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How about $1 per view.
How about 10 cents per view.
Surprise me, Singa.
_____
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"It’s common, in a Dickens or Eliot novel, for one person’s unthinking action or local relationship to dramatically influence the fate of someone seemingly unconnected with them. Highlighting such connections was an integral part of the moral work of Victorian fiction, which sought to remind readers how all members of society depended on one another to survive and thrive.
In Martineau’s work, though, these uncanny networks of connection did not stop at the borders of society. Her stories involved lives upended by unexpected patterns of rainfall, by the felling of trees, by the importing of new crops, and by the movements of fish.
Martineau’s work wasn’t just social or sociological. It was ecological. She put far more thought into the entanglements that draw the fates of humans together with those of trees, water, grain, cattle, and fish than any English-speaking novelist I could find before her—or after her, for that matter.
It wasn’t until the late twentieth century and the rise of environmentalism that novelists began, slowly, to reconnect their stories of human lives to the material changes in the nonhuman world around them. In many ways, Martineau still has today’s most ecologically attuned fiction writers beat when it comes to her sheer astuteness about the surprising ways interspecies connections affect us all."
*
"Born in Portsmouth, Dickens left school at age 12 to work in a boot-blacking factory when his father John was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. After three years, he returned to school before beginning his literary career as a journalist. Dickens edited a weekly journal for 20 years; wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and nonfiction articles; lectured and performed readings extensively; was an indefatigable letter writer; and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, education and other social reforms".
The term Dickensian is used to describe something that is reminiscent of Dickens and his writings, such as poor social or working conditions, or comically repulsive characters. "
"Dickens's writing style is marked by a profuse linguistic creativity. Satire, flourishing in his gift for caricature, is his forte.
An early reviewer compared him to Hogarth for his keen practical sense of the ludicrous side of life, though his acclaimed mastery of varieties of class idiom
may in fact mirror the conventions of contemporary popular theatre.
Dickens worked intensively on developing arresting names for his characters that would reverberate with associations for his readers and assist the development of motifs in the storyline, giving what one critic calls an "allegorical impetus" to the novels' meanings.
To cite one of numerous examples, the name Mr Murdstone in David Copperfield conjures up twin allusions to murder and stony coldness.
His literary style is also a mixture of fantasy and realism. His satires of British aristocratic snobbery—he calls one character the "Noble Refrigerator"—are often popular.
Comparing orphans to stocks and shares, people to tug boats or dinner-party guests to furniture are just some of Dickens's acclaimed flights of fancy."
" Dickens employs Cockney English in many of his works, denoting working-class Londoners. Cockney grammar appears in terms such as ain't, and consonants in words are frequently omitted, as in 'ere (here) and wot (what).
An example of this usage is in Oliver Twist. The Artful Dodger uses cockney slang which is juxtaposed with Oliver's 'proper' English, when the Dodger repeats Oliver saying "seven" with "sivin"."
"He often depicted the exploitation and oppression of the poor and condemned the public officials and institutions that not only allowed such abuses to exist, but flourished as a result.
His most strident indictment of this condition is in Hard Times (1854), Dickens's only novel-length treatment of the industrial working class.
In this work, he uses vitriol and satire to illustrate how this marginalised social stratum was termed "Hands" by the factory owners; that is, not really "people"
but rather only appendages of the machines they operated.
His writings inspired others, in particular journalists and political figures, to address such problems of class oppression. For example, the prison scenes in The Pickwick Papers are claimed to have been influential in having the Fleet Prison shut down.
Karl Marx asserted that Dickens "issued to the world more political and social truths than have been uttered by all the professional politicians, publicists and moralists put together".
George Bernard Shaw even remarked that Great Expectations was more seditious than Marx's Das Kapital.
The exceptional popularity of Dickens's novels, even those with socially oppositional themes (Bleak House, 1853; Little Dorrit, 1857; Our Mutual Friend, 1865), not only underscored his ability to create compelling storylines and unforgettable characters, but also ensured that the Victorian public confronted issues of social justice that had commonly been ignored.
It has been argued that his technique of flooding his narratives with an 'unruly superfluity of material' that, in the gradual dénouement, yields up an unsuspected order, influenced the organisation of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species."
"He was a fierce critic of the poverty and social stratification of Victorian society. In a New York address,
he expressed his belief that "Virtue shows quite as well in rags and patches as she does in purple and fine linen."
_____
"In May, the ICC’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, requested the court issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
A panel of judges is still considering the request which, if granted, would oblige countries that are signatories to the ICC to detain Netanyahu if he were to visit"
"The stability–instability paradox is an international relations theory regarding the effect of nuclear weapons and mutually assured destruction.
It states that when two countries each have nuclear weapons, the probability of a direct war between them greatly decreases, but the probability of
minor or indirect conflicts between them increases.
This occurs because rational actors want to avoid nuclear wars, and thus they
neither start major conflicts nor allow minor conflicts
to escalate into major conflicts—
thus making it safe to engage in minor conflicts.
For instance, during the Cold War the United States and the Soviet Union never engaged each other in warfare, but fought proxy wars in
Korea, Vietnam, Angola, the Middle East, Nicaragua and Afghanistan and spent substantial amounts of money and manpower on gaining relative influence over the third world."
"This effect can be seen in the India–Pakistan relationship and to some degree in Russia–NATO relations."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stability%E2%80%93instability_paradox
_____
"Records obtained by the Guardian show that lobbyists working for major North American oil and gas companies were key architects of anti-protest laws that increase penalties and could lead to non-violent environmental and climate activists being imprisoned up to 10 years."
"Emails between fossil fuel lobbyists and lawmakers in Utah, West Virginia, Idaho and Ohio suggest a nationwide strategy to
deter people frustrated by government failure to tackle the climate crisis
from peacefully disrupting the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure
by enacting tough laws with lengthy jail sentences.
“Draft bill attached,” wrote a lobbyist representing two influential fossil fuel trade groups to the lead counsel for the West Virginia state energy committee in January 2020.
The law, which carries a maximum 10-year prison sentence, was later used
to charge at least eight
peaceful climate protesters including six senior citizens."
Civil disobedience is a form of political protest that involves breaking the law in a planned, symbolic way – which activists and rights experts say is part of the bedrock of a democratic society and in the tradition of civil rights movements.
Last year was the hottest on record, and wildfires, baking temperatures, deadly floods and rising sea levels struck communities across North America – and the rest of the world.
Under the Biden administration, the US has handed out more than 1,450 new oil and gas licences,
accounting for half of the total globally, and 20% more licences than those issued by Donald Trump, who has promised to “drill, baby, drill”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/26/anti-protest-laws-fossil-fuel-lobby
"Prosecuting non-violent climate protesters is “just legalised violence”,
____
"He rejected the myth of progress long before most writers who self-identify as conservative did so.
Famously, he penned an essay in 1988 titled “Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer,” in which he detailed his resolute—most called it stubborn and fundamentalist—refusal to adapt his work to the new technology. “Like almost everybody else,
I am hooked to the energy corporations,
which I do not admire,” he wrote.
“I hope to become less hooked to them. In my work, I try to be as little hooked to them as possible.
As a farmer, I do almost all of my work with horses. As a writer, I work with a pencil or pen and a piece of paper.”
