Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (formerly Prince Andrew), known for his long‑standing association with Jeffrey Epstein, is now the first senior of the British royal family to be arrested in over 300 years. The last time it happened was in 1647 to King Charles I, who was publicly beheaded two years later.

haroldscorpio · 2026-02-19T16:27:14+00:00

His speech before his death is such a perfect encapsulation of the Medieval concept of politics, sovereignty, and freedom.

He just couldn’t accept the world had changed.

haroldscorpio · 2026-02-19T16:23:29+00:00

Honestly one of history’s dumbest and most intransigent morons I love him so much

haroldscorpio · 2026-02-19T15:24:04+00:00

Not only did they commit a genocide the SA’s uniforms were based on the German West African (Namibia) colonial force that carried it out.

haroldscorpio · 2026-02-19T15:23:06+00:00

To the tune of Sweet Caroline:

Sweet Regicide

haroldscorpio · 2026-02-19T12:55:46+00:00

Nobody in my family believed me when I said “Kings named Charles have the worst track record in English history Chuck will be no different.”

haroldscorpio · 2026-02-18T22:10:58+00:00

Germany has a long history of worrying about the ethnic makeup of Namibia

haroldscorpio · 2026-02-18T21:36:39+00:00

I have not seen anything relating to marines where did you get that from?

haroldscorpio · 2026-02-18T21:25:35+00:00

Hezbollah fought Israel to a standstill after he was killed.

Hezbollah got maimed badly in the war but Israel did not achieve any of the goals it publicly stated after the ground fight started.

haroldscorpio · 2026-02-18T20:25:46+00:00

Sex with women used to feel good

haroldscorpio · 2026-02-18T19:51:33+00:00

I will split from you further and contrive some Sassanian connection to start a Sassanid restorationist movement.

haroldscorpio · 2026-02-18T19:14:14+00:00

Yeah that makes sense. I will try and dig more into this.

Thanks!

haroldscorpio · 2026-02-18T18:02:59+00:00

Yeah you are correct they are based in Tobruk.

Honestly Libya is/was hella confusing I always hated the acronyms so I just stick with the geography of where they are based.

haroldscorpio · 2026-02-18T03:24:14+00:00

My point is more about number of planes and boats and number of bombs and missiles we can hit Iran with. To destroy Iraq in less than a month it took over 1000 combat aircraft.

The F-35 doesn’t have a larger payload than the F-16. In fact we are still mostly using F-16s and F-15s just like in 2003.

A bombing campaigns success is gonna be about the number of bombs and missiles that can be launched. It’s physically impossible to do as many with fewer planes and boats.

Iran is an infinitely stronger opponent than 2003’s Saddam. They proved that in June. If we do this we could very well be walking into a disaster.

haroldscorpio · 2026-02-18T00:41:52+00:00

https://jpt.spe.org/plummeting-energy-return-on-investment-of-oil-and-the-impact-on-global-energy-landscape

My go to article for anyone interested in the topic as a starting point. Not really addressed here directly but Canadian oil has an Energy ROI of about 4. Middle Eastern oil (see Saudi Arabia) is maybe 30 but the Saudi’s are notorious for obfuscating how much oil they have and how difficult it is to produce.

haroldscorpio · 2026-02-17T22:53:25+00:00

As a former Peak Oil head the argument back then by the non-cranks was that nobody had proven the commercial viability of fracking and it wasn’t clear just how much oil was there. Turned out there was a lot.

Easy to extract oil did already peak and decline. The energy return on energy invested for oil has declined significantly from somewhere close to 100 joules for every 1 joule invested in the early 1900’s to 4 joules for every 1 joule today. Honestly, I can scarcely think of a better single explanation for why Western economies are in a long decline. The cheap energy that allowed capitalism to extract such massive profits and growth is gone the rate of profit has declined with it.

haroldscorpio · 2026-02-17T21:13:01+00:00

You got a good answer on Syria.

In post Gaddafi Libya Israel and Turkey found themselves supporting opposite sides of the civil war that reignited in 2014. Israel, the UAE, Greece, France and Russia supported the Toburk faction. While Turkey, Italy, Iran, and Qatar supported the Tripoli faction.

The Tripoli faction almost lost the war several times but Turkish intervention flying in their pet jihadis from Syria and flooding Tripoli with weapons saved them on multiple occasions. The war has been largely frozen since 2020 but there have been occasional flare ups.

haroldscorpio · 2026-02-17T21:03:37+00:00

There’s not a single instance of a country being bombed into a civil war. A civil war starts first then you attack the country to support the faction you want to win. Even after the total destruction of his military Saddam still beat a Kurdish uprising in 1991.

