Germany just activated its largest ever solar installation — one farm, 1.5 million homes, zero carbon. The #CottbusSolarPark covers 3,500 hectares and produces 2.1 tw-hours annually, replacing two coal plants that operated on this same land until 2022. #SolarPower #ActOnClimate #Renewables
Close up of a dragon’s head made of willow.
Deadly dragon
Ulster Museum, Belfast
The willow dragons (1 of 3) were created by the Ulster Folk Museum's master basketmaker, Bob Johnston.
#Woodensday
This is how fascists are. Anyone inner circle is a person, anyone else is a resource to cultivate and control. Work as soon as able [child labour], women are wombs for the state that need to have lots of [insert Nationalist nonsense] babies, hopefully die before you need a pension. Don't vote Fash.
The entire American conservative MAGA “movement” has been a Russian funded op the entire time. Follow the money. It’s a straight line from Putin to CPAC.
Trump's presidency is quite possibly the most corrupt in US history, Bibi can't seem to stop himself from killing Arab civilians, Putin has killed over a million of his own people in the pursuit of Empire, Orban impoverished Hungary while enriching himself.
Nationalism. Is. Bullshit.
The LNP are now indistinguishable from One Nation. Just going full tilt blood and soil White Nationalism. #auspol
The text says: Orban was also a source of lavish grants and speaking gigs, ultimately paid for by long-suffering EU taxpayers. That’s all over now. Those who have taken those gigs will come under a lot more scrutiny. In Australia they include Tony Abbott, Alexander Downer, Brian Loughnane (former Liberal national director), Greg Sheridan and many less prominent but highly influential figures.
Good piece by John Quiggin on the ousting of Orban, including this observation:
open.substack.com/pub/johnquig...
You have to live remembering this. You have to live knowing this. You have to know that people in foreign countries with foreign gods and foreign beliefs just want to go home at the end of the day and sleep in peace.
No matter where you go, no matter the cultural and religious differences, the people there are just PEOPLE. They're brave and cowardly, they're selfish and selfless, they're good and bad. They want to live their lives and keep their families safe. They're PEOPLE, like you.
Opposition leader Péter Magyar at a rally.
Orbán's electoral crushing is a far greater achievement than most people outside Hungary realise.
He systemically consolidated power for 16 years, fixed the electoral map, abused govt power for political purposes & censored media.
The hurdles that Hungarians overcame for this moment were immense.
Orbàn ousted!! Hope is a nice feeling.
governance and personal tantrum, between national interest and his own insatiable need to dominate, threaten, and perform.
This is not strength. It’s not leadership. It’s not even controlled aggression. It is a man coming apart at the seams
and see,” then you are not a bystander, you are a participant in whatever comes next. The 25th Amendment isn’t radical. It’s a last-resort safeguard against exactly this: a president who is no longer capable of distinguishing between
Neutrality is endorsement-
And the silence, the cowardly, calculating silence, from those still clinging to him is deafening. Because make no mistake, at this point, neutrality is endorsement. If you can read that post, hear those threats, watch the escalation, and still say “let’s wait
A grey bunny sitting on its hind legs, holding an ax in both hands. It is a scarily cheerful look on its face. Reference: Paris, Bibl. de la Sorbonne, ms. 0121, f. 023 (1301).
What the Easter Bunny really looks like.
There's such a disconnect between the political rhetoric of people and the humanity of people.
Approximately 70'000 lives lost to the Gaza war. Over 2000 since the war with Iran. Overwhelmingly civilians. Lives like yours and mine. As complex, as loved, as worthy of life and safety.
I work in a university where academics and professional staff are from all over the world. A close colleague has family in Tehran and you can imagine how he feels— and he hates the Iranian government. After the Bondi attack, my Muslim and Jewish colleagues came together to comfort each other.
This isn't a conspiracy, it's practically their entire policy. They write it all down and have conferences about the tactics they use to ensure market freedom, social monopoly, and tax evasion. I would even simply describe fascism as corporate overreach but it's too insensitive an understatement.
Because it already has been. Years of neoliberal politics have eroded public services and infrastructure, which they then use as an excuse to erode it further and privatise those services, they create social scapegoats as an excuse to limit social freedom and create an easier to control population.
I hate to be right.
But it's a trap to think all politics are the same or irredeemable. Whenever someone wants you to think that, ask why they want you to? Personally, I'm not impressed by any auspol party right now, but I understand that the LNP/ PHON would be so much worse than our current gov.
I remember when Trump was elected, thinking how inevitable it was he'd start a war. Fascism is volatile and needs war, and a fascist USA, in being as powerful as it is and projecting the worst of itself, was always going to be unbearable in its touchy arrogance, ignorance, and hubris.
I know it's not easy. I'm not naturally angry yet I feel like there's been a slow simmering rage inside me for the past few years that comes from the knowledge of how much pain and death and destruction this fascist bullshit would inflict for such stupid reasons— greed, pride, control, and power.
I don't want people to be unrealistically positive but I would like there to be more questioning of those that want you constantly off-kilter and enraged. Often what they want is an overwhelmed voter base— emotional and disengaged. Find a cooler head, strip away the noise, follow the money. #auspol
youtube.com/shorts/msR4-...
A great interview and breakdown of geopolitics at present, including a succinct explanation for why Nationalism is dangerous (empire and war), why International Law is important, and why what's happening in Gaza is in fact a genocide as legally defined by the UN:
youtu.be/YKmOXJnXshY
Capital often tries to convince the worker that corporate interest is also in the interest of labour, fascism does that on steroids. When things go rotten on the right, it really needs nationalists, and so it funds nationalism and becomes ultra-nationalist in its messaging. Then chaos and war.
No, I don't think this global chaos was a machiavellian conspiracy theory, but I do think it was just fascism doing what fascism does. Which is why I try to communicate how fascism works, because muddying the definition is how it conceals its motives.
But I do agree that the market and politics are more reactive than proactive right now, have lost touch in how to improve people's lives in the long term, and can often flounder when in power.
While China is still a big contributor, it's untrue that there's no plan. China shut down outdated production facilities, strengthening industrial emission standards, and promoting renewable energies. It was called the “Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan" and it improved air quality.
What do you think happens if someone like Hanson became as powerful as Trump, but in Aus? How long do you think our regional relationships would last us? Our pension? Our work life balance? I give it a week before we find ourselves unnecessarily jabbing at China with a stick and beating our chest.