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workersolidarity · 4 months

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🇮🇱⚔️🇵🇸 ☠️ 🚨 OXFAM: ISRAEL'S GENOCIDAL WAR IN GAZA THE DEADLIEST OF THE 21ST CENTURY

International humanitarian organization, Oxfam, released a statement Friday stating that Israel's genocidal war on the Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip is the deadliest war of the 21st century.

The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) are killing Palestinians at an average rate of 250 civilians per day, which "massively exceeds" the average daily death toll of any major conflict of the century, according to Oxfam.

“The scale and atrocities that Israel is visiting upon Gaza are truly shocking. For 100 days the people of Gaza have endured a living hell. Nowhere is safe and the entire population is at risk of famine," Oxfam's Middle East Director Sally Abi Khalil is quoted as saying.

“It is unimaginable that the international community is watching the deadliest rate of conflict of the 21st century unfold, while continuously blocking calls for a ceasefire," the Director added.

Using nothing more than publicly available data, Oxfam extrapolated that the average daily death toll in the war on the Gaza Strip is far higher than any other significant war of our time, including Syria (96.5 deaths per day), Sudan (51.6 deaths), Iraq (50.8 deaths), Ukraine (43.9 deaths), Afghanistan (23.8 deaths), and Yemen (15.8 deaths per day).

Oxfam points to how the Palestinian population of Gaza is being forced into ever-shrinking areas of the enclave by Israeli bombing raids, forced to flee from areas the occupation has previously told civilians was safe, however nowhere in Gaza is truly safe at this time.

More than one million Palestinians, more than half the population of Gaza, have been forced to seek shelter in Rafah, near the border with Egypt, with massive overcrowding and little in the way of food, water, fuel, or sanitation services, and few medicines left in the enclave's medical centers. Currently, Oxfam says, only 10% of weekly food aid is arriving in Gaza due to the occupation' siege, restrictions and violence.

Oxfam is also warning of the huge threat to life in the Gaza Strip as a result of hunger and disease, with colder weather making the situation even more critical as a shortage of blankets and no fuel for heaters or hot water.

According to the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC), a partner organization of Oxfam, the situation for Palestinian civilians sheltering in tents has become “worse than anything you could imagine”, with makeshift shelters letting in rain, being blown away in the wind and people resorting to desperate measures like selling precious food or water supplies in order to get a blanket."

Previously, in the Jabalia Refugee Camp located in the north of Gaza was heavily flooded with sewage after Israeli warplanes targeted pipelines and pumping stations in the camp.

Oxfam emphasizes the lack of clean water and proper sanitation, increasing the risk to life in the Gaza Strip, and points to cases of diarrhea, which have risen to 40 times higher than the previous year's number of cases.

“While the mass atrocities continue, lives continue to be lost and critical supplies cannot get in," Khalil, Oxfam's Director says, "Israel’s total blockade of the Gaza Strip is restricting life-saving aid, including food, medical supplies and water and sanitation facilities."

“On top of the already horrific death toll, many more people could die from hunger, preventable diseases, diarrhoea and cold. The situation is particularly worrying for children, pregnant women and those with existing medical conditions," Khalil added.

“The only way to stop the bloodshed and prevent many more lives being lost is for an immediate ceasefire, for hostages to be released and for crucial aid supplies to be allowed in.”

Oxfam ends its statement by pointing to the Genocide hearings at the International Court of Justice, which began yesterday to look into charges that Israel is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip, and said it supports "all efforts to investigate and address all mass atrocity crimes and human rights violations, irrespective of the perpetrator."

#source

@WorkerSolidarityNews

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mariacallous · 9 months

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Meduza: Russia's ideological curriculum

The recent unveiling of Russia’s new history textbook has me thinking about the ideological curriculum that was introduced to Russian schools a year ago — most notably, “Conversations About What’s Important,” a weekly class covering topics like the “reasons” for the war in Ukraine and how to properly “love the fatherland.” As a new academic year approaches, I thought it would be useful to look at what we know about the results of the Kremlin’s efforts to justify the invasion to schoolchildren so far.

A survey conducted by The Moscow Times' Russian service in June found that in schools that were considered “good” before the war, many teachers found ways to avoid using the government’s “patriotic” lesson plans, whereas most teachers in “average” schools taught the curriculum as intended. In February, the Russian authorities began airing video versions of the lessons on television, perhaps suspecting that a lot of teachers who quietly oppose the war would be willing to present the material if it became the path of least resistance. (The Education Ministry said this initiative was for students at home, but multiple kids told journalists they have to watch it at school.)

At the same time, reporting others to the authorities for illegal speech has become more common in Russia, spurring teachers who are inclined to speak out against the invasion in class to self-censor. One English teacher told the outlet Current Time: “[When the war started], I wasn’t afraid that one of the children would turn me in. Now I am.”

Another teacher told The Moscow Times that while she feels like she and her colleagues managed to protect their students from propaganda this past year, she’s not optimistic about the future. “We’re talking about kids who were already [essentially adults] on February 24 — they knew how to think. […] But as for what these new [students] and their parents will be like, God only knows.”

Daniil Ken, the head of the anti-Kremlin trade union Teacher’s Alliance, said he doesn’t believe the government’s “patriotic” curriculum is made with any long-term goals in mind: “The purpose of the propaganda is to subjugate society [right now].” Whether or not that’s the case, one thing appears certain: the second year of pro-war messaging in Russia’s schools will be more intense than the first.

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mynnthia · 4 months

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“Israel’s military is killing Palestinians at an average rate of 250 people a day, which massively exceeds the daily death toll of any other major conflict of recent years,” Oxfam said in a statement. For comparison, the charity provided a list of average deaths per day in other conflicts since the turn of the century: 96.5 in Syria, 51.6 in Sudan, 50.8 in Iraq, 43.9 in Ukraine, 23.8 in Afghanistan, and 15.8 in Yemen. Oxfam said the crisis is further compounded by Israel’s restrictions on the entry of aid into Gaza, where only 10 percent of weekly food aid that is needed gets in. This poses a serious risk of starvation for those who survive the relentless bombardment, it said. Also on Thursday, United States-based rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) released its World Report 2024, which said civilians in Gaza have been “targeted, attacked, abused, and killed over the past year at a scale unprecedented in the recent history of Israel and Palestine”.

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more information on the #EndIsraelsGenocide social media storm

#EndIsraelsGenocide

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 8 days

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THE WIND HAS CHANGED

TCINLA

APR 19, 2024

Think of America as an 18th Century sailing ship - think of it as “Old Ironsides”! - the ship has been becalmed in The Doldrums (that area of the planet where the winds shift from one hemisphere to the other without rhyme or reason) for a long time. The citizen crew are seeing the food supplies drop; the water in the barrels looks increasingly “fishy”. They have manned the longboats to try and tow the ship to “catch the wind” for many days, but to no result.

And then, on a day indistinguishable from any other, there comes a moment...

The Top Royal sail on the foremast flaps. Flaps again. And again...

The spar of the Mainsail on the mainmast creaks slightly as it turns...

The other high sails flap...

The crew watch the sails, intent. Can it be?

And suddenly the sails begin to fill with the wind!

It grows stronger - the lower sails fill.

And the ship begins to move again. Slowly, slowly gaining speed.

She turns in the new direction.

The sails fill in the wind, a magnificent sight.

Old Ironsides gets underway in Boston Harbor - May 21, 2021

I was talking with my counselor during our weekly call yesterday, and she asked me what I was thinking about the current political situation. (This was before the Ukraine aid votes in the House last night) I said that as I see it, the tide is turning, the wind is picking up. Nothing really big (like I said, this was before the Ukraine vote, which is Yuuuuuugge!), but all the little indicators are turning the same direction.

It’s like after the Battle of Midway - the enemy is still strong, still dangerous, but the gutting they received in the fight opened the space for America to take action at Guadalcanal that led to the Japanese never taking offensive action during the war again.

Yes, this November is our “Guadalcanal,” or as we call it here at TAFM after the series on that battle was posted last year, our “American Stalingrad.”

The MAGA movement got splintered last night, and I for one don’t think they have the skill to put Humpty-Dumpty together again. (How’s that for mixed metaphors? Good?)

For one thing, J.D. Vance, Moscow Marge, and the rest of the Space Laser Putin Caucus, got thrown under the bus by Fearless Leader last night - who may not be able to do much, but he can read polls. He knows the wind has shifted, that the wind is filling the sails and we are beginning to move out of The Doldrums. He knows he’s losing control.

After last night, Ukraine aid will pass. Mike Johnson and Mitch McConnell braved the FART (Floor Action Response Team) of the Space Laser Putin Caucus and Did The Right Thing.

Trump gave Mike Johnson and Mitch McConnell the green light, while at the same time casting J.D. Vance, Marjorie Taylor-Greene, and the rest of the Russia Traitors over the side.