Stegner captured what sets Berry apart:
"You never had a drinking problem or a drug problem; you have been as apparently immune to the Angst of your times as you have been indifferent to contemporary hedonism and the lust for kicks.
By every stereotypical rule of the twentieth century you should be dull, and I suppose there are some people, especially people who have not read you, who think you are. By upbringing and by choice you are a countryman, and therefore a sort of anachronism.
The lives you write about are not lives that challenge or defy the universe, or despair of it, but lives that accept it and make the best of it and are in sober ways fulfilled.
We have grown used to the image of the artist as a person more notable for his sensibility than his balance. We might go to that artist for the flash of insight, often achieved at terrible cost to himself, but not for sober wisdom. I don’t disparage these Dionysian writers; they have lighted dark corners for all of us, and will continue to. But I find your example comforting because it restores a lost balance—one doesn’t have to be crazy, or alcoholic, or suicidal, or manic, to be a legitimate spokesman to the world, and there is more to literature, as there clearly is to life, than aberration and sadomasochism. Your books
seem conservative. They are actually profoundly revolutionary,
and I have watched them gain you an increasingly devoted following over the years. Readers respond to them as lost dogs in hope of rescue turn toward some friendly stranger. The thought in your essays is so clear and unrattled that it reassures us.
Your stories and poems are good like bread.
I say that your books are revolutionary.
They are. They fly in the face of accepted opinion and approved fashion. They reassert values so commonly forgotten or repudiated that, reasserted, they have the force of novelty."
https://europeanconservative.com/articles/essay/wendell-berry-at-90/
___
Wendell Erdman Berry
(born August 5, 1934) is an American novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer.
Closely identified with rural Kentucky, Berry developed many of his agrarian themes in ....Activism
Berry delivered "A Statement Against the War in Vietnam" during the Kentucky Conference on the War and the Draft on February 10, 1968, at the University of Kentucky in Lexington:
We seek to preserve peace by fighting a war, or to advance freedom by subsidizing dictatorships,
or to 'win the hearts and minds of the people'
by poisoning their crops and burning their villages and confining them in concentration camps;
we seek to uphold the 'truth' of our cause with lies, or to answer conscientious dissent with threats and slurs and intimidations. . . .
I have come to the realization that I can no longer imagine a war that I would believe to be either useful or necessary. I would be against any war."
On June 3, 1979, Berry engaged in nonviolent civil disobedience
against the construction of a nuclear power plant at Marble Hill, Indiana.
He describes "this nearly eventless event" and expands upon his reasons for it in the essay "The Reactor and the Garden."
On February 9, 2003, Berry's essay titled "A Citizen's Response to the National Security Strategy of the United States" was published as a full-page advertisement in The New York Times. Berry opened the essay
—a critique of the George W. Bush administration's post-9/11 international strategy—by asserting that "The new National Security Strategy published by the White House in September 2002, if carried out, would amount to
a radical revision of the political character of our nation"
Also in January 2009, Berry released a statement against the death penalty, which began,
"As I am made deeply uncomfortable by the taking of a human life before birth, I am also made deeply uncomfortable by the taking of a human life after birth."
And in November 2009, Berry and 38 other writers from Kentucky wrote to Gov. Steve Beshear and Attorney General Jack Conway asking them to impose a
moratorium on the death penalty in that state.
On March 2, 2009, Berry joined over 2,000 others in non-violently blocking the gates to a coal-fired power plant in Washington, D.C. No one was arrested.
On May 22, 2009, Berry, at a listening session in Louisville, spoke against the National Animal Identification System (NAIS).[25] He said,
"If you impose this program on the small farmers, who are already overburdened, you're going to have to send the police for me. I'm 75 years old.
I've about completed my responsibilities to my family.
I'll lose very little in going to jail in opposition to your program – and I'll have to do it.
Because I will be, in every way that I can conceive of, a non-cooperator."
On December 20, 2009, due to the University of Kentucky's close association with coal interests in the state, Berry removed his papers from the university.
On September 28, 2010, Berry participated in a rally in Louisville during an EPA hearing on how to manage coal ash. Berry said, "The EPA knows that coal ash is poison."
"Berry, with 14 other protesters, spent the weekend of February 12, 2011, locked in the Kentucky governor's office to demand an end to mountaintop removal coal mining.
He was part of the environmental group Kentuckians for the Commonwealth that began their sit-in on Friday and left at midday Monday to join about 1,000 others in a mass outdoor rally."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendell_Berry
______
"South Sudan’s controversial security legislation allowing the arrest of people without warrants
has become law even though the president has not signed it,
parliament’s spokesperson said Thursday.
Yasmin Sooka, chair of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan, said Thursday that the new law will give security agencies powers to conduct
“more arbitrary detentions and enforced disappearances.”
South Sudan is due to hold its first election Dec. 22 under the transitional government created after the signing of a peace agreement in 2018 that ended a five-year civil war in which nearly 400,000 people died."
https://apnews.com/article/south-sudan-security-bill-detentions-ad185b339601154dd3dc1c609c8baf05
____
"International guarantors of South Sudan's peace process said the transitional government's postponement of elections due in December was disappointing and showed its failure to implement a 2018 peace plan.
Last Friday, South Sudan President Salva Kiir's office announced an extension of the transitional period by two years and postponed elections for a second time following a delay in 2022."
___
"Nearly five million people are close to famine
as the country’s civil war passes the one-year mark. Aid officials say the warring parties – the army and the Rapid Support Forces –
are looting aid or blocking it from reaching areas where starvation is taking hold.
But ‘the world’s largest hunger crisis’ is drawing little global attention."
18 million people in Sudan – more than a third of the nation’s 49 million people – are facing “high levels of acute food insecurity,” according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a globally recognized hunger monitor. The IPC also estimates that of this group, nearly five million people are one step from famine
Our biggest challenge is the funding and lack of attention to Sudan,” said Chessa Latifi, senior program advisor in global health at relief organization Project HOPE.
“People are so involved in Ukraine and so involved in Gaza
that there is no space for anyone to think, to be open to listen and hear about Sudan.”
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/sudan-politics-hunger-aid/
Plus, corporate rule and politics focuses on bigot stunts, antics, publicity, manipulation, and religion, far right fascism co opts Religion or feeds from it.
____
https://www.cfr.org/article/crisis-sudan-war-famine-and-failing-global-response
____
"US announces $424m in Sudan aid amid pleas to stop ‘senseless’ war
American envoy to UN urges humanitarian pause and says international community ‘cannot simply look away’ "
"Describing the war in Sudan as horrific and shaming for the whole world, she said it was now necessary
“to compel, insist and demand that the warring parties agree a humanitarian pause to allow aid to flow and for citizens to flee”.
Katy Crosby from the NGO Mercy Corps expressed deep disappointment that a two-hour UN meeting had skirted around many of the fundamental issues.
She said:
“Many of the exact same expressions of concern and calls for more aid
to be allowed into Sudan
were expressed in almost the exact same room
here in New York at a high-level meeting here a year ago.”
_____
" Call out the violence by the RSF in Darfur for what it is: ethnic cleansing.
This reality cannot be disputed.
