public actions created appearances of impropriety…"

https://old.reddit.com/r/nyc/comments/1imksh1/justice_dept_to_seek_dismissal_of_federal/

https://old.reddit.com/r/newyorkcity/comments/1iml2n0/justice_department_to_drop_federal_corruption/

Most Based Comments

Basedness: 🔥🔥🔥🔘🔘

Every Democrat has given the same salute. (-7)

Basedness: 🔥🔥🔥🔘🔘

Even the other Nazis don't want anything to do with the chud. (-6)

Basedness: 🔥🔥🔥🔘🔘

Seriously, libertarians cheering for checks notes tariffs which require federal authority to uphold 😂 (6)

The alternative is losing a third of my paycheck and having to turn over every detail of my life to the government every year to get back the few hundred out of tens of thousands they are holding hostage. (-7)

Angriest Comments

Angriness: 😡😡😡🔘🔘

ADL has demonstrated themselves to be a colonial, imperialist propaganda tool. Weren't they founded to overturn Leo Frank's conviction in 1913 under the pretense of antisemitism? The 21 member grand jury voted unanimously to convict him for the murder of Mary Phagan of which four were Jews. The claims since that Frank was tried because he was a Jew framed by racist Southerners feels like a conspiracy, especially given Greenblatt's leaked interview re: tt. Veracity is a difficult thing to measure in a society governed by profit. (1)

Angriness: 😡😡😡🔘🔘

https://old.reddit.com/r/gifs/comments/1i6szwa/comment/m8fc2ek/?context=8IDK man, the "saying Israel can't kill Palestinians means you're antisemitic" group defending Elmo doesn't really hold much ground. (6)

Bro, is the ADL not REAL anti-semite detectors??? 😭😭😭 (0)

Angriness: 😡😡😡🔘🔘

Just shows how the ADL at the core exists to further the Zionist cause, not to fight antisemitism.They stretch so far to call things antisemitic when it suits them, but stretch so far to not call it out when it doesn't suit them to call it out. (17)

Yep, any criticism of the Israeli government is labeled as antisemitism, despite the fact that every time their government does something fricked up it fuels a spike in real antisemitism. Zionism is a theocratic fascist ideology.  (9)

Biggest Lolcow: /u/sailor_guy_999

Score: 🐮🔘🔘🔘🔘

Number of comments: 15

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

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Clean it up janny

Muh birthright citizenship native land

(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.

I had some recently that were cashews, almonds, pecans, pistachios and I think that's perfect. hazelnuts = too much like a fancy peanut, it's not the right venue for them. a 3% ratio of brazil nuts, what's the fricking point? they just want to be able to list a fourth thing.

DEAD RUSSIANS

SPLODY PAGERS

CAPTURED CITADELS

INVADING TURKS

WHAT THE FRICK IS GOING ON

Around 2014, shortly before I went to prison, the civil war in Syria was very fun to follow - the Ukraine or Israel of its day but less normie. It was in the sweet spot between these wars - very well reported, slow, and with a couple of cohesive factions - and jiggaboo hijinks in Africa where there are dozens of factions, zero cohesiveness, minimal information, and rapid butt movements and upsets because Russians came or a white man got mad.

Then I got out and shit was boring again. ISIS was gone, the rebels were cucked, and Assad had mostly won. How'd that happen?

2011-2012: Humble beginnings

Bashar Assad, the Alawite leader of Syria, had brutally oppressed his people for many years. In Arab fashion, it took American glowies on X (at the time known as "twitter") to galvanize them into rebelling, which they did, mostly ineffectually, over 2011-2012.

Though their achievements were minimal, with every massacre and atrocity, Assad's grip over the population and business establishment weakened. This emboldened individuals and factions, and everyone (perceiving weakness) shifted from keeping their head down to aiming for a piece of the Syrian pie.

2013: Shit gets real

Red is Assad, supported by the Alawites (inhabiting the coast, mostly), secularish and nationalist Syrians, certain classes of society like Sunni businessmen who supported him pragmatically, various Sunnis in his patronage network, and regular people either coerced or cajoled into it.

