[Epstein] Hello madda / Hello fadda / Gotta syndrome / Called Havana!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [Epstein] Hello madda / Hello fadda / Gotta syndrome / Called Havana!

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Azathoth: Apr 3, 2001

Endman posted:

I have no problem believing Nickelodeon is shot through with pedophiles

Yep, every news article about Dan Schneider just sorta talks about him like no one else at Nickelodeon knew him and he was just sorta off doing his own thing as opposed to just being a piece of a larger scheme.

# ? Mar 27, 2024 01:58

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# ? Apr 27, 2024 06:26

Mandel Brotset: Jan 1, 2024

selec posted:

boots riley has great politics but ultimately he's doing dollar store dj quik on a lot of these tracks. that's pretty good--if you're going to be the dollar store version of somebody's beats you could do a loving lot worse.

look at moneybags here, too good for the dollar store

# ? Mar 27, 2024 02:04

Good Soldier Svejk: Jul 5, 2010

Real hurthling! posted:

it was we were talking about years ago

I definitely remember articles talking about how much of a creep Schneider was years ago

Hollywood should probably be destroyed for everybody's well being

# ? Mar 27, 2024 02:05

Perry Mason Jar: Feb 24, 2006; "Della? Take a lid"

It's back in the cycle with Quiet On Set airing now.

# ? Mar 27, 2024 02:19

Al!: Apr 2, 2010

Endman posted:

I have no problem believing Nickelodeon is shot through with pedophiles

ok but the lil saint james thing is a stretch

# ? Mar 27, 2024 02:42

Dr. Jerrold Coe: Feb 6, 2021; Is it me?

Mandel Brotset posted:

look at moneybags here, too good for the dollar store

shits like $1.25 now

# ? Mar 27, 2024 03:21

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

some unrelated bits and pieces:

code:

https://twitter.com/TheInsiderPaper/status/1772612663966626121

quote:

BREAKING: Prince Harry name appears in one of a number of civil lawsuits involving Sean �Diddy� Combs, the rapper facing accusations of sex-trafficking

"Mr. Combs was known for throwing the "best" parties. Affiliation with, and or sponsorship of Mr. Combs sex-trafficking parties garnered legitimacy and access to celebrities such as famous athletes, political figures, artist, musicians, and international dignitaries like British Royal, Prince Harry.."

___

code:

https://twitter.com/jason_kint/status/1772459601356583268

quote:

Whoa. Facebook had a secret "Project Ghostbusters" (get it?) which allegedly was to decrypt "man-in-the-middle" style Snapchat traffic to copy it. Yellow highlight indicates redactions just lifted in nine unsealed plaintiffs briefs in private antitrust lawsuit. Wild stuff. /1

quote:

A lot of new stuff. There was lots of reporting (including Apple threats to boot Facebook) at the time on Facebook's software and Onavo acquisition allowing it to "spy" on competitive apps but I recall the decryption was written as a hypothetical. CEO email kickstarting it. /2

quote:

You can read the press back in Jan 2019 spoon fed by Facebook PR to friendlies with no mentions of decrypting SSL then compare to this internal email below sent to Facebook's most senior executives - "currently includes SSL decryption"... /3

quote:

Here is the full unsealed docket item including the allegations against Facebook for "wiretapping" Snapchat including the Zuckerberg emails. /6

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.369872/gov.uscourts.cand.369872.735.0.pdf

quote:

And the allegations do get worse...seeing the underlying evidence at trial is important. "The company's highest-level engineering executives through the IAAP Program was a legal, technical, and security nightmare...'I can't think of a good argument why this is okay.'" /12

# ? Mar 27, 2024 08:46

fanfic insert: Nov 4, 2009

Scarabrae posted:

always coming back to the brits royalty eh? ya know the French had some good ideas about that

Someone should produce a dance floor hit about it

# ? Mar 27, 2024 09:53

Jose: Jul 24, 2007; Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster and writer

Prince William was also at the same diddy event harry was at but weirdly has been cut out of the media coverage

# ? Mar 27, 2024 10:13

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

a couple more:

code:

https://twitter.com/frederik_bosch/status/1772711793262997872

quote:

�Dodi Al Fayed ended his romance with Hollywood star Daryl Hannah just three days before he went on holiday with Princess Diana.�

code:

https://twitter.com/Shortwoman93/status/1772736879424577657

quote:

👀 This new fact has me remembering a 90s gossip column that mentioned Dodi Fayed dated Marla Maples and was friendly with Nicole Brown Simpson and her sister

___

code:

https://twitter.com/bidetmarxman/status/1593635146649186304

quote:

On Sept 28, 1994, a passenger ferry from Estonia to Sweden sank in the middle of the Baltic Sea, along with 852 souls. But what was officially explained as the tragic result of a defective bow design was, in fact, a massive NATO coverup.

This is the story of the MS Estonia

On Sept 27, 1994, NATO military assets assembled around Norway for a naval military exercise called Cooperative Venture 94, the first �Partnership for Peace.� The exercises involved 15+ ships and several maritime aircraft prepared to conduct search & rescue operations.

That same day, vehicles and passengers in the Estonian city of Tallinn loaded onto the MS Estonia. They departed at 19:15, bound for Stockholm with 989 people on board, 803 of them passengers. The overnight journey typically took approximately 15 hours.

The ferry was large, with a total length of 157 m and nine decks. The ship�s internal passageways were labyrinthine, with long corridors and stairwells leading to dead ends. The lowermost deck, below the vehicle decks, was occupied by sleeper cabins.

Cars loaded the ship�s vehicle decks via a ramp at the bow. A bow visor concealed the ramp during the voyage. The ramp rotated upwards during loading and lowered and locked into place during transit. The ramp provided the primary watertight seal.

Initially, sailing conditions were moderate but soon became rougher once the ship reached open seas. Although a storm generated high winds from the southwest (50�60 km/h) and large waves (3�4 meters), conditions were in no way unprecedented for the North Baltic Sea.

At 01:02, passengers were awoken by a loud metallic bang followed by an abrupt heel to starboard. The bang was reported by several survivors, particularly those who were in the sleeper cabins on Deck 1 at the time. One survivor even reported being thrown from their bunk.