Alice Wairimu Nderitu, under secretary-general and special adviser to the secretary-general on the prevention of genocide, has warned that
“the situation today bears all the marks of risk of genocide, with strong allegations that this crime has already been committed”.
"This is a critical time for global leadership to live up to our commitments to protect vulnerable populations from destruction. We are watching the Janjaweed, the murderous militia now restyled as the RSF, trying to finish what it began 20 years ago"
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/sep/25/sudan-united-nations-intervention-uk-el-fasher
___
"They attacked us. They displaced us’: grieving South Sudanese confront Swedish oil giant over their days of slaughter "
"In Sweden’s largest-ever trial, Ian Lundin, a Swede, and Alex Schneiter, who is Swiss, stand accused of asking Sudan’s government to make its army and allied militia responsible for security at one of Lundin Oil’s exploration fields. This led to aerial bombings, civilian killings and the burning of entire villages, according to the prosecution"
___
Oil-rich Abyei is claimed by both Sudan and South Sudan
____
"Libyan authorities have said they will investigate allegations of wholesale mismanagement in the country’s National Oil Corporation, with officials telling the Guardian rampant smuggling is helping to fuel the civil war in Sudan."
"Sources say the majority of the imported fuel comes from Russia, via third parties in Turkey, and is illicitly sold on to Europe at a large profit by smugglers, leaving ordinary Libyans with often hours-long queues for petrol."
____
'The rupture of a crucial oil pipeline in Sudan might be the final straw. Oil is the glue that holds South Sudan together, with its export accounting for nearly 90% of government revenue. The economy is in freefall."
____
Sudan conflict: Khartoum landmarks in flames as battles rage across country
Fire engulfs Greater Nile Petroleum Oil Company tower amid clashes around army headquarters in capital while fighting also reported in city of El-Obeid
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/18/sudan-fighting-conflict-landmarks-destroyed-battles
____
"South Sudan is divided by the spoils of oil, not ethnicity"
Khalid Mustafa Medani
"South Sudan is more dependent on oil than any other oil-exporting country in the world.
Between 2005 and 2011, oil exports amounted to $9.5bn (£5.8bn) and accounted for 98% of total state revenues. But rather than utilising this revenue to invest in infrastructure and public services to improve livelihoods, the government financed a military and security apparatus, itself factionalised along ethnic lines.
Since independence in 2011, for example, South Sudan has allocated 38% of oil revenue to the military and security services, and only 10% to infrastructure and 7% to education.
Not only has the country seen agricultural productivity decline since the end of the civil war in 2003, it now imports the bulk of its food."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/14/south-sudan-divided-oil-ethnicity-violence
____
"The Canadian firm Arakis bought the Chevron concession in the Muglad basin, north of Bentiu, and in March 1997 formed a consortium, the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company (GNPOC), with the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), the Malaysian state oil company Petroliam Nasional Berhad (PETRONAS), and the publicly owned Sudan National Petroleum Corporation (Sudapet).[1] In 1998 another Canadian firm, Talisman Energy, purchased the share of Arakis and then, under pressure from international nongovernmental organizations (which were opposed to the Islamist regime in Khartoum), sold it to a state-owned Indian oil company in 2003.[1] Other companies that also invested in concessions included the Qatar-based Gulf Petroleum and the French oil company Total.[1] The Swedish company Lundin Oil and the Austrian firm OMV were also involved, but both withdrew from the country because of deteriorating security conditions.[1]
Prior to 2005, the only concession producing petroleum was GNPOC.[1] However, many other fields were under development, such as the concession being developed by the consortium led by CNPC, PETRONAS, Sudapet, Sinopec, and Cairo-based Tri-Ocean Energy.[1] In 2003 and 2004, the consortium began construction of a new export pipeline and export terminal, as well as in-field production and transportation facilities.[1] South Sudan’s national oil company, Nile Petroleum Corporation (Nilepet), was also involved in allocating licenses.[1]
In 2005 Sudan established the National Petroleum Commission to improve the development of the country’s oil resources.[1] The commission allocates new oil contracts and ensures equal sharing of oil revenues between the national government in Khartoum and the Government of South Sudan (GOSS).[1] It also resolved duplicate oil contract issues in which the GOSS allocated blocks that overlapped the contracts previously granted by the national government in Khartoum.[1]
Intensive exploration by GNPOC resulted in known reserves of 800 million barrels in 2004.[1] At that time, however, studies suggested that production might eventually increase to more than 4 billion barrels, with recovery rates of 30–35 percent, and generate total oil income of about US$30 billion.[1] Exploration was expected to continue not only in the South, but also in the North near Dongola, the East around Port Sudan, the West, and also offshore.[1] As of 2009, proven oil reserves increased to 5 billion barrels, and there were proven natural gas reserves of 3 trillion cubic feet, although there was no production of natural gas by early 2011.[1] The majority of the reserves were in South Sudan.[1]
Additional refining capacity became essential as oil production increased.[1] A US$600 million refinery at Al-Jayli, north of Khartoum, came online in mid-2000 with a capacity of around 60,000 b/d, which allowed Sudan to become self-sufficient in refined products.[1] The export pipeline, which passed close to it, provided the resources for the refinery, which also produces a small surplus of refined goods, especially benzine, for export.[1]
In addition to the refineries at Al-Jayli and Port Sudan, there are also some smaller refineries.[1] They include Al-Obeid, with a capacity of 15,000 b/d, Abu Jabrah, with a capacity of about 2,000 b/d, and a topping plant built by Concorp with a capacity of 5,000 b/d.[1]
Refining capacity increased in July 2006 as CNPC completed the expansion of the Al-Jayli refinery north of Khartoum to 100,000 b/d.[1] An Indian energy company, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), had a contract to increase the capacity of the 40-year-old Port Sudan refinery from 21,000 b/d to 70,000 b/d, while PETRONAS was awarded a $1 billion joint venture with the government to build a second 100,000 b/d refinery in Port Sudan to process the new Dar Blend crude from its Melut concession in southeastern Sudan.[1] This project had been postponed several times by 2010, however, and its status is unknown.[1] Among other developments, Malaysia’s Peremba has begun construction of a marine export terminal, with a capacity of 2 million b/d, known as the Melut Basin Oil Development Project.[1]
Domestic production of petroleum was about 480,000 b/d in 2008, and consumption was approximately 86,000 b/d, with the remaining 394,000 b/d exported to Asian markets, the majority to China, Japan, and Indonesia.[1] Most of the oil was exported as crude, although some refined products were also exported.[1] Sudanese Nile Blend oil is a medium, sweet crude, with low sulphur and metal content.[1] It is sold at a discount to the Indonesian blend, Minas, the medium-sweet benchmark in Asia.[1] Dar Blend is also exported to Asian markets, but its heavy, sour quality causes it to trade at a discount, often severe, to Minas crude.[1] There has been a continuing trend of declining output of Nile Blend oil and increasing output of the less valuable Dar Blend, although total output remains relatively steady.[1] The shift from Nile to Dar, however, means that a larger share of Sudan’s oil is being produced in the South, about 78 percent.[1]
Sudan’s minister for energy and mining indicated in May 2010 that there might be modest output increases over the next several years.[1] He also indicated, however, that the recoverable reserves in the existing fields, using current technology, were only about 1.6 billion barrels, less than a decade of production at current output rates, and that production at those fields would only be a quarter of their current level by 2019.[1] He was confident, however, that new recovery technology could increase the amount recoverable from the fields and that new fields would be discovered.[1] He also was confident that production of natural gas would occur by that time.[1]
Satellite photographs were available in 2011 that provided evidence of oil exploration taking place in North Darfur, although the consortium of Arab companies holding the concession had not confirmed the exploration or indicated whether oil was discovered there.[1] This region has geological connections to the oil-producing regions in southeastern Libya.[1]
In May 2006, Sudan was invited to become a voting member of OPEC.[1] The country had had observer status since 1999 and was now qualified to join OPEC according to conditions set by the organization, although as of 2011 it had not yet become a member"
"The experience will provide “valuable experience for canine therapy teams as they prepare to work with victims during highly emotional and complex situations,” officials said.