He was backed by Iran in exchange for further influence, an open lane to supply its Shiite proxies, like Hezbollah (via Iraq), and as a geopolitical ally and counterweight to the western gulf states. Also, to a lesser extent, by Russia (who operate a port in Syria), China and other contrarians.

Green is almost everyone else: dozens of armed groups with grandiose names and wide-ranging political views, from moderate Islamists to hardcore Islamists. You think I'm kidding. No joke, every single Sunni Arab anti-Assad group at the time had some flavor of Islamic flavoring. The "moderate" guys wore short beards, listened to music and took American funds while beheading Alawites whereas the hardcore guys beheaded music listeners and moderates too

The rebels held the suburbs - but not centers - of Damascus (capital) and Aleppo (second biggest city), the rural north (Sunni and neglected under Assad) and various positions in between. They were supported by wealthy gulf donors, Turkey, who gave them a free hand to cross the border and engage in commerce, and western powers like America and Europe. Like any non-state group they engaged in their fair share of smuggling, petty crime, taxation and tolls.

Yellow are the Kurds, who varied politically and religiously but always put their Kurdishness first. Initially, they were anti-Assad due to years of oppression, etc. but seeing how the Islamists treated them turned them more pragmatic. Poor guys, nobody except Israel likes them :(

There were also some Druze in the south, under the green faction for convenience.

2014: Rise-is of ISIS

Some ex-al Qaeda members in Iraq, battle-hardened and bored, saw an opportunity in the power vacuum to free Sunnis from Assad, which in practice became freeing them from their more lenient Sunni overlords (rebel militias proving an easier target than a theoretically professional army). Within a few months, they bulldozed most of the Syrian rebel factions in the east, turning their sights onto and humiliating Iraq as well.

At their height that winter ISIS was wrecking Arab armies everywhere and about to demolish Kobane / Ayn al Arab (one of the three Kurdish cantons). They did so much nasty shit there's no point in mentioning or cataloging it. IIKYK, if not, have a listicle I haven't read from google. Many locals felt some kinda way about their behavior but couldn't do much without getting beheaded. However, besides a huge number of foreign volunteers from shitholes like Chechnya and Tunisia, they also had local support from true believers, Shia-haters and those who appreciated unified governance over the mess of squabbling factions which had preceded it.

The Western reaction was wholly negative, so much so that even stodgy bureaucrats, Assad opponents, and kumbaya-singing libcucks from cowardly first world nations were galvanized into action. In September, 26 countries met in Paris and agreed to started bombing ISIS heavily; the US also bullied Turkey into letting the Kurds take their shit back.

2015: Meh

Not much changed this year. Besides Kurdish successes, the rebels took Idlib and consolidated in the south with the Druze. Most of the rebel-Assad line of battle was very low intensity, like Ukraine today. Neither side had the manpower, weaponry or supplies to engage in a more serious manner. In Iraq, the jihadis suffered multiple serious defeats by Shiite paramilitaries and the army.

I'm mostly not covering other name and branding changes in this article but (since it might come up later) in exchange for American support the Kurds accepted some token Arab groups and rebranded as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in October.

2016: Two more weeks

There was a ceasefire most of the first half of the year, everyone focussing on beating ISIS. You'll notice a large green swath in the south: a Jordanian-trained, Western-aligned, U.S.-led opposition group. When the greenbacks started coming in, they spun off from the Allahu Akbar brigade, traded bobbing their heads 5 times a day for a pair of raybans and never looked back. No bullshit, check the article, their predecessor organization was literally called that. 'Moderates'

They remain there to this day.

The latter part of the year offensives ramped up against the jihadis.

2017: Bye-SIS

Mainly Assad and the Kurds benefitted from pushing ISIS' shit in, with the exception of that small green slice up north: Erdogan's belated decision to establish a direct Turkish proxy instead of broadly supporting the opposition. That said, progress was slow as mutual enemies proceeded cautiously. That changed in July, when America and Russia agreed to a ceasefire to focus on the jihadis. Crucially, America agreed to stop funding and supplying most rebel groups. By then, ISIS had lost the north side of the Euphrates and many key positions, but still retained their capital, Raqqa, and significant territory within Syria and Iraq.