The essential line of Trump’s “Truthing” post last night is this: “As everyone agrees, Ukraine Survival and Strength should be much more important to Europe than to us, but it is also important to us!” (Emphasis mine)

He’s not doing this because he cares about Ukraine; he’s doing this because the polls are shifting; he needs fewer hassles. The wind is changing.

He’s doing this because his team knows there are a lot of 1st and 2nd generation Eastern European voters in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania; because even with conservative Republicans, Putin’s approval rating is in single digits.

One of the greatest legacies of breaking the MAGA movement on this issue is that no one loses in this deal:

Ukraine gets weapons. Putin gets hammered. Americans get jobs.

Trumpism - particularly its J.D. Vance-led German-American Bund Putinism - is a pessimistic creed. As Trump says, “We’re the stupid ones.” MAGA is a movement of decline, weakness, of dark forces draining America’s power. Trump and the Space Laser Caucus tell their supporters “We need to retreat, withdraw, hide, and let regional warlords like Putin reign over as much territory as they can seize.”

But what last night showed is it’s okay to win. It’s okay to believe in a just and right cause.

Hee, now, Ukraine is that cause.

This is a contest between Russia, Iran, North Korea, and their banker China, who are desperate to beat the demographic and political clock as their kleptocratic and demagogic systems collapse.

The West, and the Pacific democracies are struggling just to make the world stable while they confront a sweeping array of challenges.

Europe didn’t want this fight, but they know what happens if Russia wins.

It’s taken awhile to fully understand the depth of Putin’s ambition to reassemble the Soviet Union without the stupid communism. Almost everyone gets it now.

This is the world’s fight. Putin must be defeated.

The flow of arms to Ukraine will move quickly. The F-16s are about to deploy. The anti-air and artillery supplies will be restocked.

Most importantly - to me at least - my Ukrainian friends are going to survive.

MAGA broke something in the House. Retirements are up. Swing seats are in danger. The endless infighting has soured many “normie” Republicans on the Space Laser Caucus and their strategy of screaming, throwing feces like a rabid monkey in a zoo, and all the performative lying. Even in the right-wing media bubble, the act has gotten old.

Fox has had enough of Marjorie Traitor Goon’s tantrums, her unearned sense of entitlement, and her political terrorism.

The perverse incentives of MAGA rewarded the Space Laser Caucus while leaving the rest - or at least those not representing the most ruby-red districts - fearing electoral survival this fall.

It turns out that shitting in the punchbowl is unwelcome over time. The tell is that Fox has slowly stopped booking the MAGA clowns while Rupert and Lachlan try to find and anoint the Next Star after their major fakakte with Desantis.

Gaetz has burned every conceivable bridge. He may think he can run in and win the Florida Governor’s race, but with a vengeful Kevin McCarthy and an even more vengeful Casey DeSantis in the wings, he’s about to “go through some things.” Last night, ABC News reported, “Matt Gaetz attended 2017 party where minor and drugs were present, woman’s sworn statement obtained by Congress claims.”

Lauren Bobert’s star has disappeared. She’s going to lose a race in the most Republican congressional district in Colorado. Jim Comer is now Jaime Raskin’s public punching bag, so stupid that he still actually believes his own BS.

The House GOP is now staring down the barrel of a political gun; there is no joy in Mudville.

Happy warriors like Jamie Raskin, Jared Moskowitz, Eric Swalwell, Jasmine Crockett and others know who is in charge in the House now.

Chuck Schumer managed to keep his caucus together, pulling in some GOP support, as the Senate schooled the Space Laser Caucus about their impeachment clown show of the House. No high drama; just procedural murder

What has been going on at 100 Centre Street in New York City, where Trump is finally facing the prospect of justice for his crimes in a case that now is seen as far more important than it was originally, is also a good sign the tide and wind are changing.

Attorneys selected the final alternate juror in former President Donald Trump’s hush money case this morning, paving the way for opening arguments to begin next week. Everything moved much faster this week than anyone expected.

The Washington Post reported this morning: “A top leader of the national conservative group Turning Point Action, which has amplified false claims of election fraud by former president Donald Trump and others, resigned Thursday after being accused of forging voter signatures on official paperwork so that he could run for reelection in the Arizona House.”

As David Kurtz put it today at TPM, “We are seeing random citizens who are imbued with an innate understanding of what the rule of law means. That civic-minded understanding of the rule of law is the bedrock foundation for the legal structures we erect upon it. Without it, we have nothing. It’s a small sign of hope in a troubled time.” It is indeed!

This is a moment that reminds me of events aboard USS Enterprise on December 7, 1941.

Admiral Halsey had just poured himself a second cup of coffee when his aide dashed into the cabin. “Admiral, there’s an air raid on Pearl!” and informed him of Enterprise aviators being attacked by enemy aircraft over Oahu. Halsey’s first thought was that the Army’s readiness exercise was taking things too far. He leapt to his feet, telling his aide to radio Kimmel that the Army was “shooting down my own boys!” A second aide entered moments later with a message direct from Admiral Kimmel: “AIR RAID PEARL HARBOR X THIS IS NO DRILL.”

Officer of the Deck Lieutenant John Dorsett ordered General Quarters. Nineteen-year old Seaman Jim Barnill, one of Enterprise’s four buglers, sounded the staccato notes of “Boots and Saddles.” Twenty-eight year old First Class Bosun’s Mate Max Lee played his pipe over the 1MC then called “General Quarters! General Quarters! All hands man your battle stations!” Lee’s enlistment was almost up. After the war, he remembered that he then turned to OOD Dorsett and said “We’re at war and I’ll never get out of the Navy alive.”

Dick Best remembered coming onto the flight deck shortly after general quarters had been called and looking up at the island. “The first thing I saw was the biggest American flag I had ever seen, flying from the masthead and whipping in the wind. It was the most emotional sight of the war for me.”

The December 7, 1941 Enterprise Flag

#TCinLA #substack #articles #political

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detectiveangel · 1 year

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post-traumatic synthesized dreamscape no. 1

youtube

this digital sound composition is an attempt to transcribe (record, mollify, exorcise) my emotions looking back on the events of last february as i experienced them.

i was living in st. petersburg as a graduate student researcher, one of the dwindling ragtag lot of americans with no family ties to russia still trying to live there, when the russian military invaded ukraine early in the morning the day after february 23rd, the federal holiday honoring military men that was once red army day. i had already given up on my dream of living in russia for anything approaching the long term and was trying to stay for just as long as i safely could as History unfolded around me. i left russia 24 hours after the start of the invasion and made it back to the u.s. safe but mentally shattered. I’d spent months navigating or avoiding tense encounters with russian migration police as weekly updates to civil law gradually made it very nearly impossible to legally reside in russia as citizen of a designated “enemy nation;” and then finally found myself alone in a windowless room with an fsb agent in the remote checkpoint by the finnish border that terrible morning. my battered psyche imploded before the questioning, which was, objectively, very mild, even began.

back in the u.s., i spent months struggling to operate my own person before i realized that i had ptsd from a war to which i had barely been a distant bystander. i started therapy and saw massive improvement after just a few months. good fortune, which saw me safely through so many close calls and near-disasters during the grinding buildup and violent lurch into fully-fledged military rule in russia, blessed me yet again.

before entering formal therapy, i leaned very heavily on intoxicating substances (alcohol in russia, marijuana in the u.s.) and movies to keep the terror at bay. my understanding of myself in this phase of my life is heavily mediated by cinema, especially cinema made or set in the wwii and early “post-war” era. this time when society’s psychic wounds were only just scabbing over and could be seen on nearly everyone who crossed a camera feels less like the past and more like a parallel present still playing out in ever-more garbled reproductions in the nightmare fantasies that govern life in the places that never healed properly from the traumas of the ‘40s. to make beautiful or joyful art has become impossible, but the need to externalize our disordered response to trauma in art is stronger than ever. our voices can no longer carry a tune, but we have all history’s old recordings to grind and reshape into new kinds of music that may somehow express the emotions no amount of time and treatment can resolve.

some notes on the recordings i used as material for this piece

during this last year of trauma recovery, i saw myself most vividly in one particular cinematic incantation of postwar psychosis co-created by a brit and an american both too young to have experienced wwii but raised in its fallout as men in societies where the publicly synthesized idea of maleness is overwhelmingly suffused with the radioactive particles still emitting from the atoms of that war. watching mickey rourke’s performance in alan parker’s metaphysically-canted neo-noir “angel heart” (1987) somehow made a narrative out of the glossolalia of confusion and pain humming at the core of my being during the strung-out spring that followed the terrible winter of ’21-’22.

in the autumn before that winter, i had found strength and solace from the encroaching fascist terror in russia in the exploration and nurturing of my own masculinity. i had long identified more with a masculine perspective than a female one, but various factors limited the extent to which i expressed this identification. various other factors led to me reaching new levels of masculine identification and expression that fall, and this was a positive, self-actualizing experience that nurtured me during the months in which i lived under increasingly dire threat of repression from a government officially opposed to the existence of queers, americans, and gender studies researchers within its borders.

