Image is of the Herðubreið tuya in northeast Iceland, formed when ice sheets covered Iceland thousands of years ago. It's not really relevant to the Grindavik situation but I think they look neat. The title also doesn't make much sense but I saw the pun and took it.


Off in Iceland, different kinds of tunnels are causing problems. Underneath the town of Grindavik in southwestern Iceland, not far from the capital of Reykjavik, tens of thousands of earthquakes are portending the movement of magma in tunnels underneath the peninsula, which could breach the surface and cause an eruption. The 4000 residents of the town have been evacuated as the magma has risen to less than a kilometer below the surface.TRG

Icelandic volcanism is pretty fascinating, with the country sitting on the mid-Atlantic ridge, the birthing line of new oceanic crustal rock running right down the Atlantic ocean for many thousands of kilometers, as well as a hotspot, an upwelling of mantle material of debated origin which also feeds otherwise-inexplicable volcanism in the middle of tectonic plates, like Yellowstone and Hawaii.

An additional factor here is the presence of glaciers. When a volcano erupts underneath a glacier, the melting water cools the lava rapidly, causing features usually seen in volcanoes that erupt under the sea like pillow basalts, but also unique features like tuyas, which are steep-sided but flat-topped volcanoes. The rapid melting of water can also cause glacial floods called jökulhlaups.

Icelandic volcanoes have had significant regional and even global impacts in the past. In 2010, the volcano Eyjafjallajökull, which was a volcano covered by an ice cap, erupted and the ash cloud spread across Europe, causing airline disruption for about a month which caused nearly $2 billion in total losses for airline companies - though this seems pretty quaint compared to the pandemic's impact on airlines in retrospect. Back in the 1780s, the Laki volcano killed a quarter of the Icelandic population due to sulphur dioxide causing massive crop failure and cattle death. This eruption's impacts spread to Europe and beyond, causing notable worldwide temperature drops and thus crop failures and may well have been a contributing factor to the outbreak of the French Revolution, which obviously heralded the death of the feudal order and the eventual primacy of capitalism in its place. That being said, any eruption at Grindavik is very probably not going to have any significant worldwide impacts - there are over a hundred volcanoes already in Iceland, and regular climate change is doing a great job at causing mayhem right now anyway. It's also still possible that there won't be an eruption at all, at least not in the short to medium term.


Friendly reminder: when commenting about a news event, especially something that just happened, please provide a source of some kind. While ideally this would be on nitter or archived, any source is preferable to none at all given.

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


Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:

UNRWA daily-ish reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.

English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.

English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.

Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.


The Country of the Week is Iceland! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.

This week's update is here!

Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Links and Stuff

The bulletins site is down.

Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists

Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Add to the above list if you can.


Resources For Understanding The War


Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.

Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.

Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.

Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.

On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.

Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.


Telegram Channels

Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.

Pro-Russian

https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.

https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.

https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.

https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.

https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.

https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.

https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.

https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.

https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.

https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.

Pro-Ukraine

Almost every Western media outlet.

https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.

https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.


Last week's discussion post.


  • mkultrawide [any]
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Today in "Headlines you don't want to see when your reelection campaign hasn't even really started":

    Politico: Here’s How Biden Can Turn It Around

    Just under one year before the presidential election, Democrats should be concerned but not panicked about President Biden’s standing. As last week’s results demonstrated, abortion remains the most potent issue with which to defeat Republicans. And if former President Donald Trump is the GOP nominee, his return to the spotlight and potential felony convictions will ensure that Biden is compared to the alternative, not the almighty, as the president likes to say.

    For Biden to win reelection, however, he must make changes. I spoke with dozens of Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans about what the president can do on personnel, presentation and strategy to improve his prospects. Their suggestions (pleadings?) are below.

    Hmm, what do y'all think it will be? National abortion rights? Lying about student loans debt relief? Cost controls?

    Enough with the bravado and denialism. His aides are under no illusion about their challenge. Even some of his most committed loyalists told me he needs to make changes.