By the end of the year that was gone too. The terrorists were defeated, and all they'd accompished in the long run was a transfer of Sunni Arab land to Alawites and Kurds.

2018: Tits-urkey and Butt-ad

Turkey was pissed off at the success the Kurds were having and the fact PKK (Kurdish rebels from Turkey) fighters were a large part of the Kurdish army. Also, 3 to 4 million Syrian refugees had fled to Turkey, where they were causing societal issues !chuds and !nooticers might recognize. Consequently, they invaded Ifrin (the leftmost canton), kicked out the Kurds and resettled many refugees there.

Meanwhile Assad took the opportunity to wipe out any rebel pockets left south of Idlib/Aleppo. By and large, he seemed the biggest winner of a multi-year debacle which had left hundreds of thousands dead, an economy destroyed, and many millions fled in all directions, but Assad still in office and in control of the majority of the country and its population, and in negotiations with the Kurds, who'd earned some crucial respect and were angling for autonomy (obviously, independence was a non-starter, given the small size of Syrian Kurdistan, hostile neighbords, lack of port and the presence of Arab factions within the SDF).

2019: Sunni shenanigans

You'll notice a splotch of c*m on the green; over the course of the year, HTS (a Salafi Islamist group that had, unlike ISIS, renounced global jihad) mostly subdued other rebels in the Idlib area. I haven't mentioned inter-rebel fighting in the interests of brevity and sanity but you should know Wikipedia acerbically calls this the "fifth inter-rebel conflict." Keep that in mind when @sandkwinn and other 80-iq antisemites call for pan-Arabism, peace with Hamas, and the like. Arabs couldn't peacefully unify in a single PROVINCE while having 1. the exact same ideology, religion and langage and 2. least two, maybe four serious external enemies in common including a bloodthirsty tyrant and the world's worst terrorist organization.

Also, Turkey expanded their foothold in the east to a 30-km "buffer zone." The Kurds reacted by letting Assad's troops in to reestablish their presence alongside SDF forces throughout much of northern Syria. Notably, throughout the whole war, Turkey refused to consider a full invasion of Syria or direct, serious confrontation with Assad (for boring reasons), so this was basically ensuring an end to Turkish incursions in exchange for letting Assad back in the hen house.

In October, Trump's Navy SEALs capped Baghdadi in Idlib. The world rejoiced.

2020:

Assad, with serious Russian support, pushed up on Idlib, and the Kurds let him operate in even more of their territory. Dozens of Turks got merked by the Russians (probably on accident), causing a diplomatic rift and retaliatory bombing of Syrian gov't positions.

2021-2024: Nothing ever happens

The frontlines stabilized and fossilized, most direct conflict ending.

Sanctions of Assad's economy caused him to increasingly rely on the production and distribution of Captagon (meth / adderall type stim) to the gulf for foreign currency. Deciding their shit wasn't fricked enough, G-d sent them some earthquakes.

The Kurds mostly acknowledged Assad's suzerainty in case of a war with Turkey while retaining their militias and local administration. Occasional skirmishes against the Syrian Army and between Kurds and Arabs within the SDF continued.

HTS "unified" Idlib - in the bare minimum sense that the 11 other factions there acknowledged their superior position while remaining independent - and started professionalizing their army, integrating drones and shit.

The American proxies sit in the desert guarding a CIA listening post and the only direct road from Baghdad to Damascus.

Everyone got bored and stopped checking r/syriancivilwar.

UNTIL THIS WEEK

Wednesday, November 27th

Neighbors in the loop saw on X that HTS had launched a small offensive in the villages west of Aleppo, catching a mostly-demobilized Syrian army by surprise and capturing a few bases, some dozens of soldiers, vehicles and equipment commensurate with a raid of that size.

Ah, the famous West Aleppo HTS T-90 is returning to the area (mildly different owners to last time) pic.twitter.com/sso4Bhw5Bh

— Cᴀʟɪʙʀᴇ Oʙsᴄᴜʀᴀ (@CalibreObscura) November 27, 2024

This footage of regime soldiers running away from their positions was taken at 36.269153, 36.958279, just to the east of the town of Qubtan al-Jabal.