“We were contacted by the victim advocates
who really felt a need for therapy dogs
to help victims just to take a breath
when they're waiting to testify.
when they're on the stand testifying,.
and they really felt that this was a need that they needed to fill,
and we went and just kind of presented our case as far as a therapy program,
and we've been with them ever since,”
said Kathy Loter, the Program Director for Portland Area Canine Therapy Teams.
Loter says they have 103 teams
in the area
and 40 teams work in the court system."
____
"You see wagging tails and furry coats. We see expertly trained dogs and their committed handlers furthering human health through positive interactions with dogs. "
Virtual Canine Therapy as a Source of Comfort
Our canine therapy teams rely on the generosity of individuals to keep the PACTT program running. Help these therapy dogs and their handlers spread their love and support to more communities in need by making a gift today.
MAKE A GIFT wag wag
Is the girl homeless?
Is the homeless girl pictured going to a party?
No one wants to see a dog visiting an actual homeless person. That's depressing and unappealing. Make a gift. That's how costume department and our promotions operation puts Dove in shiny feathers.
____
"The Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care Society (VECCS) recognizes DoveLewis as a Level 1 Emergency and Critical Care Facility. VECCS awards certifications to hospitals that provide exemplary patient care and outstanding efforts to raise public and professional awareness in the field of veterinary medicine.
DoveLewis is the only facility in Oregon to be certified on any level (I, II or III)."
Well, well.
"Dove Lewis and her husband, A.B., were breeders of Standard Poodles, Yorkshire Terriers, and Shih Tzus. Dove and A.B. ran the family kennel and dog grooming business (very upscale for its time)
At one point, there were 14 dogs in the family!"
https://www.dovelewis.org/board-directors-0
"pretty upscale"
__
"The World Health Organization said this month at least 20,000 people have been killed in the conflict.
But some estimates are far higher, with the US envoy on Sudan, Tom Perriello, saying that up to
150,000 people may have died.
Sudan is classified as the world’s largest humanitarian catastrophe, she said it was “heartening that the US had stepped up with more funding, but it was deeply disappointing that other countries have not done more, or circled back to see if they had provided the funds they had promised”.
She added she could only hope Joe Biden had been more direct behind closed doors "
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/25/us-un-sudan-aid-war
"Longfellow was descended from English colonists who settled in New England in the early 1600s.
They included Mayflower Pilgrims Richard Warren, William Brewster, and John and Priscilla Alden
through their daughter
Elizabeth Pabodie,
the first child born in Plymouth Colony. "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Wadsworth_Longfellow
"Elizabeth Pabodie was born Elizabeth Alden in 1623, the firstborn child of the Plymouth Colony settlers Priscilla Mullins and John Alden, who were both passengers on the Mayflower in 1620.
She married William Pabodie (Peabody),
a leader of Duxbury, Massachusetts, on December 26, 1644. All 13 of their children were born in that settlement before Elisabeth eventually moved to Little Compton, Rhode Island, in the 1680s. She died on May 31, 1717"
___
___
"Elizabeth Pabodie's first child was a daughter, Lydia; next came a son named William after his father.
In 1683 Lydia married Daniel Grinnell Jr; they also had 13 children together.
William the younger and his wife Judith had a daughter Rebecca Peabody, who married the Reverend Joseph Fish. Their daughter Mary Fish
married Gold Selleck Silliman (1732–1790), and they were the parents of Benjamin Silliman,
the first person to distill petroleum,
and grandparents of Benjamin Silliman, Jr. The Sillimans started the Chemistry Department at Yale, a forerunner of the Sheffield Scientific School. "
___
"Benjamin Silliman
(August 8, 1779 – November 24, 1864) was an American chemist and science educator.
He was one of the first American professors of science, at Yale College, the first person to use the process of fractional distillation in America.
He was a founder of the American Journal of Science, the oldest continuously published scientific journal in the United States."
*
"Returning to New Haven, he studied its geology. His chemical analysis of a meteorite that fell in 1807 near Weston, Connecticut, was the first published scientific account of an American meteorite. "
'Silliman was an early supporter of coeducation in the Ivy League.
Although Yale would not admit women as students until over 100 years later, he allowed young women into his lecture classes.
His efforts convinced Frederick Barnard, later president of Columbia College, that women ought to be admitted as students. "The elder Silliman, during the entire period of his distinguished career as a Professor of Chemistry, Geology and Mineralogy in Yale College, was accustomed every year to admit to his lecture-courses classes of young women from the schools of New Haven. "
*
"Silliman had been the first person to use the process of fractional distillation, and, in 1854 his son Benjamin Silliman Jr became the first person to fractionate petroleum by distillation. In 1864 Silliman noted oil seeps in the Ojai, California, area. In 1866, this led to the start of oil exploration and development in the Ojai Basin."
*
"Ojai sits on the traditional territory of the Chumash, a Native American people who inhabited the central and southern coastal regions of California, in portions of what are Morro Bay in the north to Malibu in the south and the Channel Islands. "
*
"The original town of Watervliet was the "mother of towns" in Albany County, having once been all the land outside of the city of Albany within the county"
"Leland Stanford was born in 1824 in what was then Watervliet, New York (now the Town of Colonie). He was one of eight children of Josiah and Elizabeth Phillips Stanford. "
"Amasa Leland Stanford (March 9, 1824 – June 21, 1893) was an American attorney, industrialist, philanthropist, and Republican Party politician from California.
He served as the 8th governor of California from 1862 to 1863 and represented the state in the United States Senate from 1885 until his death in 1893. He and his wife Jane founded Stanford University, named after their late son."
"Stanford was a successful merchant and wholesaler who migrated to California during the Gold Rush and built a business empire. He was an influential executive of the Central Pacific Railroad and later the Southern Pacific railroads from 1861 to 1890, giving him tremendous power in the Western United States and leaving a lasting impact on California.
He also played a significant role as a shareholder and executive in the early history of Pacific Life and Wells Fargo. He was the first Republican governor of California. Stanford is widely considered a robber baron.'
In Parenthesis
is a work of literature by David Jones first published in England in 1937.
David Although Jones had been known solely as an engraver and painter prior to its publication, the book won the Hawthornden Prize and the admiration of writers such as W. B. Yeats and T. S. Eliot.