months of trudging alone through seedy hotels, anxious crowds, and icy boulevards, all while looking over my shoulder for police, were bearable if i saw myself as a sort of postmodern pastiche of film noir protagonists, a hardboiled detective working an increasingly dangerous case, an existentially bedraggled man in the wrong time, space, and body muttering clever wisecracks for the benefit of none but himself and perhaps some imaginary audience of ghosts and angels. at that time i hadn’t, to my knowledge, actually watched any of the classic bogart & co. detective movies, so my metaphysical drag act was itself composed from impressions and parodies. i was, however, quite intimate with other strains of 1940s cinema (i was in the archives mainly to study a film from that decade) and though my active memory has retained nothing of “casablanca” (1942), i did see that film at a Formative Age and this would seem the most likely source of my improbable and ultimately impossible lifelong obsession with becoming a jaded-yet-romantic american expat on the fringes of europe.

lying prone in the rubble of my exploded expat fantasies back in my native california, i watched movies projected on my ceiling and in most cases enjoyed a vacation from my psychological perspective through the temporary occupation of another. but once in a while, i caught my own reflection in the kino-eye. such was the case with “angel heart,” a meticulously formalist meditation on the fractured collective psyche of “postwar” america via the methodical deconstruction of a man composed entirely of echoes and fictions masking unbearable trauma from participating in ritual human sacrifice both literally (as an occultist) and metaphorically (as a soldier in the war). as a supernatural creation bearing the souls of both perpetrator and victim of the sacrifice, his trauma response is self-annihilating – a mystical representation of the psychosis experienced by all us cogs in the war machine, one-souled or otherwise. the two souls bound up in harry angel/johnny favorite both experienced the war from a sidelined, un-masculine position: one as a section 8 discharge dismissed after a brief, traumatizing stint of service, the other as an enlisted entertainer. this allegory resonated in the contours of my imagination with incredible sonority, but i saw my reflection well before the plot unfolded, in the very first scenes of the film, in the physical demeanor affected by mickey rourke loping awkwardly through dirty manhattan snow in a wool trenchcoat. i had caught a similar reflection many times in the windows of moscow and petersburg as i trudged through dirty snow, insulating my frightened self from a hostile world with a similar wool trenchcoat and self-effacing butch affect cribbed from cinema-mediated memories of ‘20s-‘30s tough guys.

my identification with this character/performance is only one undercurrent of this noise-music composition, but it is the one i feel needs the most explication. the meanings carried by the other voices (among them those of vyacheslav tikhonov portraying an exhausted soviet agent within the ss in early 1945 berlin, leonid utesov singing the praises of his beloved odessa, and alexander vertinsky crooning an emigrant’s lament for distant st. petersburg) are more self-apparent.

2/23/2023

media sampled here:

audio from the films

“the third man” (1949)

“семнадцать мгновения весны” (1972)

“angel heart” (1987)

“black angel” (1946)

“casablanca” (1942)

song recordings

“у черного моря” (leonid utesov, 1953)

“girl of my dreams” (etta james, 1960)

“чужие города” (alexander vertinsky, 1936)

“крейсер «аврора»” (choir of the leningrad pioneers’ hall, 1982)

additionally

personal audio recordings

midi file created from the composition “песня о далекой родине” (1972) by mikаеl tariverdiev

the accompanying video was created with samples from the above-mentioned films, as well as personal recordings and archival footage from a filmed concert performance by leonid utesov in 1940.

audio edited & produced using ableton live 9

video edited & produced in windows movie maker + microsoft clipchamp

some notes on the recordings i used as material for this piece

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newstfionline · 8 months

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Sunday, September 3, 2023

No power and nowhere to stay as rural Florida starts recovering from Hurricane Idalia (AP) The worst of Hurricane Idalia left residents of a region of tight-knit communities trying to find places to live as they rebuild—if they decide it’s even worth it—and waiting potentially weeks for electricity to be restored after winds and water took out entire power grids. A power cooperative warned its 28,000 customers it might take two weeks to restore electricity. More than 100,000 homes and businesses in Florida and Georgia remained without power Friday, according to PowerOutage.us. And even with high temperatures below normal, the high humidity meant sweltering late-summer days and nights, with no power to run air conditioners. Emergency officials promised trailers would arrive over the weekend to provide housing in an area that didn’t have much to begin with.

Americans’ Ideal Family Size Is Larger Than the Birthrate Suggests (WSJ) What do you think is the ideal number of children for a family to have? Most Americans say the answer is two to three children, according to various surveys over nearly 90 years, even as actual birthrates drop lower than that. In fact, the share of people saying they want three or more children has risen as the actual number of children being born has dropped. Why aren’t people having the families they idealize or intend to have? All sorts of life happens, and you don’t necessarily end up with the family you expected theoretically in a survey.

.ai (Bloomberg) The Caribbean island Anguilla, a British territory, has made bank this year because their country-level domain address is .ai, and amid the AI trend they’re making a fortune off of new registrations. This year, registrations at the top level domain doubled to 287,432 on the year, which would mean that Anguilla will reap in the ballpark of $30 million for the year from selling the domains, up from $7.4 million brought in in 2021.

The Bolivian Job (Rest of World) An estimated 20 percent of the total vehicle fleet in Bolivia has been smuggled, mostly stolen in neighboring Chile and then driven across the desert to one of the 73 illegal markets that are remarkably easy to find. The Bolivian government is aware of the issue, and the car thieves have become a lifestyle of their own, called chuteros with their own TikTok scene and whatnot. Naturally, this has the Chileans furious, and local police are overwhelmed with reports. Chile’s even got a new AI-fueled startup, SafeByWolf, designed to identify boosted cars faster for the insurance industry.

More than 100 British schools may face danger of collapse (BBC) More than 100 schools in England are scrambling to make arrangements after being told to shut buildings with a type of concrete prone to collapse. The government gave the order just days before the start of the autumn term. Some pupils have already been told they will be learning remotely, in temporary classrooms or at different schools. Schools found with buildings containing reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) have been told they must introduce safety measures, which could include propping up ceilings. This came after the government was made aware of a number of incidents where RAAC failed without warning, not just in school buildings, but elsewhere too.

Russian students are returning to school, where they face new lessons to boost their patriotism (AP) Clad in white shirts and carrying bouquets, children across Russia flocked back to school Friday, where the Kremlin’s narratives about the war in Ukraine and its confrontation with the West were taking an even more prominent spot than before. Students are expected each week to listen to Russia’s national anthem and watch the country’s tricolor flag being raised. There’s a weekly subject loosely translated as “Conversations about Important Things,” which was introduced last year with the goal of boosting patriotism. A new high school history textbook has a chapter on the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and the “special military operation”—the Kremlin’s euphemism for the war, and some basic military training is included in a course on self-defense and first aid. “School ... is a powerful mechanism for raising a person subordinate to the state,” said Nikolay Petrov, visiting researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. “For a while the school was outside the active attention of the state. Today, it’s all coming back.”

As Ukraine’s Fight Grinds On, Talk of Negotiations Becomes Nearly Taboo (NYT) Stian Jenssen, the chief of staff to the secretary general of NATO, recently had his knuckles rapped when he commented on possible options for an end to the war in Ukraine that did not envision a complete Russian defeat. His remarks provoked an angry condemnation from the Ukrainians; a clarification from his boss, Jens Stoltenberg; and ultimately an apology from Mr. Jenssen. The contretemps, say some analysts who have been similarly chastised, reflects a closing down of public discussion on options for Ukraine just at a moment when imaginative diplomacy is most needed, they say. Given that even President Biden says the war is likely to end in negotiations, Samuel Charap, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, believes there should be a serious debate in any democracy about how to get there. Yet he, too, has also been criticized for suggesting that it is important to talk to Russia about a negotiated outcome. “There is a broad and increasingly widespread sense that what we’re doing now isn’t working, but not much of an idea of what to do next, and not a big openness to discuss it, which is how you come up with one,” he said. “The lack of success hasn’t opened up the political space for an open discussion of alternatives.”

Pope, in Mongolia, laments earth devastated by countless conflicts (Reuters) Pope Francis, in words that appeared to be aimed at China rather than the neighbouring country he was visiting, said on Saturday that governments have nothing to fear from the Catholic Church because it has no political agenda. In an address to bishops, priests, missionaries and pastoral workers, he said Jesus gave no political mandate to his apostles but told them to alleviate the sufferings of a “wounded humanity” through faith. “For this reason, governments and secular institutions have nothing to fear from the Church’s work of evangelization, for she has no political agenda to advance, but is sustained by the quiet power of God’s grace and a message of mercy and truth, which is meant to promote the good of all,” he said. On Saturday morning, Francis called on leaders to dispel the “dark clouds of war.”

Typhoon Saola makes landfall in southern China but appears to cause only light damage (AP) Typhoon Saola made landfall in southern China before dawn Saturday after nearly 900,000 people were moved to safety and most of Hong Kong and parts of the coastal mainland suspended business, transport and classes. Damage appeared to be minimal, however, and some services were returning to normal by afternoon. Meanwhile, Taiwan issued a warning Saturday for a second typhoon, Haikui, which was expected to pass over the island Sunday, before traveling onward to the central Chinese coast.