The bang was accompanied by scraping, as though the ship was moving through ice. Some witnesses assumed the ship had run aground. Survivors reported that after the sudden heel to starboard, the heel relaxed to a stable �list� (ie. persistent tilt) of ~10�.

Many survivors who were on Deck 1 (below the vehicle deck) during impact reported seeing water coming up from *below* Deck 1. A few minutes later, the list again increased, this time more slowly and steadily over the next 15 minutes.

Between 01:22�01:24, two distress calls were received over the emergency radio frequency by a nearby ferry. On the mayday call, Estonia�s navigator reported the ship had developed a bad list, which he estimated to be 20 - 30� to the starboard side.

However, as the accident unfolds, there are indications the mayday calls are being jammed, as are all radio communications throughout the Northern Baltic Sea. The regional telephone network also inexplicably goes down for an hour at 01:03, just a few minutes after the loud bang.

30 minutes after the loud bang, the ferry�s list had increased to 60-70�, making it easier to walk on walls than the floor. However, the rapidity of the listing and the labyrinthine corridors made escape extremely difficult. The ship�s corridors quickly became death traps.

Due to the rapidity of the sinking, lifeboats aren�t launched. Instead, life rafts are haphazardly thrown into the water, forcing people to jump into the 10�C stormy seas. Those unable to swim to a raft and climb aboard perished.

The Estonia sinks in less than an hour, a speed that has only ever been seen in ships with hulls torn open by collisions or torpedoes. Yet, despite the battalion of NATO naval forces assembled within an hour�s flight time of the ferry, none assisted with the rescue.

8 nearby ships hear Estonia�s mayday, but only 5 redirect to help. Ut�, a Finnish radar station 50 km to the north, records ship positions as they head toward Estonia�s last radar reflection. Two unknown vessels 11-13 km east of the Estonia�s position never assist and disappear.

Signals from emergency locator beacons (EPIRBs), which should have deployed automatically, were never received, despite the beacons being checked to be in full working order only a week prior. These buoys relied on direct communication with the Cospas-Sarsat satellite network.

Helicopters don�t arrive until 2 hrs after the distress call is received. 138 people were pulled from life rafts by helicopter and boat, with 1 later dying in hospital. In total, 852 people perished, making it Europe�s deadliest peacetime maritime disaster in the 20th century.

The morning of the sinking, and before any formal investigation, the Swedish PM Bildt ordered the Swedish Maritime Administration (SMA) to investigate bow visors on other ferries because �a construction fault may have caused the accident.�

Three surviving crew members were interviewed about what they saw on the morning of the rescue. One of the crew initially said he saw a leaking but closed ramp, but later adjusted his story to claim he didn�t see the ramp directly, only via video monitor.

On the day after the sinking, Russia extended an offer to Sweden�s UD (Ministry for Foreign Affairs) to help rescue any potentially alive passengers trapped in the wreck, who may have been able to survive in air pockets for up to a week after sinking. Sweden never responds.

The Prime Ministers of Estonia, Finland, and Sweden soon met and agreed on a coalition investigation into the sinking, forming the Joint Accident Investigation Commission (JAIC). However, it soon becomes apparent that there is an informational hierarchy and Sweden is at the helm.

Shortly after, the head of the Swedish Maritime Administration (SMA) publicly criticizes Swedish Prime Minister Bildt and is forced to resign. His replacement was Johan Franson, the SMA�s Chief Legal Officer.

A week later, a new Swedish government takes over from Bildt. The new government puts Ines Uusmann, the Minister of Communications, in charge of the investigation. However, it becomes clear that Uusmann relies entirely on Franson for information.

On Sept 30, Finnish vessels conducted a sonar scan of the wreck and found evidence that the ship�s bow visor is still partially attached, or at least resting directly on the wreck's bow. But the bow visor is missing when the first official ROV returns video on October 2.

On October 18, the JAIC announced that it had found the bow visor a mile west of the wreck. The 56-ton visor is raised a month later and brought to shore to be scrutinized by the commission. This scrutiny forms the bulk of the commission�s analysis of why Estonia sank.

The official theory is that locking bolts holding the bow visor in place failed due to wave impacts. But when divers recover a crucial bolt from the bow visor and bring it to the surface for investigation, the Swedish navy commander throws it back into the sea.

But a 2021 review of the bow visor found unequivocally that the extensive damage present on the visor could not have come from mechanical impact forces alone. Instead, the damage must have been, in large part, the result of explosives.

Since the ship came to rest upside down on the very soft silty-clay seafloor only 80 meters below, it was easily accessible. Between 4-10 Dec 1994, advanced divers from Rockwater, a Norwegian dive company, descended to the wreck.

Divers recorded video and dive logs. In total, Rockwater officially logged over 70 hrs of video, which it passed into SMA�s custody, who are overseeing diving operations. However, when the other members of the JAIC requested copies of the videos, huge chunks of time were missing.

These video cuts, according to Franson, were made to protect the dignity of the deceased, but the cuts appear unrelated to areas where bodies might be expected. Additionally, the footage is non-chronological and inexplicably didn�t include a single shot of the starboard hull.

Officially, no Swedish divers ever descended to the wreck. But five years later, a Swedish Navy lieutenant and dive specialist H. Bergmark tells a Der Spiegel journalist that he and 10-13 other persons dove to the Estonia on October 1st, a mere *two days* after the sinking.

Intriguingly, Bergmark suggests that his team found a gash in the hull below the car deck on the starboard side. However, no official reports mentioned any such gash. Nor was this inspection ever officially announced or acknowledged by the commission.

From the outset, family support for raising the wreck along with the remains of their loved ones was nearly unanimous. However, their requests went unanswered by the Swedish govt, which quickly moved to entomb the wreck in concrete like a sarcophagus under Franson�s guidance.

This is perplexing, since the cost of raising and salvaging the wreck was estimated to be comparable to constructing the giant underwater sarcophagus, while also being significantly less complex. More perplexing still was why the wreck should be covered at all.

