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.


  • thirtymilliondeadfish [she/her]
    ·
    1 year ago
    🟢 Martyr Izz El-Din Al-Qassam Brigades spokesperson, Abu Obeida (1/2):

    42 days since the start of the Al-Aqsa Flood battle on the glorious 7th of October, our fighters continue the operations of defense and confrontation against the invading zionist forces that are infiltrating Gaza City from several axes, continuing their incursion in the west of Beit Lahia and in Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip.

    In the last four days, our fighters have managed to damage and destroy 62 zionist military vehicles and put them out of service—ranging from Merkava tanks, personnel carriers, and bulldozers—through targeting them with Al-Yassin 105 anti-tank shells, Shuath explosives, and guerrilla action devices.

    Our fighters also targeted gatherings and individuals of enemy infantry forces or those fortified in some buildings with explosives, medium weapons, and sniper rifles.

    Our fighters in two separate operations three days ago were able to eliminate at least nine zionist soldiers outside their vehicles. Our fighters also destroyed two enemy military vehicles in northwest Beit Lahia yesterday morning with anti-tank shells.

    Yesterday, our fighters also were able to destroy an apartment that was sheltering enemy special forces in Beit Hanoun by targeting it with anti-fortification and anti-personnel shells, killing and injuring all who were fortified inside.

    The artillery continues to bombard enemy gatherings in the areas of infiltration or gathering areas inside and around Gaza, and short-range Rajoom missiles and mortar shells.

    The artillery targeted locations in the occupied cities, most notably "Tel Aviv" and Asqalan, with rocket barrages.

    While we are busy confronting the aggression and inflicting heavy losses on the occupation in the lives of its soldiers, officers, and vehicles, the criminal enemy forces are indulged in killing civilians, including children, women, and safe citizens, in their homes and places of stay.

    The enemy forces continue to violate all sanctities and commit war crimes, including storming hospitals, health centers, and civilian institutions, in search of evidence for their lies and imagined command centers.

    The enemy soldiers, under the protection of tank columns, armored vehicles, squadrons of planes, and drones, continue to attack the bodies of martyrs, patients, the wounded, medical staff, premature infants, and displaced civilians.

    🟢 Martyr Izz El-Din Al-Qassam Brigades spokesperson, Abu Obeida (2/2): — Our fighters are still pursuing enemy forces and their vehicles from street to street, ambushing their forces, dealing lethal blows against them, and forcing them to retreat on some fronts and continuously change their movement routes.

    We have prepared ourselves for a long and continuous defense from all directions. Every moment the occupation forces spend in Gaza costs them continuous losses, by the power of Allah.

    We have documented and displayed many operations of targeting and destroying enemy vehicles and targeting their soldiers and will continue to show more of them, God willing.

    What the corrupt criminal Netanyahu and his cowardly war leadership are searching for in Al-Shifa Complex and the hospitals of Gaza is a subject of ridicule. They are looking for a mirage, demonstrating their incompetence and hollow arrogance.

    The entry of Nazi enemy tanks into a medical complex for a show of force and control is the biggest proof of their failure and defeat, as well as a scandal for the entire global system that claims to defend human rights and international law.

    We salute the striking arms of our people and their fighters in the West Bank and the fighters of our [Arab and Islamic] nation who have risen to join the Al-Aqsa Flood battle in an escalating and continuous action.

    We call on them to escalate painful strikes against this Nazi criminal enemy on all fronts and battlefields; every blow directed at this enemy in its war against our people and nation is a painful and effective one, making the enemy realize that they are fighting against one people and one nation that rejects them and is striving to resist and sweep them off our land and our holy sites.

    To the enemy's public deceived by their fascist government: the news of your dead soldiers in the field will reach you sooner or later, and they are far more than you expect.

    Regarding your prisoners, we wanted this issue to be a humanitarian one. Among the motives and triggers of the Al-Aqsa Flood operations on 7th October was your extremist criminal government's assault on our prisoners in jails.

    We have offered to complete a prisoner exchange deal since the start of the battle to resolve this humanitarian issue. We have tried and struggled to preserve the lives of your prisoners, sometimes succeeding and sometimes failing, due to the barbaric bombing by your army.

    We inform you that it seems your leadership has decided to doom your prisoners to loss and oblivion like Ron Arad, or to killing like Nachshon Wachsman, or forgotten and neglected like Shaul Aaron and Hadar Goldin.

    Finally, to our great nation's children, peace be upon you for your sacrifices. Peace be upon you for your patience and steadfastness in the face of tyranny. Peace upon the souls of our martyrs, our innocent children, and our oppressed people.

    Peace be upon your souls that will one day soar in the skies of our liberated Al-Quds and Al-Aqsa, purified from the defilement of your killers. Peace upon your blood that declares every killer a criminal and every negligent, coward, and pretender to humanity.

    Peace be upon you, our great nation, as you expose the hypocritical world with its flawed laws, one-eyed organizations, and double standards.

    "Victory comes only from Allah, the Mighty, the Wise." It is indeed a jihad of victory or martyrdom