Based on Jones's own experience as an infantryman in the First World War, In Parenthesis narrates the experiences of English private John Ball in a mixed English-Welsh regiment, starting with embarkation from England and ending seven months later with the assault on Mametz Wood during the Battle of the Somme.
The work employs a mixture of lyrical verse and prose, is highly allusive, and ranges in tone from formal to Cockney colloquial and military slang.
The literary allusions include Shakespeare, primarily Henry V, Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Christabel, Lewis Carroll's Alice books, and The Song of Roland but they also include Malory, The Gododdin, The Mabinogion, and the sixth-century Welsh poem Preiddeu Annwn (The Harrowing of Hell).
The principal cumulative effect of these allusions is symbolically to align the Battle of the Somme with the catastrophic (for the Welsh) defeats at Catraeth and Camlan. Far from "romanticizing" war, allusions to romance give to battle frightening archetypal force and express the combatants' preverbal intensity of emotion
T.S. Eliot called it "a work of genius". W. H. Auden considered it "a masterpiece", "the greatest book about the First World War" that he had read, a work in which Jones did "for the British and the Germans what Homer did for the Greeks and the Trojans" in a masterpiece comparable in quality to The Divine Comedy.
The novelist and poet Adam Thorpe says it "towers above any other prose or verse memorial of that war (indeed, of any war)". The Jones scholar Thomas Dilworth writes that it is "probably the greatest work of British Modernism written between the wars" and "the greatest work of literature in English on war".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Parenthesis
"Y Gododdin (Welsh: [əː ɡɔˈdɔðɪn]) is a medieval Welsh poem consisting of a series of elegies to the men of the Brittonic kingdom of Gododdin and its allies who, according to the conventional interpretation, died fighting the Angles of Deira and Bernicia at a place named Catraeth in about AD 600. It is traditionally ascribed to the bard Aneirin and survives only in one manuscript, the "Book of Aneirin".
"According to legend, the coffee plant was discovered in Ethiopia by a goat herder named Kaldi around 850 AD, who observed increased physical activity in his goats after they consumed coffee beans.
The coffee plant was first found in the mountains of Yemen. Then by 1500, it was exported to the rest of the world through the port of Mokha, Yemen. "
"Kaldi was a legendary Ethiopian goatherd who is credited for discovering the coffee plant around 850 CE, according to popular legend, after which such crop entered the Islamic world and then the rest of the world."
De Saluberrima potione Cahue seu Cafe nuncupata Discurscus (Rome, 1671).
The myth of Kaldi
the Ethiopian goatherd and his dancing goats,
the coffee origin story most frequently encountered in Western literature,
embellishes the credible tradition that the Sufi encounter with coffee
occurred in Ethiopia, which lies just across the narrow passage of the Red Sea from Arabia's western coast."
___
Lost in a desert of dehydrated and emaciated skeletons, lizards sucking on pebbles to make saliva, stepping on cacti just to remain awake, the doctoral candidates trod the narrow funnel snaking up the hill, a ravine of sand littered with to go cups looking like skulls from philosophers, decaf in step, frothy at mouth, a pattern crowning hair made of sirocco styling, droopy horns and beep beep following the tail ahead, following the pellet smell of rabbit roadkill, on the only way to an oasis and environs, there's a thermal cafe, a fog brewing above the chewed landscape, there's a pull off all hours jungle out of nowhere nor found on map, goats chewed that long before when the barista shepherd was singing to soothe the wolves howling from vienna balconies overlooking saucilito
"Kopi luwak, also known as civet coffee, is a coffee that consists of partially digested coffee cherries, which have been eaten and defecated by the Asian palm civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus).
The cherries are fermented as they pass through a civet's intestines, and after being defecated with other fecal matter, they are collected.
Asian palm civets are increasingly caught in the wild and traded for this purpose"
_(7781509830).jpg)
The traditional method of collecting feces from wild Asian palm civets has given way to an intensive farming method, in which the palm civets are kept in battery cages
and are force-fed the cherries.
This method of production has raised ethical concerns about the treatment of civets
and the conditions they are made to live in,
which include isolation, poor diet, small cages, and a high mortality rate.
Although kopi luwak is a form of processing rather than a variety of coffee, it has been called one of the most expensive coffees in the world, with retail prices reaching US$100 per kilogram for farmed beans and US$1,300 per kilogram for wild-collected beans.
Another epithet given to it is that it is the "Holy Grail of coffees"
"Its anal scent glands emit a nauseating secretion as a chemical defense when threatened or upset. "
In Philippine mythology, the Bagobo people believe a being named Lakivot was said to be
a huge and powerful palm civet who can talk.
Lakivot defeated various monsters, including the one-eyed monster Ogassi
and the busaw beings
who guarded the Tree of Gold, which had the Flower of Gold that he sought.
He was eventually transformed into a handsome young man, and married the person to whom he gave the Flower of Gold"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_palm_civet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kopi_luwak
"And the tree with all its branches
Rustled in the breeze of morning,
Saying, with a sigh of patience,
"Take my cloak, O Hiawatha!"
With his knife the tree he girdled;
Just beneath its lowest branches,
Just above the roots, he cut it,
Till the sap came oozing outward;
Down the trunk, from top to bottom,
Sheer he cleft the bark asunder,
With a wooden wedge he raised it,
Stripped it from the trunk unbroken.
"Give me of your boughs, O Cedar!
Of your strong and pliant branches,
My canoe to make more steady,
Make more strong and firm beneath me!"
Through the summit of the Cedar
Went a sound, a cry of horror,
Went a murmur of resistance;
But it whispered, bending downward,
'Take my boughs, O Hiawatha!"
Down he hewed the boughs of cedar,
Shaped them straightway to a frame-work,
Like two bows he formed and shaped them,
Like two bended bows together.
"Give me of your roots, O Tamarack!
Of your fibrous roots, O Larch-tree!
My canoe to bind together,
So to bind the ends together
That the water may not enter,
That the river may not wet me!"
And the Larch, with all its fibres,
Shivered in the air of morning,
Touched his forehead with its tassels,
Said, with one long sigh of sorrow.
"Take them all, O Hiawatha!"
From the earth he tore the fibres,
Tore the tough roots of the Larch-tree,
Closely sewed the bark together,
Bound it closely to the frame-work.
"Give me of your balm, O Fir-tree!
Of your balsam and your resin,
So to close the seams together
That the water may not enter,
That the river may not wet me!"
And the Fir-tree, tall and sombre,
Sobbed through all its robes of darkness,
Rattled like a shore with pebbles,
Answered wailing, answered weeping,
"Take my balm, O Hiawatha!"
And he took the tears of balsam,
Took the resin of the Fir-tree,
Smeared therewith each seam and fissure,
Made each crevice safe from water.
"Give me of your quills, O Hedgehog!
All your quills, O Kagh, the Hedgehog!
I will make a necklace of them,
Make a girdle for my beauty,
And two stars to deck her bosom!"
From a hollow tree the Hedgehog
With his sleepy eyes looked at him,
Shot his shining quills, like arrows,
Saying with a drowsy murmur,
Through the tangle of his whiskers,
"Take my quills, O Hiawatha!"
From the ground the quills he gathered,
All the little shining arrows,
Stained them red and blue and yellow,
With the juice of roots and berries;
Into his canoe he wrought them,
Round its waist a shining girdle,
Round its bows a gleaming necklace,
On its breast two stars resplendent.