Biden approves military aid to Taiwan under program normally used for sovereign states (NBC) On Wednesday, Washington approved a transfer of arms to Taiwan under the Foreign Military Financing program, which is normally reserved for use with sovereign states. Currently, neither the U.S. nor U.N. acknowledges the island nation as its own country in order to maintain diplomatic ties to China. Beijing voiced its “strong dissatisfaction” and “firm opposition” to the weapons sale, claiming that it hurt “China’s sovereignty and security interests” while damaging “peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.” Even as China-U.S. dialogue has picked up in recent months with multiple American officials visiting Beijing, the White House has continued funneling arms to Taiwan. Last month, Washington approved a $345 million arms package to the country, and is working to send $500 million worth of F-16 fighter jets to Taipei as well.

With wary eye on China, U.S. moves closer to former foe Vietnam (Washington Post) The United States and Vietnam are poised to significantly enhance their economic and technological ties, bringing the former foes closer at a time of increased Chinese assertiveness in the region. The deal, expected to be announced when President Biden makes a state visit to Vietnam next weekend, is the latest step by the Biden administration to deepen relations in Asia. For Hanoi, the closer relationship with Washington serves as a counterweight to Beijing’s influence. The establishment of a “comprehensive strategic partnership” will give the United States a diplomatic status that Vietnam has so far reserved for only a handful of other countries: China, Russia, India and South Korea.

The low, low cost of shipping (London Review of Books) The truth is that shipping is responsible, as Rose George put it in the subtitle of her classic 2013 book on the subject, for ‘90 Per Cent of Everything’. It is the physical equivalent of the internet, the other industry which makes globalisation possible. The internet abolishes national boundaries for information, news, data; shipping abolishes these boundaries for physical goods. The main way it does this is by being almost incomprehensibly efficient and cheap. As George points out, if you’re having a sweater shipped from the other side of the planet, the cost of shipping adds just a cent to the price. Another way of putting it would be to say that shipping is, in practice, free. This has had the effect of abolishing geography and location as an economic factor: moving stuff from A to B is so cheap that, for most goods, there is no advantage in siting manufacturing anywhere near your customers. Instead, you make whatever it is where it’s cheapest, and ship it to them instead.

#headlines #news

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fahrni · 10 months

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Saturday Morning Coffee

Good morning from Charlottesville, Virginia! ☕️

We’ve been home for a week now and it’s been really nice to sleep in our own bed!

Now, if we could get Cocoa to sleep past 5:30AM I’d be thrilled. 😃

I hope you have a nice cup of coffee or tea ready and I hope you enjoy the links.

CNN

Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has refused to surrender, and called Vladimir Putin “deeply mistaken” following the Russian president’s address describing his actions as betrayal.

I heard about this as I was crawling in bed. I hope the Wagner Group is able to destabilize Putin and end the war in Ukraine.

Probably too much to hope for. 🙁

iamthatis • Reddit

I wanted to address Reddit’s continued, provably false statements, as well as answer some questions from the community, and also just say thanks.

I love this openness from Christian Selig. If folks don’t know, Christian tapes his conversations with Reddit folks. It’s been very interesting to read bit the transcript he’s shared. It’s clear they have lied.

I just wish Christian had posted this all to a weblog so it would have a more permanent home. Who knows what’s going to happen with his subreddit.

Platformer

After a bruising week of protests and locked-down forums, things started to get back to normal Tuesday on Reddit, as — oh wait, what’s this?

Subreddit moderators are doing all they can to screw things up on Reddit. I applaud their effort.

Polygon

If you want to watch pop culture eat itself, go see The Flash, a movie that starts out as a sprightly superhero adventure, then dissolves into a self-referential requiem for the DC Universe.

I’m torn about seeing this movie given all the hubbub surrounding Ezra Miller but I really want to see Michael Keatons older Batman!

Trisha Gee

These days, distributed version control systems like Git have “won the war” of version control. One of the arguments I used to hear when DVCSs were gaining traction was around how easy it is to branch and merge with a VCS like Git. However, I’m a big fan of Trunk-Based Development (TBD), and I want to tell you why.

I’d imagine most folks I work with today have no clue how we used to work. I didn’t use git for version control full time until around 2014 I’d imagine? I found it terribly frustrating to work with at first but know I’m fine with it.

Anywho, up until 2014 I’d worked with so many different version control systems. I’d imagine I worked with CVS the longest and we had one main branch — trunk — and everyone committed directly to it. Yes, breaking the build was definitely frowned upon so you had to be very careful about your commits!

LA Weekly

When North Carolina Gov. Patrick McCrory signed House Bill 2 into law, I wonder if he was thinking long-range about what the result might be. I can’t see him and his staff wondering out loud if their thick-skulled, cracker logic might result in Bruce Springsteen not only canceling his upcoming show in Greensboro, depriving the state of revenue and its residents of a Springsteen concert, but inspiring Mr. Boss to issue a press release that more people have read than will ever peruse House Bill 2.

Henry Rollins seems to be a really great dude. Part punk, part philosopher, always interesting to listen to or read.

The Guardian

Seven years after the Brexit referendum, the proportion of Britons who want to rejoin the EU has climbed to its highest levels since 2016, according to a new survey.

I mean, duh! The British version of MAGA didn’t work out so well. It’s been terrible for so many. I hope they rejoin the EU.

Hendrick Motorsports

The NASCAR Next Gen Garage 56 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 was a hit from day one in Le Mans, among fans, media and even other competitors. And it was fast on track, consistently putting down lap times that bettered cars in the GT class. The car ran near the top of the GT field for more than 20 hours until a drive line issue sidelined the team for more than an hour. Overall, the car was running at the finish, completed 285 laps on the 8.4-mile circuit and finished 39th in the 62-car field.

This car is an absolute beast and looked out of place at Le Mans. It would also look out of place on a NASCAR track. It is a beautiful car with some really excellent engineering. Oh, yeah, and it is super fast! Good old American V8 horsepower under the hood.

I kind of wish I’d been more of a car guy when I was younger. My Dad certainly is and has built some beautiful cars in his time. His ‘37 Chevy Coup Street Rod is stunning and he used to drag race a 454 powered ‘51 Anglia.

I had the opportunity to learn a lot but didn’t. If I could do it today I’d love to be a mechanic or engineer for a NASCAR, IndyCar, or F1 team. I’d love to specialize in engines. I do find them fascinating and would love to rebuild one again. I rebuilt a Chevy small block in High School my senior year. Yeah, I took auto shop because I wanted to do something “easy.” 😃

Cadillac Racing

After 21 years, Cadillac Racing marked our return to the iconic 24 Hours of Le Mans on June 10—11 with our highest finish ever in front of a record audience of 325,000 spectators. Our No. 2 V-Series.R led laps for the first time in Cadillac history and finished on the podium in 3rd, with the No. 3 just behind in 4th, and the No. 311 fighting back for 10th in class.

There’s an article on Jalopnik that includes a video of one of these cars doing a bump start and it sounds mean. It instantly made me think of the Batmobile for some reason.

Now, let’s get more American manufacturers back in NASCAR. Cadillac would be a super interesting entry! I think Dodge is an obvious entry for NASCAR Cup, Xfinity, and Truck series given their history of legendary cars like the Challenger and their RAM trucks.

Cadillac would be super cool to see in NASCAR Cup racing but it may be too lowbrow for them? 🤣

Traveler Dreams

Renting an RV and embarking on a road trip across America can seem like more of a fantasy trip than a real thing you actually do. But you can truly make it a reality. And if you do, it can turn into a thrilling and liberating experience that will leave you with unforgettable memories. Here’s why you should take the plunge.

This is something I dream about all the time but I can’t quite get Kim convinced we need to sell everything and go all in on the RV lifestyle.

As a compromise we’d like to acquire a smaller RV and do some two week to one month excursions to see if we like it. It would also be great for week long camping trips with the entire family.

Maybe someday it’ll be a reality? 🤞🏼

Business Insider

When former NBC Universal executive Linda Yaccarino was named Twitter’s next CEO last month, advertisers breathed a sigh of relief.

I don’t expect Ms. Yaccarino to last very long at Twitter. I think my original quesstimate was six months but I could see it lasting as long as a year.

Musk is too much of a control freak. The kind of boss I’d hate working for.

The best piece of advice I ever got from my VP of Engineering and CTO at Pelco was “You have to convince people your vision is the right way to go so they follow. You won’t get their best work if you’re a tyrant.” It was something like that. Basically be a leader, not a bully.

Teri Kanefield

This blog post is meant to be read in order. Later answers are shorter because they rely on the information presented in the earlier answers.

This is a really nice piece if you’re following along with the TFG Top Secret documents prosecution. Dude is such a knucklehead and honestly believes he has magical powers to declassify things with his mind. Dumbass.

