from the memebrary; details on this dangerous mental defect here
On the streets of Minneapolis they’re back harassing immigrants
A fake badge and a violent wish to tread
She was good, a peaceful activist, a parked car stopped in traffic
When a madman in a ski mask shot her dead
A shocking lack of empathy — You’d think for once that we’d agree
It’s heartless to call this self-defense
I guess kindness isn’t common
I guess kindness isn’t common sense
A world away we sit and wait as a century’s worth long debate
Is escalating right before our eyes
But the winning side will never quit; they’re starving out the Gaza Strip
And stopping ships to cut off all supplies
Still you won’t call it a genocide — The little kids in Palestine
Are dying while you’re sitting on the fence
I guess kindness isn’t common
I guess kindness isn’t common sense.
Hungry under traffic lights and clinging to a cardboard sign
And cars that pass without a second glance
As if “love your neighbour”s not for those in need right underneath your nose
Compassion never had a fighting chance
If you’re thinking, “where did he go wrong?”, that someone else will come along
And be the one to help his circumstance
Remember kindness isn’t common
Remember kindness isn’t common sense
Katie Pruitt — Kindness Isn’t Common Sense
I’ve added a couple of new subsections to my Links of the Month list this month: One called Power Abuse detailing the latest egregious atrocities by what I am calling the Patriciate (also now called the Epstein class), and the second called Dementia Watch detailing the latest evidence of Trump’s dangerously advancing senility and disconnection with reality.
It is perhaps ironic that in this age of unprecedented access to information and learning, the ultimate threat to the survival of our civilization, and indeed our species, may not be from war or weaponry or hatred or arrogance, but from plain old-fashioned quadruple* incompetence.
COLLAPSE WATCH
Energy institutes project that our use of climate-destroying hydrocarbon fuels will continue to increase for the next 50 years, and that so-called ‘renewables’ (which also rely on hydrocarbons for construction and maintenance) will increase, but never amount to more than 10-15% of total energy use. Assuming our civilization survives, of course. Chart by Our Wold In Data CC-BY.
Living without the future we were promised: Adrian Lambert explains how when complexity reaches the breaking point, prediction becomes impossible, and increasingly severe resource constraints run up against the growing needs of 8.2 billion people, everything chaotically falls apart. When spreadsheets cease to reflect material reality, you know we’re in trouble.
Our maladapted species: Bill Rees explains why humans did not evolve to live in complex, anxiety-provoking “civilizations”, and the result is the rise to power of psychopaths and Epstein class incompetents. “H. sapiens has simply not had time to evolve the psycho-cognitive capacity to live sustainably or for long in large complex societies.”
Trump presses the gas pedal towards collapse: Richard Heinberg seems to have finally moved past his idealistic hopefulness: “What is surprising is that this unraveling of the old order is accelerating so suddenly—and doing so largely thanks to just one man. During the last couple of decades, experts on societal collapse discussed whether the ‘Great Unraveling would be a slow erosion over decades or a fast disintegration over mere years. The latest evidence tips the scales toward a faster collapse scenario.”
The utter abandonment of climate change mitigation initiatives: Sabine Hossenfelder: “You all know that I don’t believe in free will, which is why I don’t talk about what we ‘should’ do. I’m just here to observe what we do. And this doesn’t look good for our species.”
Our hopeless attempts to ‘bargain’ with predicaments: Erik Michaels on how physics and nature don’t ‘negotiate’.
The Nord Stream assassination: Steven Newbury on how the US Administration’s bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines has had repercussions that have destroyed Europe’s economies and irrevocably accelerated global economic collapse.
Burning the lifeboats to keep the Titanic’s lights on: Also from Steven, a thorough explanation of why the recent massive international release of emergency energy reserves is just posturing to try to calm financial markets, and actually makes the accelerating energy crisis worse.
LIVING BETTER
from the memebrary
Province of BC ends semi-annual time changes: The province has “given up” waiting for federal governments to end this decades-long idiocy and is adopting year-round Pacific (Daylight) Time. The usual reactionaries are already working to sabotage the move.
POLITICS AND ECONOMICS AS USUAL
“We can pull this one out no problem” — brilliant cartoon of Trump & Netanyahu playing ‘Jenga‘ with the world order by India’s Sounyadip Sinha in The Hindu; I think it’s curious that there are so few cartoons in the west about Trump’s latest illegal war (and those I’ve found are not funny).
Imperialism, Militarism & Fascism: Short takes:
- Trump launches yet another illegal and insane war in Iran:
Same lying excuses and meaningless promises as in Iraq.
The same firehose of propaganda and misinformation.
Same strategy of economic strangulation. Same objective of stealing a nation’s oil.
The same long-term intimidation and threats to destabilize and stifle resistance.
In 20 years we’ll see in a ruined Iran the same chaos and despair that we now see in Iraq.
The same feeble apologies from the US’ cowed vassal states.
An Iranian professor reports on what’s happening so far.
The demented US president changes his story on what’s happening and why, every day.