Thus the Birch Canoe was builded
In the valley, by the river,
In the bosom of the forest;
And the forest's life was in it,
All its mystery and its magic,
All the lightness of the birch-tree,
All the toughness of the cedar,
All the larch's supple sinews;
And it floated on the river
Like a yellow leaf in Autumn,
Like a yellow water-lily. "
Longfellow
Hitler Youth supervise Jews as they are forced to scrub the streets of the Austrian capital in 1938. Photograph: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
____
"Synagogues burned, murders, it was just a hellhole for Jews. People were clutching at any straw to get out,” said Russell.
Of the 730 people named in petitions, about 630 were rejected.
Of them, around 125 were murdered in extermination camps such as Sobibor and Treblinka, with the fate of others unclear, said the author.
The hundred or so Jews who were admitted to Northern Ireland settled, found jobs and some built factories.."
A handful of civil servants processed the applications. Most ended up inscribed with one of two brief, dry responses:
“Regret” or “No reply”.
"We've never invoked Taft-Hartley to break a strike
and are not considering doing so now," the Biden administration official told Reuters."
***
"Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno is a Latin phrase that means
One for all, all for one.
It is the unofficial motto of Switzerland.
This attitude is epitomized in the character of Arnold von Winkelried. A French version, Un pour tous, tous pour un, was made famous by Alexandre Dumas in the 1844 novel The Three Musketeers"
***
"Collective defence means that an attack against one Ally is considered as an attack against all Allies."
***
"The National Retail Federation on Tuesday led a group of 177 trade associations representing retailers like
Walmart (Made in China Inc.)
(WMT.N), opens new tab, manufacturers, farmers, automakers and truckers "
"Last summer, Biden dispatched Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su to help negotiate a crucial contract deal between U.S. West Coast seaport employers and their union workers, following labor disruptions at some busy California port terminals.
Both sides had agreed to keep talking after their July 1, 2022, deadline because the
COVID pandemic cargo boom was jamming up critical supply chains and
stoking inflation."
_____
"Port of New York/New Jersey executives tell CNBC they are preparing for a complete work stoppage by the International Longshoremen's Association, the largest union in North America.
The ILA represents over 85,000 port workers, and a strike would shut down five of the 10 busiest ports in North America, and a total of 36 ports along the East and Gulf coasts.
Close to half (43%-49%) of all monthly U.S. imports would be impacted, representing billions of dollars in trade, and logistics firms are preparing contingency plans last used during Covid and 2018 tariffs.
Currently, there is an estimated $34 billion in freight in route to these ports on 147 ocean vessels."
"in recent months there has been an exodus of cargo from the East to West Coast in anticipation of a potential strike."
'the last ILA strike, in 1977, when Daggett was among ILA members who traveled to the West Coast during the 44-day strike to make sure West Coast port workers supported its efforts."
"Congestion levels are already being forecast by the maritime industry. Sea-Intelligence has estimated
a one-day strike by the ILA would take five days to clear.
A one-week strike in October could cause slowdowns until mid-November.
Two weeks would take you into January because of the congestion of ships and the backup of containers."
___
"An analysis from Mitre estimates that a 30-day strike centered at the ports of New York and New Jersey could result in economic impact as high as $641 million per day.
In Virginia, an economic impact of $600 million per day is forecast"
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/19/largest-port-on-east-coast-begins-preparations-for-a-strike.html
_____
"In 1882, the Knights ended their membership rituals and removed the words "Noble Order" from their name. This was intended to mollify the concerns of Catholic members and the bishops who wanted to avoid any resemblance to freemasonry. Though initially averse to strikes to advance their goals, the Knights did aid various strikes and boycotts.
The Wabash Railroad strike in 1885 saw Powderly finally adapt and support an eventually successful strike against Jay Gould's Wabash Line after C. A. Hall, a carpenter and Knights member, was fired for attending a meeting in February.
The strike included stopping track, yard, engine maintenance, the control or sabotage of equipment, and the occupation of shops and roundhouses.
Gould met with Powderly and agreed to call off his campaign against the Knights of Labor, which had caused the turmoil originally. This gave momentum to the Knights and membership surged.
By 1886, the Knights had more than 700,000 members"
"The Knights' primary demand was for the eight-hour workday. They also called for legislation to end child and convict labor as well as a graduated income tax.
They also supported cooperatives. The only woman to hold office in the Knights of Labor, Leonora Barry, worked as an investigator.
She described the horrific conditions in factories employing women and children. These reports made Barry the first person to collect national statistics on the American working woman."
"The Knights of Labor helped to bring together many different types of people from all different walks of life; for example Catholic and Protestant Irish-born workers. The KOL appealed to them because they worked very closely with the Irish Land League.
The Knights had a mixed record on inclusiveness and exclusiveness. They accepted women and blacks (after 1878) and their employers as members, and advocating the admission of blacks into local assemblies.
However, the organization tolerated the segregation of assemblies in the South.
Bankers, doctors, lawyers, stockholders, and liquor manufacturers
were excluded because they were considered unproductive members of society "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_of_Labor
"The Knights of Labor supported the Chinese Exclusion Act, claiming that industrialists were using Chinese workers as a wedge to keep wages low. "
(Wal Mart. )
"An injury to one is an injury to all is a motto popularly used by the Industrial Workers of the World. In his autobiography, Bill Haywood credited David C. Coates with suggesting a labor slogan for the IWW: an injury to one is an injury to all.
The slogan has since been used by a number of labor organizations. The slogan reflects the fact that the IWW is "One Big Union" and organizes skilled and unskilled workers"
***
"The principle of collective defence is at the very heart of NATO’s founding treaty. It remains a unique and enduring principle that binds its members together,
committing them to protect each other and setting a spirit of solidarity within the Alliance."
"Collective defence means that an attack
against one Ally
is considered as an attack against all Allies."
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_110496.htm
"Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves.
I wish they would bring it [slavery] back. I would certainly buy a few,” he wrote in October 2010.
In March 2012, during the Obama administration, it was claimed he wrote:
“I’d take Hitler
over any of the shit
that’s in Washington right now!”"
Republican Mark Robinson, North Carolina. Trump 2.
The North Carolina Republican party is standing by him.
“Mark Robinson has categorically denied the allegations made by CNN but that won’t stop the Left from trying to demonize him"
_____
"almost 10,000 Palestinians are held in Israeli detention, a 200% increase from recent years.
Among them are approximately 8,000 Palestinians classified as “security” detainees –
citizens of Israel and residents of the occupied West Bank, including Jerusalem, held either under military or criminal law.
More than 30% of administrative detainees are held without charge or trial,
in prison facilities managed by the Israeli Prison Service (IPS).
According to the report, inmates are subjected to widespread physical and mental abuses. "
"Cohen was one of the few Jewish children who survived the Holocaust in the Budapest ghetto. Nearly 80,000 Jews were killed in the Hungarian capital, shot on the banks of the Danube and then thrown into the water.