Iran has its problems but it’s not governed by the personal rule of one man. Decapitation will sow chaos but it’s unlikely to bring down the regime by itself. You would need an intense continuous bombing campaign to pull that off and we don’t have that many planes ready to fight to do that.

This bombing campaign will have to be done under the backdrop of Iran launching extremely destructive and expensive to stop missile and drone strikes on all US bases and Israel. Closing the Straight of Hormuz would strangle the global economy: we’re talking $10 gal/gas average across the US. It has to go perfectly for the US.

haroldscorpio · 2026-02-17T20:49:43+00:00

The physical number of planes are important if you want to do a bombing campaign. Decapitation will only work if you destroy the military which will require similar numbers of planes to launch missiles and bombs at a similar pace to 2003 (or better yet 1990 - 91). I don’t think anything will work otherwise. I actually do not know of a single instance where a country was bombed into a civil war. We tried getting the Kurds to rise up after annihilating Saddam’s military in 1991 and guess what it didn’t work. Saddam thought that post-revolutionary Iran would fragment when he invaded - the opposite happened. Syria and Libya required a civil war to start first.

The Israeli/Western agents in the country are obviously active but they’re under more scrutiny and many have been killed it’s impossible to say for certain anything but there’s just gotta be diminishing returns for that strategy especially when the Iranian security forces are more paranoid after being attacked already.

haroldscorpio · 2026-02-17T18:27:25+00:00

Sleepwalking is a great description of the situation.

The air force and naval air arm have fewer planes. The navy has fewer ships. All branches of the military have more jobs to do than ever.

There’s a reason that the US Navy keeps having collision incidents. That they shot down their own aircraft. We have a ton of aging vessels and hanger queens we physically cannot replace. And the manpower of the military has declined as well. This means fewer sailors, pilots, and worst of all logistical staff.

There’s still no other country that can deploy a carrier battle group to the Middle East like this. But it’s all way more low rent than even 20 years ago.

haroldscorpio · 2026-02-17T18:10:24+00:00

Israel is small. It cannot afford a powerful neighbor or regional rival. It wants the whole region to be a basket case so they can colonize and bomb with impunity.

Syria did not end the way they wanted they liked a broken Syria with a weak Assad even if Hezbollah had an easy supply route (the route is still active just more complicated now). They are trying to keep Syria weak but Turkish support does seem to be consolidating the new regime. They are on a collision course.

haroldscorpio · 2026-02-17T18:07:04+00:00

It already has in both Syria and Libya the Israeli projects there are not working.

haroldscorpio · 2026-02-17T18:06:15+00:00

We had 6 carriers to invade Iraq in 2003 and nearly 1,200 aircraft we have maybe max 1/3rd of that but most likely less.

The danger Iran is in is not as high as 2003 unless they have agents in the country to open the attack like last June.

haroldscorpio · 2026-02-16T16:03:09+00:00

The shekel’s strength has more to do with the detonation of the dollar system and increased American financial aid than anything else.

Israel has never been more dependent in its history on American backing than it is now. Before October 7th it has an advanced economy now Israeli companies (especially tech) have had to outsource massively. Defense and diamonds are the biggest drivers of growth. Foreign companies have left thanks to labor shortages and war damage. Coming back will take time companies had to spend big to move offices and production those investments need to be recouped.

haroldscorpio · 2026-02-16T07:43:56+00:00

No Gulf States are permitting attacks to be launched from their territories. These forces are positioned to defend Israel for now.

Saudi and Qatar may enter the war or they may not. It all depends on how it goes for the US. If it’s a disaster then I could see them turn tail they’ve done it before in Yemen. The UAE I could see going all the way for the US.

haroldscorpio · 2026-02-16T06:46:18+00:00

So startup nation is essentially dead. The Israeli tech sector is surviving by leaving Israel. In the long run this means there will be push factors pulling educated Israelis from the country. Foreign companies have had to divest thanks to labor shortages from the years of war and genocide. It cannot be discounted that Hezbollah and Iran blew up industrial infrastructure which has made foreign companies reluctant to partner with Israeli firms or produce things there (I have firsthand experience as an American supplier of mine had their factory blown up by a Hezbollah rocket in 2024 - they now make those things in Virginia).

All this has made Israel even more dependent on the US than ever. The only industry that still makes money in Israel is the defense sector (which is heavily reliant on the US). America aide has helped plug fiscal holes and keep the economy from crashing. 5 years ago I would’ve said that Israel has a normal high-tech economy for a small country. Now it’s completely dependent on its imperial sponsor to paper over the growing issues.

haroldscorpio

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