NOAA radar stations are reportedly being targeted by an armed conspiracy group that views them as weapons.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.today/post/28977252

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has warned the National Weather Service of possible attacks from an armed conspiracy group targeting Doppler radar stations, according to a report from CNN. The group, Veterans on Patrol, is going after government radars because it believes they’re being used as “weather weapons.”

CNN learned of the possible attacks through NOAA emails warning NWS staff that Veterans on Patrol was planning to conduct “penetration drills on NEXRAD sites to identify weaknesses,” with the ultimate goal of destroying NEXRAD. Despite its cooler-than-average name, the NWS uses NEXRAD or “Next Generation Weather Radar” for a fairly mundane purpose: detecting precipitation in the atmosphere. NEXRAD plays a vital role in locating thunderstorms and tornados, making it easier to evacuate vulnerable communities before disaster strikes.

Archive link: https://archive.is/GVsgP

  • CrayonDevourer@lemmy.worldEnglish
    56·
    2 months ago

    My brother is one of these idiots, I dunno how they got him. He’s not part of the militia group but dipshit thinks a local radio tower that just went up is part of the weather control system…

    • Raltoid@lemmy.worldEnglish
      19·
      2 months ago

      Conspiracy theorists tend to fall in one of two categories, specially if it seems like a sudden change:

      1. They’re lonely and the people in the group are very welcoming to them.

      2. They feel they need to prove how smart they are, and think they’re smarter than everyone who dismisses their theory.

    • WesDym@mastodon.social
      41·
      2 months ago

      @CrayonDevourer It’s a combination of “I don’t understand this fully and immediately myself” (without appreciating one’s own vast ignorance about MOST things), with happening to catch something spoken or written that’s wrong, but SOUNDS sensible (also due to that same ignorance), and thinking, “That sounds reasonable, and it harmonizes with my feelings, so it’s probably right.”

      It’s a child’s grasp of reality. But also typical of far too many legal adults.

      • billwashere@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        2 months ago

        I can’t imagine how scary it must be to not understand how most things work honestly.

        I guess George Carlin said it best….

        Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.

        • WesDym@mastodon.social
          21·
          2 months ago

          @billwashere I realized sometime back that actual intelligence isn’t very relevant to good reasoning. It comes down to good thinking HABITS, which nearly anyone can develop with enough effort and practice. But it doesn’t come naturally for most people, and instead must be taught and learned. And the later in life you learn those skills, the more you have to UNlearn to do it.

          • billwashere@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            2 months ago

            But critical thinking and intelligence have to be 2 fruits on the same tree, right? I can’t think of a single person I’ve ever met that had one and not the other. I can understand that critical thinking skills can be taught, but I’d argue that that skill creates more intelligence or at the very least awareness.

            And I can testify that bad habits are very hard to unlearn.

            • WesDym@mastodon.social
              11·
              2 months ago

              @billwashere More specifically, I come from a realm of scientists and academics, and I’ve by now seen MANY highly intelligent, very well-educated people who have demonstrated astonishing stupidity.

              At the same time, I’ve also personally known people with clinically diagnosed neurological deficiency who can nevertheless reason very well, even very wisely.

              What you’re staying is true in broad statistics, but it’s not a rule.

              • billwashere@lemmy.worldEnglish
                2·
                2 months ago

                Totally agree. There are exceptions to everything.

                I will also acquiesce to your major point though. I work in academia so I have seen my fair share of phd students that run with scissors.

    • CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      281·
      2 months ago

      This is what happens when you remove the fairness doctrine and allow the alt-right propaganda “news” machine go unchecked.

      • CheeseNoodle@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        2 months ago

        Wasn’t the fairness doctrine right wing propoganda already? iirc the point was to give 1 anti-vaxer the same voice as every single pro-vaxination researcher on earth combined.

        • CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          7·
          2 months ago

          There is a saying that reality and facts have a liberal bias. When Nixon was in the process of being impeached, conservatives found that if they can control the narrative, the facts, then they can control the conversation. It’s no accident that they went to attack the fairness doctrine and it finally fell under Reagan.

          It may have had a right wing bias, but they are the ones that got rid of it because they wanted to protect their echo chamber

    • turmacar@lemmy.worldEnglish
      9·
      2 months ago

      “Vet” covers everyone from Air Force Tower Controllers to Navy Seals to the guy in charge of records in a basement in Alaska and more.

      For 4 years active duty and 4 years reserve most people are involved in logistics or records, and few of those have to know anything about radar.

        • Sinthesis@lemmy.todayEnglish
          3·
          2 months ago

          You’re not far off as it is the second definition of the word. “Vietnam vet” “Gulf war vet” etc.

          • captainlezbian@lemmy.worldEnglish
            3·
            2 months ago

            In that context it just means deployed to ths conflict. Sometimes it means contributed to the effort while in the military. So someone who cooked on base in Vietnam would be a Vietnam vet, but someone who enlisted during the Korean war but was sent to Japan wouldn’t be a korea vet.

    • braxEnglish
      5·
      2 months ago

      Radicalizing Antenna Disguised As Radiotower

      Duuuuuuuuuh 🤣

  • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.worldEnglish
    16·
    2 months ago

    An armed militarized group planning potential attacks on a federal government entity… Why would the FBI not be picking every one of those idiots up?

      • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        2 months ago

        The United States: Into Darkness.

        A people manipulated and driven to the edge of Discovery and Dishonesty. We will turn the lights out to fear that which we know… But in the darkness there is nothing to find but our people’s vengeful hatred of each other. Ignorance is the weapon, and the lights shall stay out.

        So what does man do? We starve. We suffer. We bleed, and then when all else is lost we scream. Not out of fear; for that is already gone. We scream because we are already in hell. And it’s the devil staring us in the face designing the torture.

        We aren’t a phoneix, we don’t rise from the dead. We are supposed to be humanity; and it’s lost past time we become it. If you think humanity was designed to be built in the image of God. Are you mistaken?

        I’m an idiot

        Neitzshche is dead.

        God is an Idea

      • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
        1·
        2 months ago

        It is actually kind of weird to think about. Conservatives typically typically like police and the milliary.

      • Zier@fedia.io
        4·
        2 months ago

        Due to my job with an unnamed government entity, I am unable to disclose the immense pleasure that is coming your way. O_o