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Created
Wed, 02/08/2023 - 04:50
On July 28, The Washington Post reported that, bowing to pressure from China hawks in Congress, US President Joe Biden will bar Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu from attending the annual summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), which the US will host in San Francisco in November. In response, Mao Ning, the Continue reading »
Created
Wed, 02/08/2023 - 03:30
Trump’s own words are being used against him. Again. We’ve mostly forgotten about the Manhattan hush money case but it’s chugging along. Here’s the latest: The Manhattan district attorney seeking to jail Donald Trump over his hush money payment to a porn star is seeking to potentially weaponize the same piece of damning evidence that nailed the former president at his rape trial: the deposition where he said stars like him get away with sexual harassment “unfortunately—or fortunately.” It’s now up to a federal judge to decide whether those prosecutors can get a video that shows Trump at his worst: unapologetic about sexual assault, uttering misogynistic comments, and willing to lie to the American public to save his own skin. It’s a testament to the breadth of Trump’s legal problems that we’re witnessing the collision of two totally separate cases: a civil defamation case about rape and a criminal case about a cover-up. And it all comes down to a closed-door question-and-answer session Trump had on Oct. 19, 2022.
Created
Wed, 02/08/2023 - 03:00

Gather round, men, for tonight I shall finish my mission of vengeance against this cruel machine that mocks my attempts to understand the ways of the Almighty! My life’s goal is finally within my grasp, and soon I shall snare that SpongeBob SquarePants plush toy and spite the malignant force that prevents me from being fulfilled in life! I merely need a bit more time. And more quarters.

This is not an obsession, for obsession implies a lack of reason. This is a quest to assert man’s dominance over the mechanized world! I have been studying this game for what feels like a lifetime, learning its ways. The feel of the joystick. The proper amount of pressure to exert. This claw is now an extension of both my hand and my will to succeed. And once I capture my prey, it will justify the hours of my life and the hundreds of dollars in quarters I have spent on this game. All my means are sane. My motive and object mad.

Created
Wed, 02/08/2023 - 02:00
The LA Times’ Jonah Goldberg discusses the idea that Republicans are hooked on victimization, believing that they are under siege by powerful forces that are destroying their way of life: Among his core supporters, about 37% of the party according to a breakdown of the poll by the New York Times’ Nate Cohn, literally nobody thinks he committed any crimes and 94% think the party needs to rally around him against these presumably bogus charges. […]  If the Republican establishment forces were as powerful as Trump and his voters think, they’d be able to do something about it. If the Deep State were half as formidable as they think, Trump would never have been president in the first place. But large segments of the GOP suffer from the delusion that they are victims of the ruling classes and that the woke left is running everything — or will — if Trump doesn’t stop them. Even in states with Republican governors and legislative supermajorities, like Tennessee, a certain paranoia that the left could take over at any moment dominates politics.
Created
Wed, 02/08/2023 - 00:30
Bankruptcy, fistfights and leather couches Rachel Maddow’s staff noticed a sprawling story that while not exactly headline news ought to be. (I’d missed it until her show Monday night.) Multiple state Republican parties are at or near bankruptcy. The headline for Jim Geraghty’s National Review column last week dubbed it a “quiet collapse” in four key states. Political donations follow power. Especially in the states. Especially in non-general election years. So it is not surprising that in four states with Democratic governors that state Republicans are not seeing their coffers as full as when the GOP holds the governor’s mansion. What Geraghty sees in that less is something more. In Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, and Minnesota Republicans are “going broke and devolving into infighting little fiefdoms.” Arizona Republicans are down to their last $23,000 in their federal account while their failed gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake barnstorms the country as “real” governor in exile. She could be raising money to help her fellow Arizona Republicans, but no.
Created
Tue, 01/08/2023 - 23:45
Preparing For Collapse During Collapse

As regular readers know my judgment is that we are now into civilization collapse. It’s slow right now, and it will be stop and start, but it will continue and pick up speed over time.

That means that you should be preparing for collapse to get worse, including climate change and ecological collapse.

Civilizations rise and fall, that’s normal, and ecological collapse commonly happens at the same time, but what’s unusual right now is that we have a world system which is global, and thus is collapsing all at once, and we have a global ecological collapse.

So it’s going to be bad. Very bad.

Still, there are things to be done.

Created
Tue, 01/08/2023 - 23:30

There can be little question that the grim prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, which still shows no sign of closing anytime soon, is a key legacy — in the worst sense imaginable — of America’s post-9/11 forever wars.  I’ve been covering the subject for decades now and that shameful legacy has never diminished.  Last month, in response to a column I wrote for TomDispatch — one of dozens, I’m sad to say, that I’ve done on Guantánamo over these endless years — I received a surprise email: an invitation to attend a meeting at the British Parliament. A group known as the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Closing the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility, formed this April, was gathering for the... Read more

Created
Tue, 01/08/2023 - 22:00

My sister’s baby

Definitely wouldn’t bring my sister’s baby. That would be so unwise, so I can confidently say I wouldn’t bring them. That’s a good choice, right? Because then I’d have to bring the baby plus all the baby supplies. And I’d have the added difficulty of having to take care of the baby while also trying to survive myself—too many moving parts. Also, the baby doesn’t have any helpful survival skills like hunting, fishing, constructing shelters, etc. So pretty much just a total liability.

My Switch

Totally impractical. Like, yeah, maybe fun, but probably not something I would put in my top three if somebody asked, right? Like that would be embarrassingly wrong?

Flint

I want to say no? Or, wait, maybe yes? I’ll put a pin in this one for a moment. Forget I mentioned it.

Bubble gum

Haha, that would be so stupid. Unless you’re some sort of bubblegum whiz, who can construct almost anything out of bubblegum? But, alas, that’s not me. So, pass.

Created
Tue, 01/08/2023 - 18:22
ULEZ – the Ultra Low Emmission Zone – has become a political football. Its significance to a general election manifesto became apparent as the Conservatives retained the Uxbridge and South Rusilip seat in a crucial by-election as plans to expand the clean air zone loomed over constituents. The prospect of being charged the £12 per […]