Tweet explaining that there are three kinds of prisons in Russia. There are red prisons, controlled by the state, and black prisons, controlled by mobsters. Both of these types go back to Soviet times. Now there are also green prisons, controlled by Islamists.
The Linothorax Project, an attempt to recreate classical linen armor.
Greg Palast, "I was on the phone with RFK Jr. when he lost his mind."
Total fertility in Ireland has fallen to 1.5, lower than Britain's for the first time since the beginning of modern statistics. The transformation of Ireland over the past 30 years has been stunning.
Seeking the origin of The Game of 58 Holes, as we call a board game attested across the Bronze Age Middle East. The Egyptian version is sometimes called "hounds and jackals."
Poster, based on interviews with people in QAnon, about how they "fell down the rabbit hole." The main conclusion seems to be "personal trauma + distrust in authority = conspiracism."
Why did Telegram founder Pavel Durov fly to France just in time to be arrested? Lots of chatter that he arranged this with the French police for dark and deep reasons.
Transforming a WW II flak tower in Hamburg into "The Green Bunker."
Ancient people in Taiwan yanked out healthy teeth for mysterious reasons.
Trying to exterminate the mice that are ravaging the albatross population on a remote island.
Tyler Cowen on why massively overhauling the Federal bureaucracy in the manner called for in Project 2025 would be terrible for business.
Roman military camp found in the Swiss Alps, dates to the conquest of that region under Augustus and Tiberius, I mean, if you thought high mountains would deter the Romans. . . .
Podcast on the gay rights movement in the Caribbean, argues it is stalled because activists tried to jump straight to a situation like the US or western European without essential preparatory work.
The Surgeon General says that American parents are "at their wits' end" from stress but Kevin Drum checks the numbers and finds that depending on which measure you use, stress in the US is either down or up just a little. Raising children is definitely stressful and always has been, so if you are really stress-averse maybe you shouldn't do it.
New Mexico's oil boom: it's now the second leading US state in oil production, and most of the production growth over the past few years has been in just two NM counties. Bloomberg; Reuters; NY Times. This has led to legislative efforts to limit the environmental and social damage, besides a lot of lawsuits from environmentalists. And note that while the first decade of the fracking boom was mostly a money-losing proposition, better drilling technologies and higher global prices mean companies are now earning big profits. (According to the NY Times article, fracking companies lost $140 billion in the 2010s but over the past four years have cleared more than $400 billion.)
More on Obama as an anti-socialist: his administration helped launch the private space business.
An argument that hunter-gatherers move around so much not just to find food but so they can have larger social networks.
Crazy little video of a modified swing that delivers what many children have fantasized about.
Scientists trying to use bacteria to extract valuable metals from old batteries and other tech gear. A decade ago I was bullish on the future of manufacturing with genetically-modified bacteria, which I expected would soon be making drugs and other chemicals on a vast scale, but it seems to be developing very slowly.
Anyone can experience "belonging uncertainty" – the sense that you don't belong in a particular community or situation and don't understand what is going on – and most people of every social and ethnic group have.
Interesting NY Times piece on volcano science in Iceland.
Khaled Hassan, an Egyptian dissident who lives in Britain, is impressed that Israel rescued an Israeli Arab hostage, brought him to a hospital, and then took him home, where he received a phone call from the Prime Minister. Says no Arab country, except possibly the UAE, would ever do as much for one of its citizens. "I wish every Arab lived in the state of Israel."
Dmitri Medvedev says Russia's war in the Donbas is all about seizing mineral resources worth $7 trillion.
Russians are starting to feel like their recent advances in Donbas are too easy, and Ukraine must be saving its reserves for another surprise attack. Possibly in the south.
Short video showing how Ukrainian troops breached Russian minefields in Kursk.
More "new age of war beginning" talk from the French chief of staff.
Video showing 115 air-to-air drone kills, large Russian drones knocked down by Ukrainian quadcopters.
Meanwhile, in Chechnya: "Kadyrov awarded Kadyrov with the Order of Kadyrov."
3 comments:
The transformation of Ireland over the past 30 years has been stunning.
It's a hell of a thing to no longer be living under constant terror (from both sides), and to have legitimate home rule and self determination instead of stooges and puppets running the country on behalf of a foreign power.
Such transformations aren't that surprising when the older generations who have been consumed with hatred and stubbornness lose their grip on power, because the fed up younger generations have simply had enough and refuse to go along with it anymore, and instead demand (and work to create) real meaningful change.
Khaled Hassan, an Egyptian dissident who lives in Britain, is impressed that Israel rescued an Israeli Arab hostage, brought him to a hospital, and then took him home, where he received a phone call from the Prime Minister. Says no Arab country, except possibly the UAE, would ever do as much for one of its citizens. "I wish every Arab lived in the state of Israel."
Funny, given virtually all of the Arabs who DO live in Israel complain about being treated as vermin, locked in an open-air prison, subjected to a wholly separate court system that is run by the military rather than civil courts, etc.
Of course, we're talking about the treatment of an "Israeli Arab", which is different. Someone with Jewish ancestry, who has the rights of citizenship, unlike the non-Jewish descended Palestinians subject to the Israeli military police state. That's the only reason Israel did anything to help the man - somewhere in his family tree, a Jewish woman had a child, and the rest is history.
I don't know about you, but I don't find that particularly laudable as far as actions taken by Israel go.
And if we're going to go looking for reasons to praise Israel, maybe we should first address some of the incredible reasons to condemn them?
Like their military using AI to select bombing targets against civilians? Literally letting a machine decide who lives and dies, with only one single criterion checked by humans after the determination is made - "Is the target a woman?", because the Israelis believe that woman aren't very likely to be working for HAMAS.
This AI comes in the form of two systems - the one which selects specific people to assassinate is called "Lavender", while the one which selects specific buildings to drop multiple kiloton warheads onto is called (I shit you not) "The Gospel".
How's that for stupefying levels of not just total disregard for human life, but also jaw dropping arrogance, all wrapped up in utterly stunning sacrilege and blasphemy?
Ah, but yes... they rescued one of their own citizens who is -part- Arab, so they're clearly praise worthy!
Short video showing how Ukrainian troops breached Russian minefields in Kursk.
Looks to be bog-standard usage of mine-clearing line charges. MCLCs have been around since WW2, and evolved from the Bangalore Torpedo which has been around since before WW1. The more things change, they more they stay the same.
I suppose the one new facet of this usage is the drone footage allowing for greater precision in laying/casting the charges, and then confirming effect.
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