Despite huge public outcry over a plan seen as a massive insult and literal coverup, 1,000s of tons of stone/sand are dumped on the wreck by barge, particularly along the starboard side. After widespread outrage from victims' families, the concrete plan was scuttled in June 1996.

On Feb 23, 1995, Sweden drew up a �gravesite treaty� and had every country bordering the Baltic Sea sign it. Only Germany declined. Despite being in extraterritorial waters, the treaty designates a 2 km square around the site as off-limits, making the site illegal to visit.

This commission was managed by Andi Meister, the Estonian Transport Minister, until 1996 when Meister abruptly resigned. His reason for leaving was that the Swedish side was withholding significant evidence from the other commission members.

After 3 years, the JAIC finally released a formal report on December 5, 1997. The report concluded that the bow visor and ramp were ripped off by large waves due to a faulty locking mechanism, even though surviving crew member testimonies directly contradict this theory.

The report states that the ramp was open, contradicting initial witness statements which saw it closed. It does not explain how the ramp, the suggested entry point for the massive volume of water, was closed when the wreck was surveyed.

The final report also ignores the dozens of testimonies from survivors who reported injury during the sudden impact and the subsequent flooding of Deck 0 and 1 that preceded the severe list, with crew even reporting �water to the knees� in the engine room.

In 1995, the shipyard commissioned a separate inquiry by the German Group of Experts (GGE). While the GGE clearly represented the interests of the shipyard, they were at least able to conduct a thorough investigation with relative independence.

The GGE�s report was finally published online in 2000. While their report took many of the JAIC�s findings at face value, the group uncovered several serious inconsistencies and discrepancies in the official investigation�s conclusions.

The GGE uncovers that Franson, head of the SMA, was questioned about a potential hole in the hull during a meeting with family and journalists in 1996 and admitted, "Yes, there is a hole in the starboard side, but I don't know anything about it - next question please."

The GGE report finds that the compartment on Deck 0, which contained the sauna/swimming pool, flooded very early. This suggests deck 0 took on water from the outside sea, which only a hole in the starboard hull could explain.

A GGE diving & explosives expert reviews the Rockwater video footage and finds that the points at which the bow visor had attached to the ship show several apparent blast holes. The blast holes have outward folded metal petals, a signature of high-energy explosives.

Shockingly, the videos captured via ROV on October 9th also revealed an orange cube attached to the bow near these blast holes. The cube resembles a small plastic explosive-type device. But the cube is nowhere to be seen in the Rockwater videos captured two months later.

In August 2000, Jutta Rabe, a German investigative reporter, and Gregg Bemis Jr, an American underwater equipment specialist, launched an independent expedition of divers and ROVs to the wreck.

The expedition reviews the area along the ship's side where sand has been piling up against the wreck�s hull. But now, 6 years later, part of the sand pile directly adjacent to the hull has subsided, suggesting it was sucked through a hole in the hull.

This expedition takes samples of the petaled metal holes at the bow visor interface noted in the GGE report and submits them for metallurgical testing at 3 separate labs. All 3 labs find that the metallurgical structure shows strong evidence of explosive deformation.

During the expedition, the Swedish coast guard attempts to disrupt the investigation, including boarding their ship and threatening jail time if they ever set foot in Sweden. The expedition also experiences jamming of their GPS, satellite phones, and ship-to-shore communications.

In March 2005, the Swedish minister in charge of MS Estonia matters called for a study into the likely mechanisms by which the ship sank so rapidly. Three years later, the Safety at Sea Ltd. group produced a report relying on a software simulation of the sinking.

The simulation assumes a 2,000-ton deluge of water flooding the car decks via the open ramp, something no witnesses reported. All that water on the car deck would have made the ship top-heavy, causing it to turn turtle rapidly. Instead, the boat slowly leaned to one side.

The sinking simulation also fails to account for trapped air, which, when a ship overturns, has nowhere to escape if the hull remains intact. As such, capsized ships often stay afloat for days. But somehow, the Estonia sank in less than an hour.

Between 2005-2009, the Estonian government commissioned a second official investigation to be headed by Margus Kurm of the Public Prosecutor's Office. The investigation produced a report on February 6, 2009.

The Kurm report concludes that the original JAIC scenario, while plausible, did not exclude other equally likely mechanisms for the sinking and finds significant contradictions. It recommends the wreck's exterior be systematically studied to determine what happened.

So if a simulation showed a sinking sequence entirely at odds with witness testimony and the bow visor never actually fell off but appears to have been covertly removed with explosives *after* it sank, why did the MS Estonia sink?

In August 2019, an expedition led by Swedish documentary filmmaker Henrik Evertsson set out from Rostock, Germany, via a German flagged ship to circumvent the gravesite treaty. The plan is to access the wreck via submersible ROV.

During the dive, the ROV finds previously unrecorded damage: a massive 4-meter gash in the starboard hull below the ship�s waterline. The steel hull on the sides of the large hole is pushed inward as if subjected to a very large but blunt force.

Additionally, the starboard hull fender was completely torn from either side of the hole. Soon, helicopters and planes from the Finnish coast guard arrived. Despite being in extraterritorial waters, the 2 Swedes aboard the expedition were charged with violating a gravesite.

Since the extremely soft seabed could not have caused the hole, Evertsson�s team commissions a simulation of the impact force required to create the hole. The simulation finds that the observed damage could have been caused by a 1,000-tonne object moving at 4 knots.

Far from being previously invisible, the resting position of the ship has made the entire hull visible since its sinking. As such, the only possible conclusion to be drawn by omitting this enormous gash is that it was deliberately covered up.

But why?

Shortly after the new footage aired, Margus Kurm, who had from 2005-09 been chairman of the committee tasked by the Estonian government to investigate the sinking, makes a statement to the press that, after seeing a video of the damage, he believes Estonia was hit by a submarine.

A sub recklessly surfacing and accidentally striking a civilian ship is not without precedent.

In 2001, a US Navy sub performed a rapid ascent maneuver during demonstrations in Hawaiian waters and struck a Japanese boat filled with high school students, sinking it and killing 9.

