Props to the WSJ, they managed to pack almost every Trump decision-making pathology into a single story. It’s all here:
1) Short attention span
2) Impulsive behavior
3) Knowledge deficits
4) Gambling for resurrection
5) Belief in the madman theory
www.wsj.com/politics/nat...
Palantir put out the most cartoonishly evil statement possible. They’re so arrogant and self-confident they don’t seem to believe their fascistic plans can be opposed.
We must get rid of Palantir altogether.
twitter-thread.com/t/2045574398...
as @marietjeschaake.bsky.social has been arguing for a long time, the European answer can only be a European techno-infrastructure. However, that must be publicly owned and democratically accountable! Europe cannot simply build its own technofascist counterforce!
“Waarom zo persoonlijk?” Daarom zo persoonlijk. Mooi stuk van @lotfielhamidi.bsky.social.
www.groene.nl/artikel/voor...
There's no greater sign of the iron grip that "both sides" framing has on American journalists than the repeated descriptions of the unhinged tantrum Trump is throwing over the pope's anodyne statements on Catholic doctrine as a "feud" or a "fight" or anything else that implies they're both to blame
whomst among us hasn't looked at a pope and thought, hmpf, weak on nuclear weapons
A primer on Hungary’s electoral system.
Hungary has a mixed-member pseudo proportional electoral system.
106 elected in first past the post constituencies
93 by proportional representation in closed lists
1/
I love @jdryan08.bsky.social's description of it as the Heroditus Trap
This is not the rhetoric I expect from a FIFA Peace Prize winner
Don't think I've ever been as terrified in all the Trump security crises. As @pkrugman.bsky.social said, "It’s the most astonishing, awful thing that I’ve ever seen, and we’ve all seen a lot of awful things." Mainly as cope, and to teach it, I keep asking why. 1/ open.substack.com/pub/paulkrug...
Rabbit meat in a butcher shop with a sign that reads "Watership Down - You've seen the film, read the book...Now eat the cast!!"
I used to write the WaPo editorials on US-Africa policy, as well on as human rights and politics on the continent.
To describe hundreds of thousands of deaths on the continent as “messy” is an absolute abomination.
"The real threat is a slow, comfortable drift toward not understanding what you're doing. Not a dramatic collapse. Not Skynet. Just a generation of researchers who can produce results but can't produce understanding."
the new bluesky edit button that i made
Wow, guys, I used Attie to code that edit button that Bluesky has been denying us all this time!
You can test it out here:
edit-button-production.up.railway.app/jcsalterego....
I think often of a New York Times photo of a little Iraqi girl tending to her parakeets in a bombed house, probably from 20 years ago now. I will think of this man and his sweet dog often now too. People just want to love what they love, care for their little beings, and instead we do this to them
This is an excellent summary of the US War on Iran current situation.
I’m an existentialist and borderline absurdist and even I struggle with the current moment.
This summary is just fantastic.
This bridge is a primary civilian artery linking southern Lebanon—a main agricultural region—with the rest of the country.
Its destruction isolates southern communities and cuts off the flow of goods to the north.
Israel plans to annex the southern territory under the auspices of a “buffer zone.”
Moscow's had a pretty good week, thanks largely to Trump's Iran misadventure. Oil prices are booming, sanctions are suspended, Iran is hewing even closer to Russia, the US is even more diplomatically isolated from Europe, and now Russian intel + tech are throwing sand in the gears of US war effort
Oh hi, just a political scientist who studies war, and yes, putting Marines on Kharg Island would, in fact, be "boots on the ground in a combat situation."
Thanks for coming to another of my TED talks.
Would it be boots on the ground if the troops are wearing slippers?
I’m sorry, you are right. I should have included the possibility of Iran mining the Strait of Hormuz in the war plan. It is a critical shipping channel that Iran can block and cripple the world economy. I failed to take that into account. That’s on me.
IIFFM #Sudan found 'hallmarks of #genocide' in the attacks on El-Fasher. BUT this is in the context of almost 3 yrs of such violent, ethnically/racially targeted crimes, where non-Arab communities are targeted for rape & killings. A resurgence of the early 2000s genocide. news.un.org/en/story/202...
You know how American intelligence was pretty excited to do to the USSR in Afghanistan what Soviet intelligence did to the US in Vietnam?
These are all answers given by trump and his various sycophants in the last five days to the question, "why are we doing this?"
So, in launching a huge bombing campaign on Iran they apparently didn't plan for:
- Who takes over;
- Interceptor shortages from sustained drone retaliation;
- How to defend US bases in the region;
- Threats to ships in the Strait of Hormuz; and
- How to evacuate Americans with airspace closed.
When we talk about Baby Boomers not getting off the stage: In 1997, the US president was born in 1946.
In 2007, the US president was born in 1946.
In 2017, the US president was born in 1946.
And next year in 2027? The US president will have been born in 1946.
How are those security guarantees looking to, well, everyone?
There are at least 10,000 Amcits in Qatar alone, and the US government is saying we are on our own
I have never seen a politician more directly copy this speech in my life
I think the last time the USA created regime change solely through bombing was in Cambodia, when a massive carpet bombing campaign so destabilized the country that the Khmer Rouge came to power and wiped out the Royal government—the American ally. Genocide followed.