And Patrick Lawrence, who’s just won another journalism award, explains why Trump has given Iran no alternative but to develop nuclear weapons to protect it and other Middle Eastern nations.
And Patrick also describes the infiltration of Old Testament fanatic religious evangelists into the administration and their effect on their doddering leader (Thanks to Bart Anderson and Victoria Armigo for some of the above links) - The Russians explain how they were ‘cornered’ into not vetoing the UNSC vote condemning Iran but not the US/Israel for the war.
- An excellent update on what’s happening in Venezuela (not what we’re being told in the western press)
- Rotten cops in Canada too: Investigation into massive corruption in Toronto’s notorious police department has now expanded to be province wide. And, to no one’s surprise, the RCMP is also rife with misogyny and racism. Yet the federal government has decided to give Canada’s cops more surveillance power.
- The end of the AOC moment: The former progressive has betrayed her values and her supporters and joined the ranks of warmongers and war apologists. “The problem with today’s progressive movement, led by figures like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is not that it misidentifies economic inequality as a driver of authoritarianism. It is that it assumes legitimacy can be restored primarily through electoral victory and redistributive policy delivered within the existing institutional architecture, one that relies upon elite channels to achieve the highest halls of power.”
- Instagram, part of the Meta tech bro group, will start reporting kids who look at suicide sites to their parents.
- Nuclear site safety rules demolished in secret deregulation.
Propaganda, Censorship, Misinformation and Disinformation: Short takes:
- Arundhati Roy drops out of Berlin Film Festival after organizers warn filmmakers should be ‘apolitical’, especially on the Palestinian genocide.
- Iran War propaganda enters the realm of the ridiculous.
- Newspapers that can no longer justify the genocide are now trying to blame it all on Netanyahu
- Musk’s XTwitter-Grok posts obviously fake Iran war videos
- What happens when a fake entirely-AI ‘news site’ starts libelling people
Corpocracy, Enshittification, and Unregulated Capitalism: Short takes:
- Leaked emails reveal Amazon’s plan to use their ‘Ring’ cameras to surveil the entire population for profit
- Economist Michael Roberts applauds Yanis Varoufakis’ call for a new economic system to replace our failed experiment with untrammelled capitalism, but questions why they think the replacement should be a revamped ‘democracy’ rather than socialism.
- Cory explains how the Brazilian model of qualified limited liability is superior to the unlimited protection from liability used (and abused) in the west.
- Why we can’t “shop our way out of” Amazon’s retail monopoly
- Farmers fight back against tech bros attempts to replace small farms with massive data centres. Thanks to Kavana Tree Bressen for the link.
- A new Supreme Court ruling preventing the music and other industries’ attempts to copyright AI works, is actually a victory, of sorts, for artists
- How ad-tech (ad tracking that incorporates and constitutes surveillance) is being sold to DHS and other intelligence and security agencies
- The DOJ has once again buckled to corporatist lobbying and settled with the LiveStream/Ticketmaster monopoly for a slap on the wrist
Administrative Mismanagement & Incompetence: Short takes:
- Europe’s/US’ continuing support for Ukraine War displays both massive ignorance and magical thinking
- The next US Surgeon-General wants to ban birth control
- US Iran War efforts hampered by faulty aircraft carrier toilets
Power Abuse (Atrocities by the Patriciate/Epstein class of Billionaires): Short takes:
- Sabine Hossenfelder reveals the machinations of Lee Smolin and others in the Patriciate/Epstein class to coordinate efforts to undermine and discredit her work. The Patriciate/Epstein class, we’re learning, is as well-entrenched in the science and education establishment as in the political and corporate establishment.
- New Epstein file releases show the extent of Patriciate involvement in the character assassination of Jeremy Corbyn and the installation of Keir Starmer.
- Richard Dawkins used his connections in the Patriciate/Epstein class to organize an attack on Rebecca Watson
- Barack Obama counsel and Epstein buddy Kathryn Ruemmler used her connections in the Patriciate/Epstein class to lobby politicians and pressure the justice department to favour corporate clients (including her husband) in wrongdoing settlements and to attack Elizabeth Warren for objecting to this malfeasance.
- An anthropologist tracks the “financiers, religious leaders, scientists, politicians and princes” and corporate interests tied together in a “secret self-serving influence network” within the Patriciate/Epstein class, and how they “trade favours”.
- How the “vassalage” of political leaders is exploited by the Patriciate/Epstein class: “This is a transnational elite whose primary allegiance is to capital preservation and liquidity, not national interest or geography. The have no moral limits and operate with effective legal impunity.”
- How stupid billionaires from Ford to Musk, sheltered from criticism of their idiocy by their sycophants, wreck things for themselves and the rest of us.
- And, of course, the ideologically-bent Trump DOJ is carefully censoring and removing any Epstein file releases with even a hint of impropriety by their beloved leader.