On the night of Aug 17, 1993, a French nuclear sub collided with an oil tanker off the coast of France while surfacing, tearing a 5 m hole in the tanker's hull, causing oil to spill into the sea. The tanker�s crew reported never receiving a call from the sub after the collision.

And while all subs have sonar, active sonar alerts enemies to your position. Collision avoidance by passive sonar, which listens for the sound of other craft, could have missed even a large ship like the Estonia in the shallow and stormy Baltic Sea.

Even so, submarine collisions are relatively rare. Was the increased presence of NATO military craft in the Baltic Sea at the time enough to explain this bizarre occurrence? Or is it possible that a NATO sub was near the Estonia for a reason?

Submarines sometimes move through sensitive territory by closely shadowing civilian ships, which can help mask the sound of their propeller. But this still leaves unanswered questions: Why would Sweden go to such extraordinary lengths to cover this up? And whose sub was it?

Given the management of the coverup, a Swedish sub seems more than plausible. But while Sweden is the obvious suspect, it�s hard to comprehend why they would immediately launch into such an expansive and risky cover-up and not simply own up to the mistake.

The only logical reason Sweden would do this is if they were acting on orders from another country whose sub shouldn�t have been there. Interestingly, there were 6 recorded violations of Sweden�s airspace on the night of the sinking, 4 of which remain classified to this day.

In 2004, author Drew Wilson submitted a FOIA request for any US govt info on the sinking. Despite no Americans aboard and no official US involvement during any stage of the accident, the NSA refused on the basis of national security.

While the Baltics officially joined NATO in 2004, the process to bring them under NATO control began years earlier. In 1994, as part of the Partnership for Peace (PfP) program, the presidents of Estonia, Lithuania, & Latvia officially declared they were seeking NATO membership.

After the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, NATO began facing a crisis of purpose. In September 1994, Sweden�s Prime Minister Bildt wrote an article for Foreign Affairs in which he framed Russia�s treatment of the Baltics as a litmus test of �Russian legitimacy.�

Given that 1994 was such a pivotal year in setting the trajectory of NATO expansion in Europe, would the process have been jeopardized by a catastrophic demonstration of NATO incompetence involving a US sub and the needless deaths of almost a thousand civilians?

It�s not hard to see how the sinking of a civilian ferry by a NATO vessel would lead directly to the public questioning the justifications for the significant NATO presence in the Baltic and potentially jeopardize public support for countries pursuing membership.

Now, almost 30 years later, Sweden has been tasked with another high-profile investigation in the Baltic Sea: the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines. And just as they were after the sinking of the Estonia, Russia�s requests to participate are being stonewalled.

A janitorial role of mopping up US messes is one Sweden began embracing after Olof Palme, their last truly left-wing Prime Minister, was assassinated 36 years ago. And in this shallow sea filled with secrets, Sweden once again dutifully conspires beneath the waves.

So what actually happened?

What follows is my personal speculation based on the available evidence, the history of NATO cover-ups, and the geopolitical inflection point at which the tragedy occurred.

A surfacing NATO sub mistakenly collides with Estonia at 01:02. The nose of the sub impacts the starboard hull at close to a perpendicular angle. The damage to the sub is survivable and it covertly returns to port. The collision leaves Estonia with a 4 m hole below water level.

The sub notifies NATO�s European command and remains in the vicinity, jamming radio frequencies. This jamming is also likely why Russia never hears the distress call. Finland is contacted and disables phone lines, and NATO begins contingency planning.

A cover story involving the bow visor is hatched and disseminated to the Swedish Prime Minister within hours. This theory is pushed onto key witnesses, and the media faithfully runs with the bow visor explanation before the official investigation has even begun.

In the 3 days after the sinking prior to the start of the official investigation, Swedish divers covertly descend to the wreck to stage the bow visor separation. With the help of explosive charges, the bow visor is detached. In the rush to complete, a charge is left behind.

The rapidly evolving story soon requires that the bow visor have fallen from the ship a substantial time before it sank. Therefore, the bow visor is covertly moved again and deposited a distance away from the wreck prior to the Rockwater investigation.

NATO deputizes Sweden to head the investigation. The refusal to raise the wreck, the proposal to encase the wreck in concrete, and the dumping of gravel are all steps taken to prevent the discovery of the sub collision and the explosive scars from the bow visor removal.

The scale and coordination of the coverup suggests it was a US sub. NATO could weather incompetence by one of their members or close allies, but it�s hard to picture how the resulting global PR nightmare would play out if a US sub 4,000 miles from US shores were responsible.

Despite the horror of hundreds of people who needlessly lost their lives through a delayed rescue response in service of a cover-up, there may be an even more unsettling part of this whole story: a group of confirmed survivors who suddenly disappeared or turned up dead.

In the immediate aftermath of Estonia�s sinking, relatives began scrambling for news of their loved ones aboard the ship.

One person who understandably receives particular media attention is Estonia�s second in command, Captain Avo Piht.

On the morning of Sept 28th, Captain Moik, a friend of both Estonia�s captains, called Piht�s wife from Rostock to tell her that he and multiple colleagues had seen Piht on a German TV channel as he was being transferred from the ambulance to the hospital.

The 6PM news also reports that Piht is amongst the survivors.

Piht�s name then appears on multiple official lists issued by the Port of Tallinn, the Finnish embassy at Tallinn, Tallinn City Hall, and the Baltic News Service.

However, later that day, his name is not on the list issued by the Turku police. No explanation is given.

Estonian radio station Kuku broadcasts an interview with a Swedish helicopter crew member who says that he saved Piht.

When Spiegel TV's Jutta Rabe later tried to obtain the interview tape, the station manager tells her that Estonian police have already confiscated it.

Additional witnesses involved in the immediate disaster response claim to have seen Piht in person, including a doctor in Turku.

Two days later, Reuters interviews Bengt-Erik Stenmark, safety chief of the SMA, who also says he had been in contact with Piht after the accident. Stenmark is fired shortly after but never retracts his statement.

On Oct 7, 1994 Interpol issues a message looking for Piht, reiterating that many witnesses had seen him. But Piht is never seen again.