The New York Times

The engineers reminded him of their commutes. The working parents reminded him of school pickup times. Mr. Medina replied with arguments he has delineated so often that they have come to feel like personal mantras: Being near each other makes the work better. Mr. Medina approached three years of mushy remote-plus-office work as an experiment. His takeaway was that ideas bubble up more organically in the clamor of the office.

I believe with all my heart CEO’s like this are real control freaks and must have the adoration of their people surrounding them at all times. I can have these ah-ha moments, Slack someone, and fire up a zoom call to have the same conversations. It’s just not face to face in a building I have to commute to.

If our company demanded everyone come to the office, of course I’d comply, but I really don’t believe it’s necessary.

Just my horrible opinion.

Assigned Media

A federal court heard both sides during a trial where trans youth, their parents, and their doctors challenged a law banning gender affirming care in Arkansas. The court found that the law violated the right to due process and to equal treatment under the constitution, and ordered the law struck down because Arkansas failed to demonstrate a compelling state interest justifying the unequal treatment.

We really need the courts to continue overturning these idiotic and dangerous laws.

You cannot force people to be someone they are not and denying them healthcare because they’re different than you is barbaric.

Apparently Meta’s Project 92 is going to federate with a limited set of Mastodon instances, pay them, and allow them to display Meta ads in exchange for a cut.

Embrace and extend. Amirite?

Let’s see how this plays out.

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rom5 · 1 year

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Watch "New Atlas LIVE: Ukraine's End Game Approaches, But More War May Come" on YouTube

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mariacallous · 1 month

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In the crowded labyrinth of the open market in downtown Chisinau, the capital city of Moldova, a babble of languages ripples through the throngs of traders hawking a bewildering array of fresh produce, cheap textiles, electronic wares, and much more. A customer may broach the terms of a deal in, say, Ukrainian, and get an answer in Romanian, or propose a price in Romanian and be answered in Russian. Among themselves, the traders from across this diminutive country of 2.5 million, wedged precariously between its outsized neighbors Romania and Ukraine, communicate in other tongues, too.

Moldova is a multiethnic country that wears its patchwork diversity on its sleeve. Particularly in urban centers, the majority Romanians live very much together with Ukrainians, Russians, and the Turkic Gagauz. But the war in Ukraine has completely upended the tenuous status quo that existed before February 2022. The war’s outcome, whether in Ukraine’s or Russia’s favor, has existential consequences for the tiny country nursing aspirations of joining the European Union.

Political convictions in Moldova have long spanned the gamut from aspirations of greater Romanian nationalism to Soviet nostalgia, from pro-Russia patriotism to civic pride in an independent, EU-embedded Moldova. This fractured landscape is also reflected in the country’s geography. Since the first days of its independence in 1991—when the Soviet Republic of Moldova jettisoned Soviet authority and declared statehood, basically for the first time ever—the Republic of Moldova itself has been fractured.

A breakaway, Russia-kowtowing enclave called Transnistria established itself east of the Dniester River—complete with about 1,500 Russian troops that remain there today—while the Gagauz minority, courted by Moscow and Ankara, staked out broad autonomy in the south.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s first priority is to stop Moldova from joining the EU and integrating with the West, especially since the EU boosted Moldova to candidate status shortly after the onset of the Russia-Ukraine war. But his aspirations may be far wider. Last week, Russia drew the ire of Moldovan authorities by setting up polling stations in Transnistria for its roughly 200,000 residents to vote in the Russian presidential elections held from March 15 to 17. It was a move that harks back to the initial steps taken to absorb occupied territories in Crimea and elsewhere in eastern Ukraine into Russia itself.

“Everything is at stake for Moldova now,” said Alexei Tulbure, the director of the Moldovan Oral History Institute.

If there’s one thing that just about all of Moldova’s peoples agree upon, regardless of political ideology, it is that they have next to no agency to affect the fate of their country—and ultimately, the fate of their own futures. “Moldovans breathe quietly,” according to a Ukrainian saying, mocking the country’s helplessness.

“It’s in the back of our minds,” said Alina Radu, the founder of the independent weekly Ziarul de Garda, of the possibility of the country losing its territory, or autonomy, to Russia. She compared the threat that the country now faces to the first months of the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022, when the Russian military seemed to be on the doorstep of the nearby Ukrainian city of Odesa. Transnistria’s armies seemed to be preparing to lend Russia a hand there. Had they been successful, all of Moldova could have come under Russian domination.

The staging ground for any future assault on Moldova is still likely to be Ukraine. Putin regularly confirms that Odesa is a military priority and has recently stepped up missile attacks there. It is a development that Moldovans are watching with trepidation. It’s one that Moldova’s allies in the West should be watching, too.

Even over its grinding first decades—marred by civil war, raging corruption, abject poverty, and mass emigration—Moldova’s prospects weren’t as starkly imperiled as they are today. Unlike most Ukrainians—who declare that victory over Russia is the only possible outcome—Moldovans have thought through worst-case scenarios.

“If Ukraine is defeated and Russia carves out a land corridor to Transnistria, Moldova will effectively cease to exist as an independent county,” Radu explained. “If they cross the Dniester River to occupy Moldova proper, then most of the population could well flee to Romania and points in Europe.” Her entire editorial staff has fixed plans to relocate to offices in the Romanian cities of Iasi and Bucharest, she said.

This certainly, at the very least, would put an abrupt end to Moldova’s EU and NATO aspirations, which is Washington’s primary concern. Upon signing a security cooperation deal with France on March 7, Moldovan President Maia Sandu—a 51-year-old Romanian-speaking graduate of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government—told French President Emmanuel Macron that “our shared security is at stake. If the aggressor is not stopped, he will keep going, and the front line will keep moving closer. Closer to us, closer to you.”

Were Russia to take Moldova, it would open a second frontier with direct access to an EU member state. The United States is obviously aware of this threat and upped its defense assistance to Moldova from $3 million in 2022 to more than $30 million today. The United States and France also provided the country with hundreds of millions to shift its energy supply westward.

Ukraine, according to many Moldovans, including Sandu, is fighting for Moldova’s independence, too. “We’re very grateful to Ukraine,” said Ludmila D. Cojocaru, a historian at the National Museum of History of Moldova in Chisinau. “At the moment, it is the guarantor of our freedom.”

On the other hand, “if Ukraine pushes Russia back,” said Radu, the editor, “the Russian troops will have to leave separatist Transnistria, and it will dissolve.” As far as she is concerned, the peoples of Transnistria—hostages, she called them, to the criminal clique controlling the territory—would be more than welcome to join the Moldovan state in full. As for the alleged gangsters who have lorded over the region for 30 years, they will face justice—if they’re naïve enough to hang around, she said.

Until Russia launched its full-scale attack on Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, Moldova’s overwhelming geopolitical preoccupation was with the self-styled Transnistrian Moldovan Republic (PMR)—recognized as a state by no country in the world, not even Russia. Since a brief but bloody civil war in the region that took an estimated 700 lives in 1992, a hard-nosed, Russian-backed mafioso cartel named Sheriff Holding Co. has turned the vertical sliver of land into an entirely captured, one-party authoritarian state that conducts lucrative black-market business from the eastern bank of the Dniester.

The 90-minute minibus trip from Chisinau to PMR’s capital city, Tiraspol, passes a steady flow of traffic in the opposite direction: This workforce, which possesses Moldovan passports, can no longer find employment in Transnistria since its business to the east was cut off abruptly when Ukraine slammed shut the border last year, a body blow to the Sheriff cartel. At the Dniester, a solitary, AK-wielding Russian Army soldier stands in front of a makeshift border, not unlike Checkpoint Charlie in the divided Berlin.

Two flags fly from the checkpoint: the Russian flag and a green-and-red PMR flag that sometimes—but not all the time—sports a hammer and sickle in the upper right-hand corner just as had the flag of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. In the empty, deafeningly quiet streets of Tiraspol, the only image more prevalent than the bust of Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin is the Sheriff logo with its Wild West-inspired star. (“Sheriff” was the nickname of Moldovan police officer Viktor Gushan, who is one of the former Soviet sphere’s wealthiest oligarchs.)

The conflict between Transnistria and the Moldovan state, which never ceded sovereignty over the eastern bank territory, remained largely frozen for years despite international diplomacy to initiate a thawing. As long as the matter remained unsolved, Sheriff’s honchos padded their coffers and Moscow maintained a forward pawn that kept Moldova off balance; through propaganda and puppets, Russia influenced Moldova’s internal politics to the extent that until 2021, all but one Moldovan government reflected positions largely in line with Moscow, much as did in Ukraine until 2014. Interestingly, until the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, Ukraine had sided largely with the Transnistrian ruling clique, business and Russian reinforcements flowing over the Ukraine border while Moldova remained tightly in check.

But now it is the Transnistrians who are on the back foot—and not sure how to play it. The narrow lick of land suddenly finds its greatest ally far away, and its residents are well aware that Ukraine could occupy it within a week, Anatolii Dirun, a former Transnistrian politician, told me. Resupply from Russia is blocked by Ukraine. The PMR made a feeble cry to Moscow for help on Feb. 28, but stopped short of calling for it to intervene.