    Yet the president often displays his resentments in ways that do nothing to move public opinion and only delay needed adjustments. And some of his younger aides mimic his snark.

    Calling David Axelrod “a prick,” as a person who has heard Biden use the word says he does in private, is not a strategy to win 270 electoral votes. And repeating a PG version of the same animus in public while litigating polling with the White House press corps also won’t make Biden’s reelection any likelier.

    Shaming or ignoring dissent doesn’t make it go away. Biden, with his capacious character and notable lack of Irish Alzheimer’s, is capable of embracing his skeptics. Look how he’s courted and won over Senator Bernie Sanders, which helped preempt any primary challenge from the left. And compare that to how he dismissed Rep. Dean Phillips’s concerns this year and then dodged Phillips’s calls before he entered the race last month.

    Suggestion #1: Stop being an asshole

    Good luck with getting a sundowning 80-something to stop being a dick.

    Also, Irish Alzheimer's is apparently when you "forget everything except your grudges" lmao.

    And on this score, why is Biden not doing more to secure the support of Liz Cheney? She has made clear she’s determined to stop Trump’s return to the Oval Office. Yet Cheney is still publicly keeping open a presidential bid of her own. Biden can let her publish her book next month, but then she should be brought into the fold. Whether it’s called Republicans Against Trump or Republicans for Biden, Cheney must be deployed and do all she can do to bring other prominent figures with her, including her father and former President George W. Bush.

    Suggestion #2: Get Liz Chenney on board.

    hasan-ok-dude

    No ambassador has seemed to remake the role as Biden’s envoy to Japan, Rahm Emanuel. Yet the best service Rahm-san can offer Biden isn’t using his post in Asia to forge Pacific alliances and taunt the Russians and Chinese. The president should call Emanuel back stateside and have him chair the reelection.

    Doing so would demonstrate a willingness by Biden to broaden his inner circle, create a manic urgency in the campaign that is Emanuel’s trademark and, by elevating one of the most ferocious operatives of our times, signal that when Trump goes low the Democrats will go fucking lower.

    Suggestion #3: Get Rahm Emmanuel to run his campaign.

    You know, the guy famous for never violating Suggestion #1.

    Speaking of putting the best team forward, Jennifer O’Malley Dillon should either leave the White House and formally manage the campaign or be given the role David Plouffe had in 2012 and oversee the...

    Suggestion #4: Some administrative shit no one cares about except for DC losers.

    The White House must move to the political equivalent of a war footing. Biden should lure back former Chief of Staff Ron Klain in some capacity. Few modern chiefs...

    Suggestion #5: More administrative shit no one cares about except for DC losers.

    On the topic of the Mideast, once the Israeli incursion into Gaza ends there will presumably be some steps toward diplomacy. Biden cannot run the country, run for reelection and oversee a new Mideast peace process. He should appoint a pair of high-level envoys for the post: Bill and Hillary Clinton.

    Dispatching the Clintons would show Biden’s commitment to a resolution, offer the former first couple a final mission that could be the capstone of their public lives and help channel their talents in more constructive ways than letting them chew over polling data and rage about Trump. Clinton shared credit with former Senator George Mitchell for landing the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland, and Biden can do the same if there’s even a temporary peace in the Holy Land.

    Suggestion #6: Send Bill and Hillary Clinton, two of the most discredited and distrusted US politicians in the Arab world, to the Middle East to bomb more hospitals and establish new slave markets fix that "whole Middle East thing".

    Biden cannot dedicate himself to the campaign like he could have as a younger man. So make use of all those next-generation stars scheming for the presidency and thirsting to be on camera. The way to win favor with tomorrow’s Democratic primary voters is to stop Trump now. So let them compete for who can emerge as the best advocate for Biden and against Trump.

    Some of these would-be candidates are coming to the GOP debates, but that’s not nearly enough. The governors, the senators, the cabinet secretaries and the infrastructure czar should be the faces of Biden’s campaign, along with the president and vice-president. The message: with Democrats remaining in power, it’s not just an 82-year-old at the helm but also this group — Team Normal when compared to Trump and his Star Wars bar term two.