This confirms initial reports Syrian rebels have captured this town in theb western #Aleppo countryside.#Syria https://t.co/yf083BTbKW pic.twitter.com/HTjqGQmCR5

— Thomas van Linge (@ThomasVLinge) November 27, 2024

قوات الأسد يسقطون أسرى بالعشرات وأحدهم يوجه رسالة إلى الباقين في جيش الأسد#ردع_العدوان #إدارة_العمليات_العسكرية pic.twitter.com/SAV6WfYaTB

— قتيبة ياسين (@k7ybnd99) November 27, 2024

Most tweets are already deleted but there were some fun vids of them beating captives, a dead Russian or two, spoils of war etc. Nobody thought anything of it. We're all used to these shitty little propaganda raids from two-bit outfits in BIPOC parts of the world like Myanmar and Ukraine. You'd have to be mainling copium to expect anything more given the shit performance of the rebels the past decade and a half... right?

Thursday, November 28th

I was busy mowing the lawn, trimming trees and hedges, weeding, cleaning out the AC drain and, like all Americans, having Thanksgiving dinner. Turkey, not Syria, was on my mind.

Turkey was on the Syrian National Army's mind too, which is to say they were grateful Turkey did not take advantage of the fact HTS was overrunning their entire shit west of Aleppo, maybe the only bright side of the debacle so far. It seems the consolidation of the past few years paid off - HTS used better equipment, were better trained, and had drones and operators never before seen in sandshit outside Israel. The advance showed no signs of stopping.

Suheil al-Hasan was spotted near the front - the pro-Russian commander of the "elite" Tiger Forces and somewhat of a civil war celebrity.

HTS managed to swiftly advance into Khan al Asal - after fierce clashes, HTS manages to seize and secure the city/suburb

They are now at the gates of Aleppo and are carrying out artillery strikes on Aleppo https://t.co/BOblD6Uh5D pic.twitter.com/sFJAAFkYfA

— ScharoMaroof (@ScharoMaroof) November 28, 2024

They reached within 7km of Aleppo's center, killing and plundering on the way. Many Syrian army guys got caught with their pants down - an Arab specialty, to whom discipline outside of active combat is a foreign concept.

https://old.reddit.com/r/syriancivilwar/comments/1h25kga/dead_kia_as_regime_truck_ambushed_somewhere_in/

It looks like they knocked off an Iranian general...

NEW: Syrian rebels managed to kill IRGC’s Brigadier General Kiyomarth Porhashmi in Aleppo during the latest offensive, Iran’s SNN agency reports

He is described as the the commander of the Iranian advisors in Syria pic.twitter.com/7febUeRdm2

— Ragıp Soylu (@ragipsoylu) November 28, 2024

Meanwhile the Turks and Kurds got spooked...

🇷🇺🇸🇾⚡- Russian airstrikes are getting closer and closer to Turkish military presence. Footage shows Russian attacks against Arihah, just 2km from the Turkish base at Kafr Lata. pic.twitter.com/qTRjO1nYQL

— Zlatti71 (@Zlatti_71) November 28, 2024

🔴 Suriye Milli Ordusu, Halep Operasyonu’na katılmak üzere kuvvetlerini seferber ediyor. pic.twitter.com/NKT5hOHzIV

— Conflict (@ConflictTR) November 28, 2024

HTS and SNA media channels have started to post this - so we can do now too.

SDF is moving as well - SDF reinforcements are being deployed into Manbij. https://t.co/cYTHwBoBxQ pic.twitter.com/3nABfj9Iar

— ScharoMaroof (@ScharoMaroof) November 28, 2024

Friday, November 29th

HTS continued their excursion in Aleppo:

#BREAKING #Syria JUST IN: Video footage shows Syrian rebel forces in the Al-Furqan district of Aleppo. pic.twitter.com/b22deYQ6xM

— The National Independent (@NationalIndNews) November 29, 2024

Freeing their neighbors (and some hos) from the torture prisons:

https://old.reddit.com/r/syriancivilwar/comments/1h2vzk2/tariq_bin_ziyad_prison_near_alrahman_mosque/

Capturing mad shit:

https://old.reddit.com/r/syriancivilwar/comments/1h2aidp/videos_of_some_of_the_20_tanks_captured_by_rebels/

Opposition forces inside #Aleppo city have captured a whole stock of MANPADS.