In fact, the gangsters of Transnistria are petrified and thus playing both ends against the middle: Russia and Moldova proper. All of the region’s trade now runs through Moldova proper—and most of that carries on to the EU through Romania. More Transnistrians than ever before work, study, and learn Romanian in Moldova proper, part of a deft strategy by Sandu to integrate Transnistria back into Moldova.

“Transnistria’s leaders are trying to be prudent—as they don’t have much of a choice,” Oazu Nantoi, a member of the Moldovan Parliament who belongs to Sandu’s party, told Foreign Policy.

And yet, the Transnistrian government, in league with the Gagauz and pro-Russian forces in Moldova proper, remains beholden to Moscow and gladly lends it a hand in chipping away at the Moldovan government’s sovereignty.

The fact is, said Alexei Tulbure, an ethnic Ukrainian and the director of the Moldovan Historical Institute, Moldova is an easy target. It remains a very weak state, he noted, and thus wide open to tampering. “We had hoped that the war would consolidate Moldova the way it did Ukraine’s population, bring us all onto the same page. But this didn’t happen,” he said. Polls show that about a quarter of the country is still pro-Russian.

Russia’s chief means to destabilize its targets are bought votes, propaganda, cyberwarfare, and political parties. There are a handful of Russia-friendly (some also Russian-financed) parties that toe Putin’s line to one degree or another. For most of Moldova’s recent history, a combination of these parties had held power. The propaganda is “very strong and very toxic, and it rings like it’s straight from Moscow,” said Mariana Aricova of the Institute of War and Peace Reporting office in Chisinau, whose job is to monitor and counter the Kremlin’s disinformation campaigns.

The Russian campaigns to topple the Sandu government have picked up pace as the Moldovan presidential election, scheduled to take place in autumn along with a referendum on EU membership, grows nearer. And the Sandu government has responded as if its life depends on it, even by banning one of the pro-Russian parties and shutting down six television channels for alleged misinformation.

But “it didn’t really change much because the banned party has regrouped under a new party, and the Russian message gets out through other channels, like the Internet,” Aricova said.

Above all, Moldovans fear being squashed in a power struggle in which they have no say. Many observers see a slow, gentle reintegration of Transnistria into a federally structured Moldova as a first step in the right direction—Sandu’s chosen path. The Sandu government is seizing the moment as a unique opportunity to reconnect with Transnistria—and from there, to bring the entire country, as one, into the EU. The carrots of cross-border employment prospects, full Schengen Area travel rights, European structural and investment funds, minority rights guarantees, and higher wages could be enticing to everyone—save, of course, Transnistria’s criminals.

In terms of a proven mentor, there’s none better than Romania, which has surged to become Eastern Europe’s second-largest economy after Poland. The question is whether Sandu can pull this off without shattering the fragile country in the process. But then, the war raging next door might just take care of that for her.

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creatiview · 1 year

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Move comes after the bloc found new supplies of diesel from the US, Middle East and India to replace Russian energy supplies.Europe has imposed a ban on Russian diesel fuel and other refined oil products, slashing energy dependency on Moscow and seeking to further crimp the Kremlin’s fossil fuel earnings as punishment for invading Ukraine. Sunday’s ban comes along with a price cap agreed by the Group of Seven (G7) allied countries – the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Japan and Canada. The goal is allowing Russian diesel to keep flowing to countries such as China and India and avoiding a sudden price rise that would hurt consumers worldwide while reducing the profits funding Moscow’s budget and war. Diesel is key for the economy because it is used to power cars, trucks carrying goods, farm equipment and factory machinery. Diesel prices have been elevated because of recovering demand after the COVID-19 pandemic and limits on refining capacity, contributing to inflation for other goods worldwide. The new sanctions create uncertainty about prices as the 27-nation European Union finds new supplies of diesel from the US, Middle East and India to replace those from Russia, which at one point delivered 10 percent of Europe’s total diesel needs. Those are longer journeys than from Russia’s ports, stretching available tankers. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI6v2MwkdXk[/embed] Neil Atkinson, a former International Energy Agency analyst, told Al Jazeera the EU sanctions on Russian products were unlikely to have a big impact on prices, at least initially. This is because companies worldwide have been building up stocks of Russian products ahead of the well-advertised ban, Atkinson said. “There is the possibility that if demand growth is very strong in the Asian economies … we could find that the lack of investment in parts of the oil industry infrastructure could lead to shortages and spikes in prices,” he said. G7’s price cap The G7 price cap of $100 per barrel for diesel, jet fuel and petrol is to be enforced by barring insurance and shipping services from handling diesel priced over the limit. Most of those companies are located in Western countries. It follows a $60-per-barrel cap on Russian crude that took effect in December and is supposed to work the same way. Both the diesel and oil caps could be tightened later. The diesel price cap will not bite immediately because it was set at about what Russian diesel trades for. Russia’s chief problem now will be finding new customers, not evading the price ceiling. However, the cap aims to prevent Russian gains from any sudden price spikes in refined oil products. Analysts say there might be a price bump initially as markets sort out the changes. But they say the embargo should not cause a price spike if the cap works as intended and Russian diesel keeps flowing to other countries. Diesel fuel at the pump has been flat since the start of December, costing 1.80 euros per litre ($7.37 per gallon) as of January 30, according to the weekly oil market report issued by the EU’s executive commission. Pump prices in Germany, the EU’s largest economy, fell 2.6 cents to 1.83 euros per litre ($7.48 per gallon) as of January 31. The ban provides for a 55-day grace period for diesel loaded on tankers before Sunday, a step that aims to prevent ruffling markets. EU officials say importers have had time to adjust since the ban was announced in June. Russia earned more than $2bn from diesel sales to Europe in December alone as importers appear to have stocked up with added purchases ahead of the ban. Europe has already banned Russian coal and most crude oil, while Moscow has cut off most shipments of natural gas. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUdTwBYBzcc[/embed]

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joeonmusic · 1 year

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Ten highlights of my musical journey in 2022

Jan 26th Tom Robinson quoting my lyrics back to me

Remember party gate? We’ve changed PMs a couple of times since then, so it feels inconceivable that it was only in January this year that the stories about the Tories breaking lockdown rules and partying like there was no pandemic were all revealed. Anyway, Mintball (Sean Buckley) and I collaborated on a funky song satirising the government and rushed it out hoping we’d release it before Boris Johnson was forced to resign (in fact he clung on for months afterwards, but it felt like he had only days left).

Anyway, we got a good reaction to the song, even if it wasn’t as big as I may have hoped, and my favourite thing was when Tom Robinson tweeted this to me:

"We thought nobody would dob us in - we are the ones that call the tune"...

For such a legend of the music and broadcasting world to acknowledge your work and quote your lyrics back to you is a massive compliment and something I will always treasure.

youtube

19th March Solo gig Artefact - audience reaction

I’ve done three gigs supporting Grant Sharkey in total and this one at Artefact in the Spring was my last. We played in the back room with its perfect acoustics and got a full room of people - even running out of chairs, so some had to sit on a rather cold floor! Anyway, Grant had been talking about involving the audience, and I took this onboard, by not writing a set list, but putting the songs on cards and letting them choose which ones I sang and in what order.

I haven’t done it again since, but for that one, it really worked and did indeed break down the barriers between performer and audience. I also had a really powerful moment when performing one of my saddest songs as someone in the front row had tears streaming down her face! She loved the song and it touched something deep inside her, which was an amazing feeling. This was me before heading to the gig:

28th April Trace remix

Not long after the war in Ukraine started, things were looking bleak in the world, I was worried about my friends in eastern Europe and the possibility of Putin using nukes. I was also trying to find ways to help, so was about to drive to see some Ukrainian refugees when a message pinged to me from the Invisible Squirrel that he’d finished the remix of my track Trace.

I listened to it in the car on the way to transport clothes and support to some desperate people and was blown away by what he’d done. For a while, I felt the buzz and excitement of music in amongst all the gloom. It was special.

Watch the video for the song here:

youtube

30th April Reaching number one in the Cool Top 20

It’s lovely to be written, or talked about and I’ve had some great coverage this year, from being interviewed on Adrian Goldberg’s Brum Radio show and by Kirk on Duggystone Radio, a YouTube interview with Martin Holley and a great feature with Sam Lambeth in Louder Than War. To actually feature in a chart at number one is really amazing for me, though. I have great respect for anyone who gives up their time for free to do radio shows, podcasts or blogs for free in the name of promoting independent artists, and Cool Top 20, run by the wonderful Lean, is one of my favourite blogs, with a weekly chart that you can listen to as a playlist. I have discovered loads of brilliant artists through this blog, so to have been number one in their chart twice is pretty mind-blowing for me.