Piht seemingly disappeared after he reached the Turku University Central Hospital. Attempts by family and friends to locate the video tape of the German news report in which Piht was seen were unsuccessful.

Years later, a clip is uncovered appearing to show Piht in an ambulance.

More disturbingly, twin sisters (Hannely & Hanka-Hannika Veide), reportedly rescued from the same raft as Piht, also go missing. On Sept 29th, their brother, having seen on the news that his sisters are alive at Stockholm�s Huddinge hospital, calls his parents.

When the parents arrive at Huddinge to look for their daughters they are told that their daughters have drowned. Inexplicably, one twin�s name was recorded on the survivor list as �Anne� Veide, a nickname she went by that few others knew.

In total, 11 people initially confirmed as survivors turned up drowned days later or were never seen again. Several were listed with full names/DOBs, information other survivors have said was verified multiple times by rescue workers and medical staff before being added to lists.

Even heroic rescue work gets retracted.

Sailor Kenneth Svensson, who descended via helicopter to retrieve 9 survivors from the stormy sea and was awarded a medal for his efforts, eventually has his rescue total whittled down to 1 or 2 in the JAIC�s final report.

But without question, the most disturbing non-surviving survivor story is Kalev Vahtras, the ship�s store assistant.

The ship�s watchman, who was in the same ward in Turku hospital, confirmed that Vahtras had escaped the shipwreck easily, was in perfect condition & high-spirits.

Later in the day, Vahtras� ward mate returned to find his bed gone and was told that he had been transferred.

His body was later reported washed up on the coast of Finland. When the coffin was opened in Estonia, his body had apparent signs of violence.

As a result of the retractions, families are doubly traumatized, while many more are left bewildered.

Did these surviving crew members pose a threat to the fraudulent bow visor theory and, as a result, become the final victims of one of the biggest cover-ups in recent history?

The flight records following the disaster may hold a clue.

On 28 September 1994 an empty Gulfstream 4 landed at Stockholm�s Arlanda at 22:56 and departed the next day with five passengers at 17:13 to Bangor, Maine.

Could the disappeared Estonians have been on board?

# ? Mar 27, 2024 10:44

Jose: Jul 24, 2007; Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster and writer

can't believe the admins keep probating somoene a month for posting his own conspiracy tweets

# ? Mar 27, 2024 11:40

KirbyKhan: Mar 20, 2009; Soiled Meat

I hope 50cent is foreal. Dude is a hater elemental and has the production experience from Power to do a really really good doc. God I love that hate filled man 50 Cent and I hope he exposes P Diddy.

https://x.com/50cent/status/1772759446663344377?s=20

Also in the replies I was reminded that Kanye was right.

https://x.com/chockietee/status/1772780019950969087?s=20

Anyways I liked this youtube video that was explained to me at a 2nd grade level. He doesn't mention 50 till like after 8 minutes, it is clickbait.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q30x42Gk-eI

# ? Mar 27, 2024 12:03

KirbyKhan: Mar 20, 2009; Soiled Meat

Jose posted:

Prince William was also at the same diddy event harry was at but weirdly has been cut out of the media coverage

His wife is dying, I think, idk I still don't believe them. Prince Will definitely put hands on Kate Middleton.

# ? Mar 27, 2024 12:04

fanfic insert: Nov 4, 2009

theres for sure some fuckery going on regarding MS Estonia, nothing in the "official" story adds up and details keep emerging with proof which has always been officially denied. The hole keeps being denied even existing by official investigations and then keep being reaffirmed by independent crews investigating it.

granny got killed by nato, many such cases

# ? Mar 27, 2024 12:57

RandolphCarter: Jul 30, 2005

thanks for posting that story about the Estonia grandenko

# ? Mar 27, 2024 14:23

Doktor Avalanche: Dec 30, 2008

gradenko_2000 posted:

code:

https://twitter.com/bidetmarxman/status/1593635146649186304

this is a pro follow, every couple of months he does a megathread and they're always interesting

# ? Mar 27, 2024 14:24

Another Bill: Sep 27, 2018; Born on the bayou
died in a cave
bbq and posting
is all I crave

RandolphCarter posted:

thanks for posting that story about the Estonia grandenko

I remember reading about the sinking for the first time in The Atlantic in 2004. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/05/a-sea-story/302940/

It doesn't mention NATO or any military accident, but it is worth noting that the author William Langewiesche was coincidentally the only journalist granted unfettered access to the 9/11 cleanup site (he wrote a series of features that turned into a book about that too). He also supported himself prior to becoming a feature article writer by working as a "private pilot" flying around remote Africa in the 1980s.

His father, who was a PhD candidate at the University of Chicago before he dropped out to become a pilot, taught flying for the US army during WWII and then spent 35 years as a "roving editor" for noted CIA mouthpiece Reader's Digest.

Just a little food for thought.

Another Bill has issued a correction as of 15:30 on Mar 27, 2024

# ? Mar 27, 2024 15:26

fanfic insert: Nov 4, 2009

Estonia is kind of a taboo subject in Sweden. The "for respect of the deceased" line about not recovering the wreck and then to shut up any discussion of inconsistencies really took hold and is always brought up whenever any diver group or investigators make a discovery about it. I've made the point in discussions that the public opinion and the overwhelming opinion of survivors and relatives of the dead wanted it to be recovered always just gets murmurs or straight up disbelief.

# ? Mar 27, 2024 18:15

Dokapon Findom: Dec 5, 2022; They hated Futanari because His posts were shit.

gradenko_2000 posted:

code:

https://twitter.com/bidetmarxman/status/1593635146649186304

Goddamn this is wild

I never knew anything about this other than the attempt to entomb the wreck against the wishes of the victims' families

# ? Mar 27, 2024 20:48

Hubbert: Mar 25, 2007; At a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

gradenko_2000 posted:

code:
https://twitter.com/bidetmarxman/status/1593635146649186304
On Sept 28, 1994, a passenger ferry from Estonia to Sweden sank in the middle of the Baltic Sea, along with 852 souls. But what was officially explained as the tragic result of a defective bow design was, in fact, a massive NATO coverup.