Sources tell me more tanks, BMPs, anti-tank guided missiles & more have been seized in multiple weapons stores left behind by fleeing #Assad regime forces. pic.twitter.com/eCYD2wUJp8

— Charles Lister (@Charles_Lister) November 29, 2024

And the police HQ:

https://old.reddit.com/r/syriancivilwar/comments/1h2v880/hts_fighters_captured_the_aleppo_police/

Laughable showing by Assad honestly.

https://old.reddit.com/r/syriancivilwar/comments/1h2yxyi/rebels_caught_a_soldier_in_aleppo_who_had_been/

Most importantly, THEY TOOK THE CITADEL! This dumb butt castle or something was held by the regime the entire fricking war. It's almost unbreachable (by middle eastern standards) if properly defended. Big propaganda coup for the rebs.

History.#Syria opposition fighters pose in front of #Aleppo's citadel tonight, as the city falls from #Assad's control. pic.twitter.com/rhsHHhHAbY

— Charles Lister (@Charles_Lister) November 29, 2024

The future...?

Are Islamists (HTS), Turkey (SNA) and the Kurds (SDF) - the most unlikely allies - really going to campaign together against Assad? After 13 years during which zero cooperation took place between anyone, including at times when a slight intervention by, say, Turkey or Israel would have toppled the dictator? Or is this all hype and nothing ever happens? Will Assad counterattack with Russian or Iranian help and kick these neighbors back to Idlib?

No one knows

P.S. @DWHITE___________DYNAMITE please teach your mans how to spell drumstick

Tulsi Gabbard now officially oversees and manages the entire US intelligence community. https://t.co/5ahm2XisNH

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) February 12, 2025

Unfortunately yes. In 2007 the Sierra Club successfully sued the Forest Service to prevent them from creating a Categorical Exclusion (CE) to NEPA for controlled burns (the technical term is "fuel reduction"). The CE would have allowed the forest service to conduct burns without…

— Isaiah Taylor - making nuclear reactors (@isaiah_p_taylor) January 8, 2025

Environmentalism is a death cult that hates human flourishing

Most Based Comments

Basedness: 🔥🔥🔘🔘🔘

26M and 22F. You've been dating for 5 years meaning you were 21 and she was 17 when you started dating?Is no one else going to mention that? (252)

Yes thats correct. In hindsight, should've been a red flag that she didn't want to date people her own age. At the time, my peepee was doing the thinking. (-69)

Basedness: 🔥🔥🔘🔘🔘

The only way I'd say your girlfriend might be right is if your hygiene was lacking due to the phimosis. Noone likes an UTI given by old smegma, and then you'd need a real good plan how to address that.Other than that - time for you to find someone else to fulfill your dreams. (141)

I rinse my peepee thoroughly with warm water and it looks fairly clean to me. (-56)

Basedness: 🔥🔥🔘🔘🔘

Why did you go after a minor? That's the real red flag (50)

She went after me and I didn't say no (-50)

Angriest Comments

Angriness: 😡😡😡😡😡

Of course not. It's clear that her preference is "I don't want to get an infection." I can't believe how many people demonize her. One of my friends' ex had the same issue as him, and she said it stunk really bad, and she was getting infections because of it (this never happened with other bfs she had). Ultimately, she left because of this (149)

Yeah there's a lot of stuff missing here. I had a boyfriend once who's toenail wouldn't grow. He didn't have a rampant fungus problem but that one toenail did. My first suggestion was to go to the doctor, they have easy solutions for it. He kept googling household hacks and trying to fix it himself. It wasn't even a „his body is bothering me" issue. It was that I was just so freaking tired of it as a constant topic of conversation, ie him telling me he'd made progress, he thinks apple cider vinegar would work, he is going to shave it down, no it's gotten worse now etc etc etc etc. it was so freaking stupid. My response to all of it was „go to the doctor". He finally did and it went away right away. It wasn't a topic again. But I did break up with him anyways just because of the frustration. I can imagine if this is something that bothers both of them, and the „self help measures" are constantly a topic and taking over their lives more than it should, and the self help mea... (48)