CoolTop20 has been updated! And here are our suggestions for the #festivalseason 2022! Give them a listen here: https://t.co/WEuEyimuxk The talented Shayan Regan is in our spotlight: https://t.co/n4ecaYi9Ux#cooltop20 #musicblog #NewMusicAlert #indiemusic Enjoy the weekend! pic.twitter.com/LSbrNzsBiT

May onwards Rehearsing with Louisa and shaping our sound

Up until this year, I had been doing all my original music as a solo musician, which is great in many ways, because you can do exactly what you want with no compromising with band members and waiting for them to do stuff. I really wanted to add another element to my music, though and had missed that feeling of playing with someone else and bouncing ideas off them, so for a while I’d been trying to get Louisa to play fiddle and sing with me.

She finally agreed to start rehearsing with me in the spring and I have absolutely loved working with her on creating our sound as a duo. I have listened back to some of our rehearsal recordings in wonder - absolutely loving the combination of our two voices, or just her voice and my songs. It gives me such pleasure to play with her and we’ve had such lovely comments about how well we compliment each other at gigs that it feels to me like this was meant to be and I can’t wait to release some recordings next year. I really hope people will be as blown away by our songs as I am.

12th June Two artists doing covers of my songs

As I mentioned earlier, I love doing recordings of other people’s songs, so I have done covers of songs by independent, unsigned artists, such as Penfriend, The Heavy North and Sam Lambeth, as well as more established and famous ones. I also did a cover of a song by 3 Little Wolves of the single Fractured (a bit) and then was blown away when Paul reciprocated with a cover of 100 Doors. Check it out here:

After our mate @joe_peacock ‘s rendition of ‘Fractured (a bit), thought it was only fair we return the favour… here’s a little electric piano version of ‘100 Doors’ 🚪 If you don’t follow Joe already, check him out… he’s a great guy and the biggest genre-hopper we know 🐺🐺🐺 pic.twitter.com/t7F4AV1rqn

However, that wasn’t the only one. My first big single ‘Is not Everything Morbid?’ would not have sounded like it did without producer Joe Adhemar, but for him to then decide to record a cover, too, was incredibly humbling and flattering. As you can see from this, the single was largely his work in terms of the piano playing, anyway:

So...apart from getting the song title wrong (Is Not Everything Morbid), I had a go at performing @joe_peacock's track today. Warts n all, #murderedsongoftheday - Hope you like it https://t.co/rWwketqTOQ

19th July Releasing Mirror Neuron Generator - listening party

I guess you could say that this album was a bit of a risk. Having made some kind of name for largely guitar-based songs, I did an album with almost no guitars on it at all. The influences were more Prince and Prodigy than Pixies this time. Also, I went from having a talented producer (Joe Adhemar) making sure everything sounded right on the previous album to doing it all myself, apart from the final mixing and mastering. How would people react? Well, in terms of Bandcamp sales it was a complete flop. I hardly sold anything. This might be because I didn’t stagger the releases - it went onto streaming platforms on the same day and the incentive of a free lyric book and 3 extra tracks wasn’t enough to tempt people into paying for it. However, lots of people said nice things about the album and I did a pre-release listening party hosted in In Your Ears Radio to introduce all the songs, which was really fun to share the album for the first time and chat to people directly about the different themes in the album. You can read about that in this blog post here: https://at.tumblr.com/joeonmusic/mirror-neuron-generator-out-tomorrow/2w5uj7vg1nf8

6th August #MurderedSongOfTheDay meet up

I have no idea how many songs I’ve posted on this hashtag over the year, but it’s a lot. I love trying out different songs and I’ve done everything from Bernard Cribbins to Bjork, Buddy Holly to Bob Marley etc. In August, Stevie T arranged for the people who love sharing music on Twitter in this way to meet up at his house and all play together in person. It was a fantastic occasion and meeting Stevie and his family, Scott, Ady, Cathers, Ian and Rich was such a joy.

The only slight downer was those who couldn’t make it, especially James who was one of the original instigators of the hashtag and has such a fantastic voice, which I was looking forward to hearing live. We sang through the night and had a great time - lots of laughter and a real feeling of shared love for music.

Love version of Is Not Everything Morbid by the awesome @joe_peacock 👌 #MurderedSongOfTheDay #MurderedSongOfTheDayLive pic.twitter.com/R4TUcCmjb1

5th November Review of RHTP

I’m not sure if there is a right way to release singles. Most people put them out on Fridays to catch #NewMusicFriday fever on Twitter and some people go for long periods to promote them and get a buzz going, plus as many pre-saves as possible. I did neither of those - released it on Halloween, two weeks after uploading it and had a really long tricky name for this song, which I thought DJs would probably hate having to say! Nevertheless, it got a really good reaction. I was especially pleased with this Tweet from Top of the Radar, which totally made my day:

https://t.co/lCh9srx3so@joe_peacock is an artist with a unique style & twist on combining music with storytelling! Radioactive Hybrid Terror Pigs catches you from the second you read the title (I hear you nod) & I guarantee you'll be singing that line all the way through! #TOTR

November 17th Missed Trees playing to a sold out Kitchen Garden Cafe

Every gig I have played with Louisa has been special. Our first one at Artefact was small, but a lovely, intimate way to get started with playing our songs to people. The Warehouse Cafe is a special place for me, due to my connections to that building and the people there. We played to a good-sized crowd and there was a wonderful atmosphere. Our third gig was the most magical and introduced our music to a whole new audience of people who’d never heard us before.

Supporting Ellie Gowers was a brilliant experience and getting to see her perform afterwards was a treat in itself. We played a short set of our seven strongest songs and the reaction was fantastic. Kitchen Garden Cafe is an absolutely lovely venue for a gig (especially acoustic ones) and I hope we’ll be back there again very soon.

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It’s been a great year full of highs and I feel very lucky to have found such a great community of new music enthusiasts to share this journey with. I’ll be doing plenty more in 2023, with the first releases from The Missed Trees and new solo single being finished for release as we speak and at least one album to come out. I hope you enjoy listening to it all as much as I enjoy making this music. Cheers - here’s to another year of fantastic musical adventures!

#singersongwriter #diy music #indie #new music #altfolk #acoustic #birmingham

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dontgiveupukraine · 2 years

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Thursday evening - Eurasianism - Adreas Umland & Hubert Smeets

Date: Thursday, Juli 28 2022

Time: 20:00-21:00 (21:00-22:00 UAT)

Youtube Live: watch the conversation here

Info: [email protected]

Understanding the Russian war against Ukraine provokes puzzling questions. It beats our reservoir of simplistic answers and it often seems totally irrational. On the other hand: understanding this war is indispensable for putting an end to it and finding a way to a lasting peace. Seeing the war as an outgrowth of the ideology of Eurasianism sheds a light on the Russian aggression and reveals at least a certain 'logic' in the 'rape of Ukraine'.

Eurasianism is a political movement in Russia that states that Russia is not a nation, but a civilization. This civilization is not 'European' or 'Asian'. Instead the geopolitical concept of Eurasia is making Russia, according tot Eurasianist as Alexander Dugin, a standalone civilization.

Eurasianism has its origins in the Russian émigré community in the 1920s. The Eurasianists believed that the Soviet Regime after the October Revolution could evolve into a new, non-European Orthodox Christian government. Early proponents of Eurasianism argued that control of the Eurasian heartland was the key to geopolitical dominance. Along several lines Eurasianism developed after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 in Neo-Eurasianism. It considers Russia to be culturally closer to Asia than to Western Europe. This ideology was influenced by political theorist Aleksandr Dugin to publish in 1997 Foundations of Geopolitics. Dugin's Neo-Eurasianism is according to some analysts a fascist ideology centred on the idea of revolutionising the Russian society an building a totalitarian, Russia-dominated Eurasian Empire. This ideology was used to justify the Kremlin's War in Ukraine.

In this episode of Don't Give Up Ukraine! we discuss Eurasianism with Andreas Umland and Hubert Smeets. Andreas Umland is poltical scientist studying contemporary Russian and Ukrainian history as well as regime transitions. He published among others on the post-Soviet extreme right, Ukranian and Russian nationalism and the Donbas and Crimea conflicts. He is Senior Expert at the Ukrainian Institute for the Future well as a Research Fellow at the Swedish Institute for International Affairs in Stockholm. Andreas Umland also teaches as Associate Professor of Politics at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. Hubert Smeets is a Dutch journalist and historian. He is one of the founders of the knowledge and analysis platform Raam op Rusland (Window on Russia). Hubert Smeets is a prominent commentator on the war in Ukraine. He worked for the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad. From 2003 to 2007 he was editor-in-chief of the Dutch opinion weekly De Groene Amsterdammer. In 2015 he published his book De wraak van Poetin (The revenge of Putin).

#Dont give up Ukraine #Eurasianism #Dugin #Umland #Smeet

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ultrajaphunter · 2 years

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(via How a Military Base in Illinois Helps Keep Weapons Flowing to Ukraine - The New York Times) How a Military Base in Illinois Helps Keep Weapons Flowing to Ukraine Thousands of logisticians are responsible for making sure that U.S. military aid reaches its destination, on planes, trains and ships.

SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. — In a room dimly lit by television screens, dozens of airmen tapped away at computers and worked the phones. Some were keeping watch over a high-priority mission to move a Russian-made Mi-17 helicopter from a base in Arizona to a destination near Ukraine’s border.

Earlier that day, a civilian colleague had checked a spreadsheet and found a C-17 transport plane in Washington state that was available to pick up the helicopter and begin a daylong trip.

It was up to the airmen to give the plane’s crew its orders, make sure the plane took off and landed on time and handle any problems along the way.

The C-17 would fly from McChord Air Force Base near Tacoma to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base outside Tucson, where the helicopter was parked in a repository for retired military airplanes known as “the boneyard.”

“So it’s two and a half hours from McChord to Davis-Monthan,” said Col. Bob Buente, reviewing the first leg of the journey. “Then four hours to load, then they’ll take off about 7:30 tonight. Then five hours to Bangor, then we’ll put them to bed because of the size of the next leg.”

From Bangor, Maine, the cargo flight — call sign: Reach 140 — would leave for Europe, the colonel said.

Since the war in Ukraine began four months ago, the Biden administration has contributed billions of dollars in military aid to the Ukrainian government, including American-made machine guns, howitzers and artillery rocket launchers, as well as Russian-designed weaponry that the country’s military still uses, like the Mi-17 helicopter.

The Pentagon has drawn many of the items from its own inventory. But how they reach Ukraine often involves behind-the-scenes coordination by teams at a military base in Illinois, about 25 miles east of St. Louis.

There at Scott Air Force Base, where a half-dozen retired transport planes are on display just outside the main gate, several thousand logisticians from each branch of the armed forces work at the United States Transportation Command — or Transcom. In military parlance, it is a “combatant command,” equal to better-known units that are responsible for parts of the globe — like Central Command and Indo-Pacific Command — and takes its orders directly from the secretary of defense.

Transcom has worked out the flow of every shipment of military aid from the United States to Ukraine, which began in August and kicked into high gear after the Russian invasion.

The process begins when the government in Kyiv sends a request to a call center on an American base in Stuttgart, Germany, where a coalition of more than 40 nations coordinates the aid. Some of the orders are filled by a U.S. partner or ally, and the rest are handled by the United States — routed through U.S. European Command, which is also in Stuttgart, to Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who discuss them in weekly meetings with the service chiefs and combatant commanders.

If the desired items are available, and the combatant commanders decide that giving them to Ukraine will not unduly harm their own war plans, General Milley makes a recommendation to Mr. Austin, who in turn makes a recommendation to President Biden. If the president signs off, Transcom figures out how to move the aid to an airfield or port near Ukraine.

The order to move the Russian helicopter zipped across the base in Illinois from Transcom’s headquarters to a one-story brick building housing the 618th Air Operations Center, where red-lit clocks offered the local time at major military aviation bases in California, Alaska, Hawaii, Japan, Qatar and Germany.

Better Understand the Russia-Ukraine War

History and Background: Here’s what to know about Russia and Ukraine’s relationship and the causes of the conflict.

How the Battle Is Unfolding: Russian and Ukrainian forces are using a bevy of weapons as a deadly war of attrition grinds on in eastern Ukraine.

Russia’s Brutal Strategy: An analysis of more than 1,000 photos found that Russia has used hundreds of weapons in Ukraine that are widely banned by international treaties.

Outside Pressures: Governments, sports organizations and businesses are taking steps to punish Russia. Here are some of the sanctions adopted so far and a list of companies that have pulled out of the country.

Stay Updated: To receive the latest updates on the war in your inbox, sign up here. The Times has also launched a Telegram channel to make its journalism more accessible around the world.

Colonel Buente runs the day-to-day operations at the 618th Air Operations Center, where about 850 active-duty airmen, reservists and civilians spend their days planning missions like the helicopter’s trip, he said. Making sure those plans are carried out falls to a smaller group — working in shifts of 60 people, 24 hours a day, every day of the year — that follows the stream of missions posted on a constantly updated screen centered on the back wall all the way to completion.

It is the same center that orchestrated the mass evacuation of Americans and Afghans from Afghanistan’s capital in August. On the busiest day then, 21,000 passengers were flown out of the Kabul airport, with planes taking off or landing every 90 minutes, officials said.

That was a busy time for Transcom, which on an average day not only plans and coordinates about 450 cargo flights but also oversees about 20 cargo ships, along with a network of transcontinental railroads and more than a thousand trucks — all of which routinely carry war matériel.

Live Updates: Russia-Ukraine War

Updated July 4, 2022, 1:57 p.m. ET1 hour ago1 hour ago

Ethnic Russians in an Estonian city are beginning to question Putin’s war.

Amid war and mounting losses, a mood of resignation and little appetite for compromise.

A spate of arrests suggests the Kremlin is further clamping down on dissent.

The flights also transport humanitarian assistance and other supplies when needed, including shipments of baby formula in May to alleviate a shortage in the United States.

Commanding all of it is Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost of the Air Force, who is just the second female officer to lead one of the Pentagon’s 11 combatant commands.

For the aid shipments to Ukraine, the planning begins long before the White House announces a new aid package, she said.

“We cannot wait until the president signs or the secretary gives an order before we do the necessary planning,” General Van Ovost said in an interview in her office, where a photo of Amelia Earhart hung on the wall. “We’re watching it evolve,” the general said of the discussions about aid, “and we create plans that are sitting at the ready.”

Mr. Biden authorized the first U.S. military equipment and weapons for Ukraine — a $60 million package — on Aug. 27. At the time, it took about a month to get the items onto a plane after they were approved, according to General Van Ovost, a test pilot who flew cargo planes.

The White House has announced 13 subsequent aid packages for Ukraine, and the planning process has advanced enough that it now takes less than a day from the president approving a shipment to having the first items loaded onto a plane, she said. Three of the packages in the war’s first 29 days totaled $1.35 billion. As of Friday, the United States has committed $6.9 billion in military aid to Kyiv since Russia invaded.

Transcom’s operations center decides whether to send aid via cargo plane or by ship based on how quickly European Command needs it to arrive. Though military cargo planes like C-17s offer the fastest delivery option, they incur the highest costs. About half of Transcom’s airfreight is handled by a fleet of contracted, commercially owned aircraft, including 747s, each of which can carry double the weight a C-17 can.

Whenever possible, though, military planners send goods on cargo ships, a less expensive option.

“We’ve activated two vessels and used multiple liner service vessels to deliver cargo bound for Ukraine,” said Scott Ross, a spokesman for the command. The vessels and more than 220 flights had delivered just over 19,000 tons of military aid to Ukraine since August, he said.

On one of the large screens in Colonel Buente’s operations center, about a dozen missions were listed in order of importance. At the top were two “1A1” missions supporting some of the command’s most important customers: the president, vice president, the secretaries of state and defense as well as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Immediately below those missions was Reach 140, the C-17 flying to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona. Thousands of aircraft have baked there in the sun, including 13 Russian-made Mi-17 helicopters that the United States had bought for Afghanistan before Kabul fell to the Taliban.

In recent months, 12 of the helicopters were shipped to countries near Ukraine, returned to flying condition and handed over to Ukrainian pilots for the fight with Russia.

As the airmen tracked the C-17, a handful of soldiers and civilians in a small Army-run section of Transcom monitored a separate mission: four cargo trains moving across the United States as well as several cargo ships, some of which were owned by the Navy.

One of the Navy vessels was heading from Norfolk, Va., to a military port in North Carolina, where it would be loaded with ammunition for M142 HIMARS rocket launchers long desired by the Ukrainian military. The rockets, packed in bundles of six and loaded into 20-foot shipping containers, were also en route to the port. Cranes would soon lift the metal boxes off tractor-trailers and rail cars, stack them aboard the ship and lock them into place for a journey at sea lasting about two weeks.

Most of the Pentagon’s military aid sent to Ukraine on ships goes to two German ports — one on the North Sea and the other on the Baltic.

To keep potential adversaries from closing off routes for Ukraine military aid, Army planners can set up operations at any one of dozens of ports on the two seas. Russian warships have largely shut down the most direct routes for resupply missions — Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea.

At the 618th, where presidents and secretaries of defense can reassign planes in a heartbeat for emergencies around the world, a screen that usually displays a classified map of global threats to military air and sea shipments was blacked out for security reasons while a reporter was in the room.

And three of the televisions were set to cable news because, as Colonel Buente explained, “we usually end up reacting to breaking news.”

Military Aid to Ukraine

What Are ‘Artillery Rockets,’ and Why Is the U.S. Sending Them to Ukraine?June 1, 2022

The U.S. Is Sending Advanced Weapons to Ukraine. But Conditions Apply.June 1, 2022

The Senate overwhelmingly approves $40 billion in aid to Ukraine, sending it to Biden.May 19, 2022

As Diplomacy Hopes Dim, U.S. Marshals Allies to Furnish Long-Term Military Aid to UkraineApril 26, 2022

John Ismay is a Pentagon correspondent in the Washington bureau and a former Navy explosive ordnance disposal officer. @johnismay

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