Prof Veronika Cohen holds vigil with friends to draw attention to poor treatment of Palestinian prisoners "
"Donald Trump in which the former US
___
"With all I have done for Israel, I received only 24 percent of the Jewish vote,”
Trump said during his earlier speech on Thursday, at a campaign event where he spoke to an audience of prominent Republican Jews — including Miriam Adelson,
the megadonor who is a major Trump benefactor — and lawmakers.
Mr. Trump added that
“I really haven’t been treated very well, but it’s the story of my life.”
'Mr. Trump made no mention of Mark Robinson, the lieutenant governor of North Carolina. Mr. Robinson, the Republican nominee for governor,
came under fire as CNN reported that on a pornographic forum, he had once called himself a “black NAZI”
and defended slavery.
Mr. Trump once endorsed him and called him “Martin Luther King on steroids.”
___
"Miriam Adelson
(née Farbstein; born 10 October 1945) is an Israeli-American physician and political donor. She was married to Sheldon Adelson from 1991 until his death in 2021.
After his death, she became the owner of the Las Vegas Sands
and as of August 2024, is estimated to be the fifth richest woman in America with a net worth of US$30 billion. "
"Adelson is the richest Israeli in the world and the 52nd richest person in the world according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, while Forbes places her as the 65th."
Adelson is a political megadonor to the Republican Party and one of the largest supporters of Donald Trump, who awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2018. "
" Adelson has been a major donor to Trump's presidential campaigns, as well as his 2017 presidential inauguration
and his legal defense fund against the Mueller investigation into Russian interference."
"In response to the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, Adelson published an Op-Ed in Forbes Israel, entitled "Dead to Us".
Referring to wave of pro-Palestinian protests occurring across various western cities and countries, Adelson stated that
"Those ghastly gatherings of radical
Muslim and Black Lives Matter activists,
ultra-progressives
and career agitators
were nothing short of street parties. .
These people are not our critics. They are our enemies,
the ideological enablers in the West of those who would go to any length to eradicate us from the Middle East. And, as such, they should be dead to us"
___
"Since buying a majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks, Adelson has been advocating for
greater legalization of gambling in Texas,
in order to build a casino in the state."
"She has written that Trump "should enjoy sweeping support" among U.S. Jews and Israelis, and that
Trump deserves a "Book of Trump" in the Bible due to his support for Israel.
She pushed for the pardon of Aviem Sella who spied against America"
*
Aviem Sella
(Hebrew: אביאם סלע, born January 7, 1946)
is an Israeli businessman and former commander in the Israeli Air Force. In 1987, he was charged in absentia on three counts of espionage
for recruiting Jonathan Pollard,
who served a 30-year sentence for spying on the United States for Israel.
U.S. President Donald Trump pardoned Sella
during the morning of January 20, 2021,
before Trump left office later in the day."
___
"In 1984, Pollard sold numerous state secrets,
including the National Security Agency's ten-volume manual on how the U.S. gathers its signal intelligence
and disclosed the names of thousands of people
who had cooperated with U.S. intelligence agencies"
"The Israeli government acknowledged a portion of its role in Pollard's espionage in 1987, and issued a formal apology to the U.S., but did not admit to paying him until 1998 .
Opposing any form of clemency were many active and retired U.S. officials, including
Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, former CIA director George Tenet; several former U.S. Secretaries of Defense; a bi-partisan group of U.S. congressional leaders; and members of the U.S. intelligence community.
They maintained that the damage to U.S. national security due to Pollard's espionage was much more severe, wide-ranging, and enduring than acknowledged publicly."
*
"Since relocating to Israel, Pollard has endorsed Itamar Ben-Gvir and
advocated a population transfer to
relocate Gaza's Arabs to Ireland."
_____
"The Vanity Fair article details allegations that Kennedy made physical advances with Cooney on multiple occasions, including rubbing her leg under a table and approaching her from behind and then running his hands on her body and breasts."
but conceded that “I’m not a church boy.”
"Like Donald Trump, RFK Jr. is not only plagued by scandal and a closet full of skeletons, but
he has no shame or regard for the women he assaulted and harassed.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/12/rfk-jr-sexual-assault-apology-00167867
'In July 2023, a video surfaced of Kennedy making false claims that Covid-19 was “ethnically targeted”
to attack Black people and white people while sparing
Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people, while Kennedy has also claimed that
wifi causes “leaky brain”.
He has also linked antidepressants to school shootings, and in 2023 he claimed that
chemicals in water are making children transgender. "
"The CIA has long been reluctant to employ this tactic because
the risk to innocents was too high, the source said."
The Mossad, however.
"Trump says if he loses ‘Jewish people would have a lot to do with that’"
"Trump claims Israel would cease to exist if Harris wins as allegations emerge that North Carolina’s Mark Robinson referred to himself as a ‘black Nazi"
___
"Mossad is responsible for intelligence collection, covert operations, and counter-terrorism. Its director answers directly and only to the Prime Minister. "
And Oligarchs.
_____
"Mossad opened a venture capital fund in June 2017, to invest in high-tech startups to develop new cyber technologies."
Sayanim (Hebrew: סייענים, lit. helpers, assistants)[20] are unpaid Jewish civilians who help Mossad
out of a sense of devotion to Israel.
(Zealots)
Sayanim can have dual citizenships but are often not Israeli citizens.
According to Gordon Thomas, there were 4,000 sayanim in Britain and some 16,000 in the United States in 1998."
"In 1960, Mossad discovered that the Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann was in Argentina. A team of five Mossad agents led by Shimon Ben Aharon slipped into Argentina and, through surveillance, confirmed that he had been living there under the name of Ricardo Klement.
He was abducted on May 11, 1960 and taken to a hideout. He was subsequently smuggled to Israel, where he was tried and executed.
Argentina protested what it considered as a violation of its sovereignty, and the United Nations Security Council noted that "repetition of acts such as [this] would involve a breach of the principles upon which international order is founded, creating an atmosphere of insecurity and distrust incompatible with the preservation of peace" while also acknowledging that "Eichmann should be brought to appropriate justice for the crimes of which he is accused" and that "this resolution should in no way be interpreted as condoning the odious crimes of which Eichmann is accused
"The US journalists Dylan Howard, Melissa Cronin and James Robertson
linked the Mossad to American sex offender Jeffrey Epstein
in their book Epstein: Dead Men Tell No Tales. They relied for the most part on the former Israeli intelligence officer Ari Ben-Menashe.
According to him, Epstein's activities as a spy served
to gather compromising material on powerful people
in order to blackmail them"
(Kompromat)
"There is also a possible connection to the Mossad via Ghislaine Maxwell, whose father Robert Maxwell is said to have had contacts with the Mossad.
Epstein's victim Virginia Giuffre also alleged Epstein to be an intelligence asset, linking on Twitter to a Reddit page, that alleged Epstein being a spy, running a blackmail operation."
In 2018, Mossad agents infiltrated Iran's secret nuclear archive in Tehran and smuggled over 100,000 documents and computer files to Israel. The documents and files showed that the Iranian AMAD Project aimed to develop nuclear weapons.[65] Israel shared the information with its allies, including European countries and the United States
Mossad was suspected of establishing a large spy network in Lebanon, recruited from Druze, Christian, and Sunni Muslim communities
Syria
Eli Cohen infiltrated the highest echelons of the Syrian government, was a close friend of the Syrian President, and was considered for the post of Minister of Defense. He gave his handlers a complete plan of the Syrian defenses on the Golan Heights, the Syrian Armed Forces order of battle, and a complete list of the Syrian military's weapons inventory.
