Satellite imagery has been used for analysis showing a massive Russian-funded military deforestation project by the right-wing extremist known for his ties to the AfD (Nazi) German party and inciting violent white supremacist riots in the UK.
Satellite images show 329 hectares (813 acres) of forest were cut down at the site between March 2020 and May 2023, according to the environmental intelligence company Kayrros. That is equivalent to approximately 500,000 trees.
When criticism of the deforestation landed, the alleged perpetrator started widespread propaganda campaigns attacking German police for not being more repressive of such speech.
The development… owner, has criticised local police for letting off “leftwing protesters”.
Self-identifying as a right-wing activist by criticizing German police for allowing left-wing speech, while actively promoting AfD (Nazi) party hate speech and inciting violent hate swarms, all related to rapidly building a robot factory for war outside the German Reichstag… isn’t exactly subtle.
To be clear, Elon Musk complains when police crack down on hate speech, and complains even louder when police don’t crack down on anti-hate speech.
Next thing you know Tesla will flaunt more “88” announcements, yet pretend its factory workers aren’t being screened to “Z heil“.
Tesla apparently has been working hard to land a huge anti-environment military robot (drone chemical cluster-bomb) munitions factory outside Berlin, which it expects to be instrumental when Putin and Musk work together to launch remote attacks on Germans and undermine democracy.
I doubt German intelligence can find any bigger rising national security threat.
Another day, another Tesla robot drives itself into a tree and kills its owner.
Hamilton Township police responded to the single-car wreck on Mays Landing Somers Point Road near the intersection with Ocean Heights Avenue at around 1:35 a.m. on Sunday, Aug. 18.
Investigators said a 2024 Tesla SUV Model Y left the road, crashed into several trees, and caught fire. The driver was pronounced dead at the scene.
Brand new 2024 model. The Tesla software and hardware seems to get even less safe, still often “veering” suddenly into a tree, with each new version release.
Still, such a large ocean-going “super” yacht sinking so abruptly has been raising many questions about what went wrong.
A fisherman described seeing the yacht sinking “with my own eyes”. Speaking to the newspaper Giornale di Sicilia, the witness said he was at home when the tornado hit. “Then I saw the boat, it had only one mast, it was very big,” he said. Shortly afterwards he went down to the Santa Nicolicchia bay in Porticello to get a better look at what was happening. He added: “The boat was still floating, then all of a sudden it disappeared. I saw it sinking with my own eyes.”
One notable fact is the yacht boasted having the 2nd tallest aluminum mast in the world. It was allegedly 75m, a substantial surface area even when bare.
Photo taken the evening before it sank. Source: Twitter
The boom also appears to be absurdly large, likely a roller-furl system for the huge main. Such a mast and boom would have presented a huge pressure area for a dangerous storm.
Just for quick reference, vesselfinder says the draught is a shallow 3.8m even underway!
(A superyacht site claims the full draught can reach 9.73m). If that 3.8m is true draught, the yacht was built with a ratio of over 75m above versus less than 4m below the waterline when anchored.
You can do the math for a hurricane force hitting that stick sideways.
Actually, I’m far too curious to leave it at that… so here’s a quick estimate.
Multiplying the yacht’s displacement (473,000kg) by Earth’s gravitational force (9.81m/s²) and the yacht’s righting arm (2.75m based on its 11m beam), its righting moment would be approximately 12,750,000 Newton-meters (Nm). The dangerous heeling moment would be where a 75m mast is hit with 170,000 Newtons of wind force (F x 75 = 12,750,000).
To calculate a dangerous wind speed (V²), we use air density (1.225kg/m3), mast drag coefficient (1.2), mast surface area (200m²), and that wind force. The equation looks like this:
170,000 = 0.5 x 1.225 x 1.2 x 200 x V²
Solving for V, we find that a dangerous wind speed is 34 m/s.
This means a sideways wind at around 80 mph could be strong enough to tip the yacht over far enough to take on water in a sudden instant, even with only the mast exposed. The crew allegedly said there was something like a 20 degree heel initially (already quite a lot), which had them running about trying to secure things, and then a sudden sinking.
The video above, along with reports of waterspouts/downbursts/tornadoes suddenly appearing in the area, suggests a sufficient wind force was present. Here’s just one of many examples recorded during the day:
Presuming the abrupt storm wind shifted to full abeam (because fore or aft wouldn’t be a risk), the force hitting bare mast and boom from the side while anchored, she may have been pressed hard onto her starboard ear and pinned under water by the anchor. This is a familiar story, unfortunately, for huge ships lost at sea.
…the Concordia had proven herself a very able sea-boat able to stand up to hurricane-force winds,” he says. “But 40-plus knots of wind directed downward after the vessel had heeled to deck-edge immersion angle is another story.
Looking at the weather history, we see some of this evidence. A predominant westerly breeze of 10-15 after midnight suddenly jumps 90 degrees from the north and over 40mph at 3:50AM.
That’s a reading near the ground, which is important context. The higher and more exposed, the windier and gustier in some storms (downburts tend to concentrate force at lower levels). If the storm had unlimited fetch to build strength before impact, a 40mph ground reading could have been upwards of 60mph above 50m.
Who could have seen it coming? Who could have predicted this tragic design configuration failure (anchored with reduced draught in a storm blowing sideways)? Bayes…
Bayesian theory for risk prediction is how the owner made his billions, thus renaming his $30M superyacht Bayesian before the most ironic sinking in history.
A yacht like the Bayesian is designed to heel when underway. Being knocked over by winds over 40mph at 4am on anchor means that it also might have had doors and hatches open, allowing water to rush in and push her down. But the speed of sinking suggests more like a total knock-down. When the mast hits water, it’s plausible half the hull is under immense pressure of doors or windows being smashed open by heavy flooding.
The Kiwi skipper of a superyacht that sank off Sicily after being hit by a tornado has told Italian media: “We didn’t see it coming.”
All that being said, this tragedy of a half dozen lives gets a lot more attention than the hundreds being killed by Tesla
A Tesla Semi without a trailer suddenly veered off an Interstate into a tree (like so many other Tesla do) and exploded with such an intense 1,000 degree fire, it shut all lanes down.
The crash occurred around 3:15 a.m. near Emigrant Gap where an electric vehicle traveling eastbound at the Laing Road offramp crashed onto the right shoulder and into trees, according to the California Highway Patrol’s incident log. Officer Jason Lyman, a spokesman for the CHP’s Gold Run office, said that only one vehicle was involved and that the driver was not injured. Lyman said the white Tesla Semi truck was without a trailer when it was headed uphill west of Yuba Gap. Investigators were still trying to piece together what led the Tesla to leave the roadway, he said.
Headed uphill without a trailer?
That’s not a typical loss of control for a Semi, as it could just stop under its own weight. Crashed using the offramp? The 3am suggests mistake, but the Tesla Semi also has a sordid history of critical failures like screens going blank and sudden steering loss.
Police say all eastbound traffic was turned around. Westbound traffic was diverted. And they called the Tesla explosion a toxic plume.
a blog about the poetry of information security, since 1995