This is the story of the MS Estonia

now that's the good stuff

# ? Mar 27, 2024 20:54

sullat: Jan 9, 2012

Speaking of subs & Sweden, didn't it come out a few years ago that a rash of suspected Soviet subs spying on Sweden in the 80s turned out to be part of an American psy-op trying to push Sweden into the NATO orbit?

# ? Mar 27, 2024 21:08

Dr. Jerrold Coe: Feb 6, 2021; Is it me?

sullat posted:

Speaking of subs & Sweden, didn't it come out a few years ago that a rash of suspected Soviet subs spying on Sweden in the 80s turned out to be part of an American psy-op trying to push Sweden into the NATO orbit?

yeah

Frosted Flake posted:

Has anyone heard of this?

The Secret War Against Sweden: US and British Submarine Deception in the 1980s

Following the stranding of a Soviet Whiskey-class submarine in 1981 on the Swedish archipelago, a series of massive submarine intrusions took place within Swedish waters.

However, the evidence for these appears to have been manipulated or simply invented. Classified documents and interviews point to covert Western, rather than Soviet activity. This is backed up by former US Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, who stated that Western "testing" operations were carried out regularly in Swedish waters. Royal Navy submarine captains have also admitted to top-secret operations.

Ola Tunander's revelations make it clear that the United States and Britain ran a "secret war" in Swedish waters. The number of Swedes perceiving the Soviet Union as a direct threat increased from 5-10 per cent in 1980 to 45 per cent in 1983. This Anglo-American "secret war" was aimed at exerting political influence over Sweden. It was a risky enterprise, but perhaps the most successful covert operation of the entire Cold War.

e: Book is on libgen

Dr. Jerrold Coe posted:

I know about this because Milton Leitenberg wrote a book about how it was totally the Soviets you guys, believe me. Who is Leitenberg? He's the guy who pops up whenever American BW in Korea is in the news, he's got some phony secret Russian documents that "prove" it was all a Chinese/Korean lie. Total hack for whatever lines the empire needs in a given moment.

# ? Mar 27, 2024 21:13

Marenghi: Oct 16, 2008; Don't trust the liberals,
they will betray you

FirstnameLastname posted:

it's also method of money laundering in Atlanta, that's straight up why Atlanta runs the modern hip-hop scene, gangs started putting their money into artists & paying w/ drug money to get their music played at clubs until they start bringing in real income + middle point between gulf, coasts with a big busy airport
that's how older grimeys like jay-z, supreme & the 5%ers behind wu tang, mac dre/thizz entertainment, rapalot entertainment, cash money under birdman, master p & no limit all got started too - they didn't need money, they needed clean income sources, then the music worked out
then BMF with bleu davinci was transparently laundering for big meech & black mafia family

like there's a loooot of criminality around hiphop outside of a few artists &labels always has been, it just isn't in the ways people think, its on the supply side funding tooons of artists

In a way it's a self re-enforcing system. The CIA needs distribution networks for the drugs they traffic to fund off book activities. Have pop culture promote it and it creates a feedback loop as some make money working distribution and have money to launder.

# ? Mar 27, 2024 21:59

my bony fealty: Oct 1, 2008

the K219 incident is a nice compliment to the MS Estonia. a Soviet sub hit something very large and it was claimed that something was the US submarine Augusta, which was covered up and denied.

# ? Mar 27, 2024 22:17

bedpan: Apr 23, 2008

considering the submarine shenanigans that NATO and Sweden were engaging in during the 80s and 90s, the most likely fate of the Estonia is that it was struck by a submarine

# ? Mar 27, 2024 22:24

bedpan: Apr 23, 2008

reminder that a Olof Palme was almost toppled in a coup because elements of the Swedish security services became convinced that the communist Polish government had infiltrated spies into Sweden who were broadcasting secret messages directly to a radio receiver installed in Palme's brain via mobile transmitters in bread trucks

then someone said "why don't we just shoot him" and the rest is history

# ? Mar 27, 2024 22:27

Radical 90s Wizard: Aug 5, 2008; ~SS-18 burning bright,
Bathe me in your cleansing light~

Trying to bury the wreck in concrete, then gravel/whatever, and then trying to make everyone agree to never ever go near the wreck or look at it ever again is definitely very normal.

# ? Mar 27, 2024 22:33

rodbeard: Jul 21, 2005

gradenko_2000 posted:

a couple more

code:

https://twitter.com/bidetmarxman/status/1593635146649186304

It was aliens

# ? Mar 27, 2024 23:00

Spergin Morlock: Aug 8, 2009; Fun Shoe

sullat posted:

Speaking of subs & Sweden, didn't it come out a few years ago that a rash of suspected Soviet subs spying on Sweden in the 80s turned out to be part of an American psy-op trying to push Sweden into the NATO orbit?

they want Sweden and their tiny subs because the Baltic sea is too shallow for US subs to safely navigate. As likely seen by the MS Estonia thing above lmao

# ? Mar 27, 2024 23:34

dead gay comedy forums: Oct 21, 2011

Radical 90s Wizard posted:

Trying to bury the wreck in concrete, then gravel/whatever, and then trying to make everyone agree to never ever go near the wreck or look at it ever again is definitely very normal.

yeah, the escalating bad calls is what makes this something else

like, I doubt that it wouldn't be fairly salvageable if they cooked up a nato safety maneuver bs or whatever, but then signal jamming and minimizing rescue is... what the gently caress, the situation becomes thousands of times worse

# ? Mar 28, 2024 06:04

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

Radical 90s Wizard posted:

Trying to bury the wreck in concrete, then gravel/whatever, and then trying to make everyone agree to never ever go near the wreck or look at it ever again is definitely very normal.