Dementia Watch: Short takes:
- In increasing unhinged rants, Trump threatens to ‘destroy countries’ that don’t do what he says
- US Senator calls for 25th amendment removal of Trump for advanced dementia
- Trump appointees declare ‘Holy War’ to bring back Jesus, require troops to sign on to this ‘war’
Department of Health Prevention: Short takes:
- A public health investigation has revealed that, throwing the baby out with the bathwater, the demolition of USAID has already cost hundreds of thousands of deaths (thanks to Cory Doctorow for the link)
- The Lancet reports in detail on the utter disaster of the lunatic RFK Jr’s first year as health chief
FUN AND INSPIRATION
just discovered these awesome and very funny (IMO) “coolness graphs” from RC Jones at coolnessgraphed.com
lots more on the site
Spotting the clues in AI slop: This is falling down funny, and the delivery is brilliant. They really think our attention spans have deteriorated so much we can’t spot these? Thanks to Paul Heft for the link.
At no point could I guess the next word: Also from Matt Rose, a collection of hilarious examples of social media posts designed (I guess) to grab your attention with their sheer absurdity. The one below, about Jordan Peterson’s daughter and one of her husbands, is actually factual, summarizing a post by… Jordan Peterson’s daughter.
The fake video of Carney walking out on Trump: It received over 650,000 views and thousands of ‘likes’ and was replicated on hundreds of other YouTube channels before YouTube noticed it was all AI slop. Some of the lookalikes with the same claims are still up.
Rare bird facts: Some interesting bird facts embedded in a rambling video whose humour is so dry it could dehydrate an ocean. Thanks to Hank and John for the link.
The difference between traveling and being traveled: Some technologies amplify our human capabilities. Others replace them, to be point we lose these capabilities ourselves and become dependent on the technology. Thanks to Jack Park for the link.
THOUGHTS OF THE MONTH
I saw this famous quote from “Yoda” on a shirt someone was wearing in the café the other day. I thought it was an awesome aphorism, and researched where it came from. To my delight, I discovered it was not coined by any individual — it came out as a collective effort during a Star Wars scriptwriters’ meeting.
From Indrajit Samarajiva, from Regime Change Begins At Home:
Iran is just one country the White Empire is attacking under its many false flags. The Empire is still genociding Palestine, really starving Cuba, and threatening its own Europeons with taking their colonies away. ‘America’ itself is still ethnic cleansing the real natives of that continent (who are ignorantly called ‘illegals now, instead of ignorantly called Indians). The mothership of all this bullshit is still enslaving largely Black people through the world’s largest prison system (it’s just called the 13th Amendment now). And now they are openly run by felons and sex-slaving oligarchs and daring people to do anything about it. Yet we are supposed to take the word of people that kill children in their day jobs and rape children on vacation over the heroes defending them. I’m sorry, but at this point into a livestreamed genocide, if you take the genociders word on wrong and right, you have lost more than your mind, your soul is on the wrong side.
And just look at your own lives. ‘Americans’ live like shit under its reign, the average ‘American’ is a debt-slave, chained to corporate serfdom by healthcare, while corporate nobility rapes children in front of them and dares them to do something. So fucking do something. Same goes for Europeons, who are humiliated, laughed at, have their pipelines and economies blown up, and are then given the bill for all of it. Have you no dignity White people, or can you only get off on hurting colored people worse? Why not take a does of the medicine you so liberally prescribe to us, in the Dirty South? Overthrow your own damn governments, and liberate yourselves from the evil ideology of Whiteness.
From Steven J Newbury on The Architecture of Delusion:
The tragedy of the last thirty years is that the true believers thought they were building a global civilisation, while the operators knew they were just managing an empire. Now, both the predators [the west] and the prey [the rest of the world] must face the thermodynamics of a shrinking world.
From Daniel Crimmins of the US Army 3rd Infantry Division during the Iraq War:
Then you realize you haven’t seen anything to support the idea that these poor fuckers are a threat to your home. You look around and you see all the contractors making six figure salaries to fix your shit, train Iraqis, maintain the ridiculous SUVs the KBR dicks ride around in. You consider the fact that every 25mm shell costs about forty bucks, and your company has been handing those fuckers out like shrapnel flavored parade candies. You think about all the fuel you’re going through, all the ammo and missiles and grenades. You think about every time you lose a vehicle, the Army buys a new one. Maybe you start to see a lot of people making a lot of money on huge amounts of human suffering.
Then you go on leave, and realize that Ayn Rand has no idea what the fuck she’s talking about. You realize that Fox News and Limbaugh and John McCain don’t respect you or your buddies. They don’t give a fuck if you get a parade or a box when you get home, you’re nothing to them but a prop.
Then you get out, and you hate the news. You hate the apathy, and you hate the murder being carried out in your name. You grew up wanting so bad to be Luke Skywalker, but you realize that you were basically a Stormtrooper, a faceless, nameless rifleman, carrying a spear for empire, and you start to accept the startlingly obvious truth that these are people like you.
* The four elements of incompetence: lack of cognitive/thinking skills, lack of information and understanding, lack of essential skills/experience/know-how, and impaired mental health and fitness.