He also ordered the planting of trees by every Syrian fortified position under the pretext of shading soldiers, but the trees actually served as targeting markers for the Israel Defense
___
"The Mossad for years allegedly conducted an effort to "surveil, hack, pressure, smear and allegedly threaten" senior staff of the International Criminal Court (ICC) .
in an attempt to derail the court’s investigation of Israeli actions in the Palestinian territories.
Fatou Bensouda, Prosecutor of the ICC, and her family were victims of an alleged prolonged campaign by Mossad director
Yossi Cohen to dissuade her from opening prosecution of Israeli officials for war crimes."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mossad
"On 4 August 2020,
a large amount of ammonium nitrate stored at the Port of Beirut in the capital city of Lebanon exploded, causing at least 218 deaths, 7,000 injuries, and
US$15 billion in property damage, as well as leaving an estimated 300,000 people homeless.
A cargo of 2,750 tonnes of the substance (equivalent to around 1.1 kilotons of TNT) had been stored in a warehouse without proper safety measures for the previous six years after having been confiscated by Lebanese authorities from the abandoned ship MV Rhosus. The explosion was preceded by a fire in the same warehouse
The government-owned Port of Beirut serves as the main maritime entry point into Lebanon and a vital piece of infrastructure for the importation of scarce goods.The Beirut Naval Base is a part of the port.
The port included four basins, sixteen quays, twelve warehouses, a large container terminal, and a grain elevator with a total capacity of 120,000 tonnes that served as a strategic reserve of cereals for the country. The grain elevator was built in the 1960s as part of an expansion plan advanced by Palestinian banker Yousef Beidas. "
The blast was so powerful that it physically shook the entire country of Lebanon. It was felt in Turkey, Syria, Palestine, Jordan, and Israel, as well as parts of Europe, and was heard in Cyprus, more than 240 km (150 mi) away.
It was detected by the United States Geological Survey as a seismic event of magnitude 3.3 and is considered one of the most powerful non-nuclear explosions on record.
It was powerful enough to affect Earth's ionosphere. The blast was also the largest single-fired ammonium nitrate explosion in history.
Following the explosion, there were suspicions regarding Hezbollah's involvement due to allegations that the explosion occurred at a site storing Hezbollah's weapons.
Hezbollah denied these allegations but has been actively involved in demonstrations against the investigation into the explosion."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Beirut_explosion
"separate development on Thursday, Israeli media reported that Israel had submitted a new ceasefire proposal to the US, under which
all hostages held in Gaza would be released at the same time
in exchange for ending the war..
Israel would also agree that the Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar, along with his family and
thousands of operatives,.
could leave Gaza for a third country “through a safe passage”.
___
“This might well be the first and frightening glimpse of a world
in which ultimately no electronic device, from our cellphones to thermostats, can ever be fully trusted,”
Glenn Gerstell, the general counsel of the National Security Agency for five critical years as the cyberwars heated up, said on Wednesday"
Nonsense.
Data mining
AI training
Espionage
Big bloggod base there in Singapore China
___
Singapore
142
United States
5
Israel
4
Belgium
1
Russia
1
Other
16
...Hours later....
"Agency accuses Meta, Google, TikTok and other companies of sharing troves of user information with third-parties "
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/sep/19/social-media-companies-surveillance-ftc
Not in the Guardian news? Really.
"The UK and Australia abstained while the US voted against."
Hot Potato got buried I guess.
____
"It says Israel must return land and other “immovable property”
as well as all assets seized since the occupation began in 1967
and all cultural property and assets taken from Palestinians and Palestinian institutions.
The resolution also demands Israel allow all Palestinians displaced during the occupation to return to their places of origin and make reparations for the damage caused by its occupation. "
The world’s highest court ruled that Israel is “abusing its status as the occupying power” by
building and expanding settlements,
using the area’s natural resources,
annexing and imposing permanent controls over lands,
and undermining Palestinians’ right to self-determination."
But look a pigmy hippo.
"the vast majority of the international community consider the Palestinian territory as Israeli-occupied."
"The list of those opposed includes Israel and its top ally, the United States.
Argentina,
which in 2010 had recognised Palestinian statehood, has under current President Javier Milei
shifted its stance and grown into one of Israel’s staunchest diplomatic supporters. It too opposed the resolution.
Paraguay
is the only other nation in the Americas that voted against the resolution."
"Hungary and the Czech Republic were the only ones to vote no from Europe, joined by Malawi from Africa and multiple Pacific island countries."
For:
France, Spain, Finland and Portugal
were some of the main European countries to vote in favour. Other prominent backers included
Japan, China, Russia and Brazil.
Overall, almost
all of Africa,
Europe,
Asia
and Latin America
voted yes.
Beep beep beep.
"U.N. General Assembly demands Israel end occupation of Palestinian territory
The nonbinding resolution says Israel must end its “unlawful presence” within a year, pull out military forces, halt settlement expansion and evacuate settlers."
"It also asks member states to cease arms transfers to Israel
when there are reasonable grounds to believe that they might be used in the occupied territory
and to impose sanctions on settlers involved in violence against Palestinians"
Countries that voted against the resolution:
Argentina,
Czech Republic,
Fiji,.
Hungary,
Israel,
Malawi,
Micronesia,
Nauru,
Palau,
Papua New Guinea,
Paraguay,
Tonga,
Tuvalu,
United Goon States."
"Countries that abstained:
Albania, Australia, Austria, Britain, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Canada, Costa Rica, Croatia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Georgia, Germany, Guatemala, Haiti, India, Italy, Kenya, Kiribati, Liberia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Moldova, Nepal, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Panama, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Samoa, Serbia, Slovakia, South Korea, South Sudan, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, Uruguay, Vanuatu."
"Countries that voted for the resolution:
Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Antigua-Barbuda, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Botswana,
Brazil,
Brunei, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cabo Verde, Cambodia, Chad, Chile,
China,
Colombia, Comoros, Côte d’Ivoire, Cuba, Cyprus, Djibouti, Dominica, Egypt, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia,
Finland,
France,
Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Greece, Grenada, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Honduras, Iceland, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Jamaica,
Japan,
Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Libya, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Mauritania, Mauritius,
Mexico,
Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, North Korea,
Norway,
Oman, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Portugal, Qatar,
Russia,
Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, San Marino,
Saudi Arabia,
Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, South Africa,
Spain,
Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Syria, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Timor Leste, Trinidad-Tobago, Tunisia, Turkmenistan,
Turkey,
Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Yemen, Zimbabwe. "
"Gaza crisis: In the Gaza Strip, Israel has waged one of this century’s most destructive wars, killing tens of thousands and plunging at least half of the population into “famine-like conditions.” For months, Israel has resisted pressure from Western allies to allow more humanitarian aid into the enclave.
U.S. involvement: Despite tensions between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and some U.S. politicians, including President Biden, the United States supports Israel with weapons, funds aid packages, and has vetoed or abstained from the United Nations’ cease-fire resolutions.
History: The roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mistrust are deep and complex, predating the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. Read more on the history of the Gaza Strip."