# ? Mar 28, 2024 08:21

Jose: Jul 24, 2007; Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster and writer

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/2024-03-28-suicide-mission-boeing/

quote:

Discussing Swampy�s death and the whistleblower lawsuit he left behind, the longtime former Boeing executive told me, �I don�t think one can be cynical enough when it comes to these guys.� Did that mean he thought Boeing assassinated Swampy? �It�s a top-secret military contractor, remember; there are spies everywhere,� he replied. More importantly, he added, �there is a principle in American law that there is no such thing as an accidental death during the commission of a felony. Let�s say you rob a bank and while traveling at high speed in the getaway you run down a pedestrian and kill them. That�s second-degree murder at the very least.�

# ? Mar 28, 2024 15:15

Wraith of J.O.I.: Jan 25, 2012

posting to read later

https://twitter.com/dmehro/status/1773321862669336811

# ? Mar 28, 2024 16:35

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

Wraith of J.O.I. posted:

posting to read later

https://twitter.com/dmehro/status/1773321862669336811

post the list

# ? Mar 28, 2024 16:36

Eat This Glob: Jan 14, 2008; God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Who will wipe this blood off us? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent?

mawarannahr posted:

post the list

https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/

# ? Mar 28, 2024 16:40

RandolphCarter: Jul 30, 2005

Wraith of J.O.I. posted:

posting to read later

https://twitter.com/dmehro/status/1773321862669336811

preemptive drat shame that guy committed suicide.

# ? Mar 28, 2024 16:42

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

Eat This Glob posted:

https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/

# ? Mar 28, 2024 16:47

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

Wraith of J.O.I. posted:

posting to read later

https://twitter.com/dmehro/status/1773321862669336811

in case it gets taken down https://archive.is/H9y87

Jeffrey Epstein's Island Visitors Exposed by Data Broker

www.wired.com - Thu, 28 Mar 2024 posted:

Nearly 200 mobile devices of people who visited Jeffrey Epstein�s notorious �pedophile island� in the years prior to his death left an invisible trail of data pointing back to their own homes and offices. Maps of these visitations generated by a troubled international data broker with defense industry ties, discovered last week by WIRED, document the numerous trips of wealthy and influential individuals seemingly undeterred by Epstein�s status as a convicted sex offender.

The data amassed by Near Intelligence, a location data broker roiled by allegations of mismanagement and fraud, reveals with high precision the residences of many guests of Little Saint James, a United States Virgin Islands property where Epstein is accused of having groomed, assaulted, and trafficked countless women and girls.

Some girls, prosecutors say, were as young as 14. The former attorney general of the US Virgin Islands alleged that girls as young as 12 were trafficked to Epstein by those within his elite social circle.

The coordinates that Near Intelligence collected and left exposed online pinpoint locations to within a few centimeters of space. Visitors were tracked as they moved from the Ritz-Carlton on neighboring St. Thomas Island, for instance, to a specific dock at the American Yacht Harbor�a marina once co-owned by Epstein that hosts an �impressive array� of pleasure boats and mega-yachts. The data pinpointed their movements as they were transported to Epstein�s dock on Little St. James, revealing the exact routes taken to the island.

The tracking continued after they arrived. From inside Epstein's enigmatic waterfront temple to the pristine beaches, pools, and cabanas scattered across his 71-acres of prime archipelagic real estate, the data compiled by Near captures the movements of scores of people who sojourned at Little St. James as early as July 2016. The recorded surveillance concludes on July 6, 2019�the day of Epstein�s final arrest.

Eleven years earlier, the disgraced financier was sentenced to 18 months in jail after a guilty plea in 2008 for soliciting and procuring a minor engaged in prostitution, securing a secret �sweetheart� deal to avoid any federal charges. Renewed interest in the case, notably prompted by a Miami Herald investigation, spawned new charges against Epstein, who was apprehended at New Jersey�s Teterboro Airport in July 2019. A raid of Epstein�s Manhattan townhouse by federal agents yielded a cache of child sexual abuse material, nearly 50 individually cut diamonds, and a fraudulent Saudia Arabian passport, which had expired. He reportedly died by suicide a month later while incarcerated at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, a federal detention facility that closed shortly after Epstein�s death.

Ghislaine Maxwell, former British socialite and an Epstein accomplice, was convicted in 2021 on five counts including sexual trafficking of children by force. Maxwell was arrested in New Hampshire, tracked to a million-dollar home by federal agents using location data pulled from her cell phone.

Little is known publicly about Epstein�s activities in the decade prior to his 2019 arrest. The majority of women who came forward that year to accuse the convicted pedophile in court say they were assaulted in the �90s and early 2000s.

Now, however, 11,279 coordinates obtained by WIRED show not only a flood of traffic to Epstein�s island property�nearly a decade after his conviction as a sex offender�but also point to as many as 166 locations throughout the US where Near Intelligence infers that visitors to Little St. James likely lived and worked. The cache also points to cities in Ukraine, the Cayman Islands, and Australia, among others.

Near Intelligence, for example, tracked devices visiting Little St. James from locations in 80 cities crisscrossing 26 US states and territories, with Florida, Massachusetts, Texas, Michigan, and New York topping the list. The coordinates point to mansions in gated communities in Michigan and Florida; homes in Martha�s Vineyard and Nantucket in Massachusetts; a nightclub in Miami; and the sidewalk across the street from Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in New York City.

The coordinates also point to various Epstein properties beyond Little St. James, including his 8,000-acre New Mexico ranch and a waterfront mansion on El Brillo Way in Palm Beach, where prosecutors said in an indictment that Epstein trafficked numerous �minor girls� for the purposes of molesting and abusing them. Near�s data is notably missing any locations in Europe, where citizens are safeguarded by comprehensive privacy laws.

Near Intelligence�s maps of Epstein�s island reveal in stark detail the precision surveillance that data brokers can achieve with the aid of loose privacy restrictions under US law. The firm, which has roots in Singapore and Bengaluru, India, sources its location data from advertising exchanges�companies that quietly interact with billions of devices as users browse the web and move about the world.

Before a targeted advertisement appears on an app or website, phones and other devices send information about their owners to real-time bidding platforms and ad exchanges, frequently including users� location data. While advertisers can use this data to inform their bidding decisions, companies like Near Intelligence will siphon, repackage, analyze, and sell it.

Several ad exchanges, according to The Wall Street Journal, have reportedly terminated arrangements with Near, claiming that its use of their data violated the exchanges� terms of service.