Angriness: 😡😡😡😡😡

The amount of people jumping at the chance to tell you to dump her...sheesh.The whole thing reeks of "I love you and i don't want to leave you, but your peepee stinks so bad I'm going to have to do it if you don't get it fixed."And remember,  just because she doesn't love the smell of your fromunda cheese smelling peepee, doesn't mean there aren't millions of other women out there that will also not love it. Just snip it and get it over with. If she's not worth more than a piece of peepee skin to you,  maybe the next one will be.  (51)

Angriness: 😡😡😡😡😡

She apparently keeps getting UTI's I heard from other comments OP is a knob head (125)

Dude straaaiiight up OP has a nasty peepee if she's getting nonstop UTIs.My wife's ex gave her UTIs all the time and she really thought something was wrong with her til she stopped fricking him and stopped getting UTIs.Dude was lazy, didn't clean shit, barely cleaned himself if ever, truly pathetic.And the rest of ya, watch your mouth if you come asking why she stayed, abusive people abuse people into thinking they'll never find a way out of their situation without the abuser's help.Like my first thought is OP is a nasty little dude who's mad his gf wants him to shower or do anything that makes her life easier. (78)

Biggest Lolcow: /u/Unhappy-Pineapple459

Score: 🐮🐮🐮🐮🐮(+4🐮)

Number of comments: 20

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

This b-word is literally a redditor. Used to extend respect til I figured it out. Basically british bardfinn

Giving away condoms makes us popular

We may not have high speed rail but at least we have rap

Black people are cool

More censorship please

Trump is so dumb he's gonna do this tarded thing bc I don't like him

Long covid is real actually

What a life

This is all from the past day, she literally can't stop poooooosting

Double digit posts daily for four years. Basically a crack addict. At least she pays aevann's bills

Conclusion:

!nooticers !metashit

Thanks I'm just trying to get brunch tomorrow

YASSSS QUEEEN let me reiterate that abortions hurt but I have no regrets and fully support them

This guy is suggesting buying bricks and hurling them at Catholics. Based or nah?

https://www.lowes.com/pd/8-in-x-4-in-Clay-Red-Cored-Standard-Brick/5013595093

https://old.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/1i8z4bc/beware_anti_abortion_folks_marching_from_civic/m8y5ik0/?context=8

"Hand them glasses of chunky milk" huh?

Based? Finally someone pointed out Latinx are the dominant Catholic community. What does it mean, though? Will they connect the deportations with the pro-life latinx demographic?

AHHHHHH unironically gross and if you don't know they're talking about throwing a menstruation cup

Context: /r/LeopardsAteMyFace is a subreddit for reveling in the schadenfreude when someone suffers consequences from something they voted for or wanted to impose on other people. A large majority of the subreddit's existing content comes from posts on Twitter. Following recent events, the mods decided to ban all twitter content, and the community has questions.

Full thread

Highlights

I think screenshots should still be allowed. Banning the Leopard Party main communication channel will be bad for the sub.

So we want people to post screenshots and no link to verify so they have to go searching on twitter for that post to verify? No, ban means ban.

Is that the common reaction though (not being a peepee, genuinely curious)? I've never tried to verify a SS posted here, but that's just me. "Laugh and scroll on" kinda deal with me

The person who went there looking for the shot gave them traffic, anyone verifying gives them traffic, and the goal is just, no traffic. So simply, no traffic for Elon should be the goal.

I can't say I agree with the whole ban of content in general. Links, absolutely. Ban them entirely. But content in general being banned - I mentioned in another thread - is an "head in the sand" kind of methodology. It is still important to have an eye on what's happening and to share to others in order to keep people properly and promptly informed on what's happening. It's also important to know who to call out and who to push back on.

The problem is that viewing, even with adblockers, does in fact finance Nazis (and for a screenshot someone has to view it and as soon as someone fakes a screenshot enough people will head over to Twitter to see if the post is real). And the whole point of this endeavour is to no longer support a Nazi.