    Suggestion #7: Get "up and coming" Democratic stars to play a larger role in Biden's "Team Normal" against Trump's "Team Star Wars".

    I believe this is the bad branding that Democrats love to talk about.

    While we’re at it, make better use of the Congressional Black Caucus broadly. Biden, for good reason, values his friendship with South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn. But the president must enlist younger figures like Senators Raphael Warnock and Cory Booker, and Representatives Marc Veasey, Lauren Underwood and Joe Neguse in the way he did Maxwell Frost on guns.

    Suggestion #8: Use black Democrats more.

    Perhaps the most overwhelming economic messaging advice I picked up from Democrats was for him to heave “Bidenomics” into the dumpster. Attempting to make voters believe something they don’t is folly. Attaching your name to that strategy borders on masochistic.

    At a time when people are paying more for housing, gas and groceries, focusing on job growth and the unemployment rate is ineffective. Use that sense of empathy and acknowledge voter concerns about inflation. Take steps, with executive actions, to address costs. And brag about what you have done, not because it’ll make voters believe they’re wrong about how they feel but because it reminds them you’ve been fighting — and in the face of opposition.

    Suggestion #9: Actually address and take steps to fight rising economic hardships instead of trying to champion "Bidenomics" which everyone thinks is a failure.

    We finally get to a halfway decent suggestion. I am unsure of whether or not the author doesn't know what the inverted pyramid is or if the placement is this suggestion deep in the article means they simply don't think it's that important. Similarly interesting that so many Democratic insiders told the author that "Bidenomics" needa to get tossed in the trash.

    Which raises one of the most vital imperatives: Go on the offensive against the GOP. Where are the frontal attacks on Republicans? Especially with Biden at risk of defeat because of slippage among working-class voters of all races, it’s confounding that he doesn’t lash the opposition for siding with the wealthy.

    Suggestion #10: Attack the GOP.

    Groundbreaking, I never would have thought of this one.

    Lastly, to paraphrase a future Middle East envoy, voters care more about their future than your past. Tell them what you will do in a second term. Be forward-looking. And contrast your vision for the next four years with that of the candidate who’s, literally folks, running on retribution.

    Codifying Roe and lower drug prices versus bureaucratic purges and immigrant detention camps. And, yes, take some risks that are out of your comfort zone but can motivate the disaffected. Legal weed? I’ll toke to that.

    Suggestion #11: Joe Biden should talk about doing a bunch of stuff in his second term that he his absolutely never going to do.

    • emizeko [they/them]
      ·
      1 year ago

      Look how he’s courted and won over Senator Bernie Sanders, which helped preempt any primary challenge from the left.

      internet-delenda-est

    • Flinch [he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      Suggestion #12: give me my $2000 you old decrepit fuck. Then die.

    • nat_turner_overdrive [he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      Suggestion #7: Get "up and coming" Democratic stars to play a larger role in Biden's "Team Normal" against Trump's "Team Star Wars".

      I believe this is the bad branding that Democrats love to talk about.

      Holy shit, these fucking nerds watched the Mos Eisley bar scene in Star Wars and didn't immediately think "whoah, cool bar" ?

    • ziggurter [he/him, comrade/them]
      ·
      1 year ago

      The hilarious and most enraging thing is that they might be right, since it really doesn't matter what the working-class population thinks about anything. Biden may, indeed, just have to court the elitist, neoliberal snobs this is appealing to. walking-dead amerikkka

    • Evilphd666 [he/him, comrade/them]
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Send Bill and Hillary Clinton

      michael-laugh oh please I'm sure Mr. epstein Mrs. destroyer of Libya and "can't we just drone strike journalists" is going to somehow unfuck this colossal fuckup.

      How about stop arming fascists?

      • mkultrawide [any]
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        "Hey, I heard y'all liked the Oslo Accords so much, don't y'all want some Oslo Accord 2?"