Officially, this data is intended to be used by companies hoping to determine where potential customers work and reside. But in October 2023, the Journal revealed that Near had once provided data to the US military via a maze of obscure marketing companies, cutouts, and conduits to defense contractors. Bankruptcy records reviewed by WIRED show that in April 2023, Near Intelligence signed a yearlong contract with another firm called nContext, a subsidiary of the defense contractor Sierra Nevada.

nContext secured six federal contracts to provide data in support of the National Security Agency and the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency, according to reporting by Byron Tau, author of Means of Control, an expos� of the data-broker industry and its ties to the US surveillance state. According to information released during a $100 million funding round in 2019, Near claims to have information on roughly 1.6 billion people in 44 countries.

�The pervasive surveillance machine that has been developed for digital advertising now enables other uses completely unrelated to marketing, including government mass surveillance,� says Wolfie Christl, a Vienna-based researcher at Cracked Labs who investigates the data industry.

The data on Epstein�s guests was produced using an intelligence platform formerly known as Vista, which has now been folded into a product called Pinnacle. WIRED discovered several so-called Vista reports while examining Pinnacle�s publicly accessible code. While the specific URLs for the reports are difficult to find, Google�s web crawlers were able to locate at least two other publicly accessible Vista reports: one geofencing the Westfield Mall of the Netherlands and another targeting Saipan-Ledo Park in El Paso, Texas.

The Little St. James report features five maps, one of which reveals locations of devices observed on the island over more than three years prior to Epstein�s arrest. Two of the maps indicate the inferred �Common Evening Locations� and �Common Daytime Locations� for each device that had visited the island. According to the Vista report, these metrics are meant to show visitors� �most frequented location on weekdays� as well as weeknights and weekends.

A fourth map shows the �general geographic areas from which a location generates the majority of its visits.� The fifth details visitors� locations 30 minutes before and after they arrived on Epstein�s island, producing a trail of signals that show phones and other devices carried over by helicopter and boat from the main island.

WIRED extracted the location data from the charts and maps to conduct its analysis, which is ongoing. For this story, we reproduced some of the maps created by Near, while excluding any precise location data that could be used to identify properties or individuals, to protect the privacy of anyone uninvolved in Epstein�s crimes.

Crippled by debt, Near Intelligence filed for bankruptcy protection in December, reporting liabilities of approximately $100 million, less than a year after being listed by Nasdaq. An independent investigation commissioned by the company's board alleged multiple executives engaged in a years-long �concealed scheme� to cheat the company out of tens of millions of dollars. (One of those former executives has filed a claim against the company alleging defamation.)

Near Intelligence has since quietly resumed operations, under the same leadership that initiated the bankruptcy proceedings, rebranding itself as a newly incorporated entity called Azira.

US senator Ron Wyden in early February urged federal regulators to launch investigations into Near Intelligence, citing reporting by The Wall Street Journal that found its platform had been used by a third party to geofence �sensitive locations,� including roughly 600 reproductive health clinics at the behest of a conservative group that waged a multiyear antiabortion campaign. US regulators have begun to designate certain types of locations �sensitive,� including health clinics, domestic abuse shelters, and places of religious worship, in an attempt to shield Americans from predatory data brokers amid the US Congress�s years-long failure to pass a comprehensive privacy law.

In an email to WIRED, Kathleen Wailes, speaking on behalf of Azira, acknowledged that Near Intelligence had deliberately collected the data on Epstein�s island for its own purposes. Wailes declined multiple invitations to discuss how the data was collected, which prospective client may have created the report of Epstein�s island, and what purpose it served.

�Azira is committed to data privacy and responsible access to and use of location data,� Wailes said. �To this end, Azira works to track and respond to legal developments under emerging new state laws, FTC guidance and prior enforcement examples, and best practices. Azira is developing procedures to protect consumers' sensitive location data. This includes working to disable all sample offering accounts created by Near.�

Although the discovery of the Epstein island data involved many additional steps, WIRED also found it could be easily retrieved with a simple Google search.

A Department of Justice spokesperson for the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, where Epstein was prosecuted in 2019, declined to comment on whether its investigators ever did business with Near.

While many of the coordinates captured by Near point to multimillion-dollar homes in numerous US states, others point to lower-income areas where Epstein victims are known to have lived and attended school, including areas of West Palm Beach, Florida, where police and a private investigator say they located around 40 of Epstein�s victims.

"Most of the clients who come to me, their number one concern is privacy and safety,� says attorney Lisa Bloom, who represented 11 of Epstein's alleged victims. �It's deeply concerning to think that any sexual abuse victims� location will be tracked and then stored and then sold to someone, who can presumably do whatever they want with it.�

Legislation introduced during multiple sessions of Congress have aimed to restrict the sale of location data, chiefly to prevent US law enforcement and intelligence agencies from tracking Americans without a warrant. So far, those efforts have failed. Separately, US president Joe Biden issued an executive order in February instructing the Justice Department to establish new rules preventing US companies from selling data to rival nations, which might include Iran, China, Russia, and North Korea. This order is unlikely to impact Azira�s business in the United States.

�The fact that they have this data in the first place and are allowing people to share it is certainly disturbing,� says Eva Galperin, the director of cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital-rights nonprofit. �I just don�t know how many more of these stories we need to have in order to get strong privacy regulations.�

# ? Mar 28, 2024 16:47

Human.Frank: Jun 2, 2022

MOTHERFUCKER! The makers of the Octopus netflix doc mentioned Danny Casolaro had notes on Jolly West...

https://youtu.be/0cSjUDSOZYw?feature=shared&t=10675

# ? Mar 28, 2024 16:53

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Apr 27, 2024 06:26

Real hurthling!: Sep 11, 2001

mawarannahr posted:

in case it gets taken down https://archive.is/H9y87

Jeffrey Epstein's Island Visitors Exposed by Data Broker

the article seems to shift hard from "haha we got these sleezeballs red handed" to "this data collection is intrusive we should make it illegal to collect evidence like this"

# ? Mar 28, 2024 17:21

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [Epstein] Hello madda / Hello fadda / Gotta syndrome / Called Havana!

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