Fully in support of banning Xitter links, for sure. But most subs enacting this ban are still allowing screenshots. And I think Xitter is a primary source for a lot of content here, so banning the screenshots in addition to the links could impact this sub pretty severely.

It's time for Twitter to fully die it's deserved death

What, the leopards got so fat they began to eat the source of faces?!

Hey [OP], half this sub is X/Twitter screenshots. You'd be killing the sub. Allowing screenshots should a solid compromise

I remember there being a saying about compromising with Nazis. But if you can't find other nazis on the internet, maybe you're too lazy to post.

that saying doesnt even make sense in this context. twitter is the main source of content for this subreddit, disallowing screenshots of it will severely hurt the subreddit. we're not compromising with nazis, we're trying to compromise with the moderators to continue making fun of nazis.

If you can't find and display Leopards eating faces on the Internet without it in some way helping pay the rent for a Nazi propagandist, I don't want it on this sub and neither should you.

a screenshot of a tweet is not giving anyone income; no one on here looks up the tweet of a face-eating after seeing a screenshot of it. this is an extreme overreaction. links should be banned, banning screenshots is just gonna hurt the sub. we've become the faces and the leopards

I'm sorry your education system has not prepared you for this moment, but you're currently fighting FOR the hill with the Nazi flag planted in it, so I'm done listening to your opinion on how engagement works.

I'm sorry you're blinded by your knee-jerk reaction. you're fighting for the death of this sub (a sub for making fun of the people you think this decision will hurt). you've got your priorities backwards here

Who needs enemies to tear this sub apart when you have allies like these?

Good call. No screenshots is going to tank this sub, but too much schadenfreude is probably bad for you anyway.

schadenfreude is one of the few things we can enjoy going forward.

[And by all means, do. But imbibe responsibly ... taking pleasure in other people's pain is what they usually do after all. At some point we have to make sure that we stay better than them.](https://sh.reddit.com/r/LeopardsAteMyFace/comments/1i7h4ss/comment/m8lkpri/

Didn't this last election show us what taking the high road gets you? Frick them. I'm done trying to lead horses to water.

"but muh screenshots! the content!" Screenshots still encourage a non-zero amount of people to use the Nazi-owned site. If a sub that's dependent on content from a Nazi platform fades away because it won't support a Nazi, it's a worthwhile loss.

Then why are you on a sub depending on content from a nazi platform?

Screenshots need to be allowed! That's the main source of content for this sub. This is ridiculous.

Your opinion is ridiculous. Screenshots amplify the sites influence even without links.

Well good luck showing leopards eating people's faces when this sub just banned screenshots from the place where those people primarily hang out.

Yeah, cause there's no other way to communicate stupid shit from the right. /s

It's ill-advised strategies and virtue signaling that helped put Dems in this current position. The schadenfreude sub needs to be able to show schadenfreude. Looking at rightoids freak out is this sub's purpose. Turning off the BEST source of schadenfreude is contrary to that purpose. Scraping Facebook and random conservative subreddits is not the same. Let the other subs worry about amplifying messages.

We need screenshots. Half this subreddit is Xitter screenshot

I'm entirely in favour of banning links, but banning screenshots is going too far.

the less people care that xitter exists the better for everyone.. screenshots stops direct traffic but continues to give publicity to the nazis website which is what he feeds from. the internet is pretty big, pretty much unlimited I think we can find lots of content elsewhere.

Banning screen shots is (I'll put this nicely) shortsighted. Although moderators ruining their own subreddit by being shortsighted and heavy handed is a tale as old as Reddit.

Finally, now this sub can die.

Yeah not allowing SS kinda kills this sub.

"not allowing SS" is kinda the point

https://old.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1i7oslb/weve_become_the_faces_and_the_leopards/

two more pages inside the article

Nothing says 'I'm not an antisemite' like spouting Holocaust revisionism completely unprompted.

I think she thougth me saying 'Ashkenazi' was a reference to Nazis because she doesn't know that that's how it's actually spelled.

She also believes that Trump is Jewish because only jews are allowed to wear a kippah

!jidf