Zora

Biden Discussed Potential Israeli War Crimes In Gaza. He Kicked The Can To Trump. New intelligence shocked officials in late 2024, spurring heightened fear of U.S. liability, HuffPost has learned. The period saw Secretary of State Antony Blinken ask if Israel’s actions constituted ...

NEW: Inside the Biden administration debates in late 2024 that could have changed the course of the Gaza war

-top intel official sought to cut support for Israel but Brett McGurk pushed back
-talk of "very likely" US liability
-Blinken spoke of "ethnic cleansing"

www.huffpost.com/entry/biden-...

Q: What was the worst thing about communism?

A: The thing that came after it.

“How wonderful it is to be able to write someone a letter" (Haruki Murakami).

Good skies

The Return of the Luddites | Los Angeles Review of Books Erik J. Larson considers “The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want” by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna.

"By insisting on the term 'automation,' Bender and Hanna reveal that what’s sold as innovation is often just labor displacement with better branding."

Erik J. Larson discusses "The AI Con" by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-return-of-the-luddites/

"What he knew, in short, was that fascism was not over, and that the right would metastasise, returning in a new form to claim power over a populace stupefied by the tawdry blandishments of capitalism. Was Pasolini wrong in his predictions? I think we all know the answer to that."

NEW from me:

Political hostility, high visa fees and (in the case of the UK) stagnant incomes are making the UK and US less attractive destinations for top international talent.

That steep decline in the appeal of moving to the US after 2016 is 👀

They literally ruin everything they touch

This is the best news I've heard all year. Blessed are the cheesemakers.

This Halloween, delve into the interdisciplinary field of feminist witch studies. Discover the different national and cultural contexts in which "the witch" is currently being claimed and repudiated.

Shop the book here 📚: buff.ly/lzg8Eiz
@dukepress.bsky.social

#HalloweenReads #SpookyReads

meanwhile in Cheshire

Pablo Scheffer · Among the Rabble: Early Medieval Crowds Along with their terminology, the Romans had passed down to early medieval Europe the belief that crowds were an...

‘The Romans had passed down to early medieval Europe the belief that crowds were an important source of validation. Hordes of admirers attested to the holiness of relics. Adoring masses confirmed a ruler’s legitimacy.’

Pablo Scheffer on the power of medieval crowds.

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

US lifts sanctions on Putin ally ‘Bosnian Bear’ The sanctions on Milorad Dodik, an ultranationalist Serbian politician, had attracted criticism from MAGA firebrands.

disturbing! www.politico.com/news/2025/10...

Trade’s contribution to UK GDP ‘stagnated’ since Brexit, warns WTO Export of goods are languishing at 17% below pre-Covid levels

“In its first formal review of UK trade policy since Brexit, the WTO found that UK trade performance had weakened since the 2008 financial crisis, with Brexit named among the chief causes of a marked slump in goods trade since 2018”

God, failure is tedious…

www.ft.com/content/8f4d...

Satellite images show RSF likely committing mass killings across el-Fasher Yale HRL documents evidence consistent with reports of executions in hospitals and of people fleeing Sudanese city taken over by paramilitaries

Satellite images show RSF likely committing mass killings across el-Fasher - https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/satellite-images-show-rsf-likely-committed-mass-killings-across-el-fasher

How To Join ICE As Immigration and Customs Enforcement seeks to increase its presence across the country, the agency is actively recruiting new agents to carry out the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign...

How To Join ICE

'This history mustn't be forgotten': The real story behind the Nuremberg trials The Nazi high command was put on trial 80 years ago in 1945. The new film Nuremberg draws on a little-known detail of the tribunal to ask enduring questions about the nature of evil.

The doctor's own ambition was to identify among the Nazis a shared psychosis or particular derangement (...)Yet after intense study, Kelley conceded the men were fundamentally opportunists who had grabbed the chance to exercise power and exploit others. www.bbc.com/culture/arti...

We're at the "Papers please" phase

If the people of Clacton-on-Sea don't kick Nigel Farage out at the next general election, they’re absolute mugs.

#Cap #Fréhel #Lighthouse #Brittany #France

People move to France for the lifestyle: coffee, cigarettes, doing heists

If you can be edgy - say something inappropriate - you establish group membership. That dynamic is central to Trumpism. Edgelord culture is an online phenomenon where people deliberately post shocking or taboo content to stay relevant within a group. www.reuters.com/business/med...

God i can't recommend this episodes enough!!!
Did i hear that right? 38 million empty houses across Europe!?!

Law and Order Leviathan: America’s Extraordinary Regime of Policing and Punishment by David Garland

How American-style capitalism creates a coercive state unlike any other.

David Garland's Law and Order Leviathan is now available worldwide. Learn more and order your copy today: press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

#Sociology

This is such an insane thing to say.

Faulty cable caused Lisbon funicular crash, inquiry finds Report says snapped cable between cabins was substandard and city’s other funiculars should fix risk before reopening The funicular that crashed in Lisbon killing 16 people in early September had a faulty cable, the official inquiry said on Monday as it recommended the city’s vehicles stay out of service until their safety can be confirmed. The accident, which saw the picture-postcard 19th-century Elevador da Glória hurtle into a building after careering off the rails, shocked the Portuguese capital and laid bare fears over the safety of the popular yet ageing tourist attraction. Continue reading...

Faulty cable caused Lisbon funicular crash, inquiry finds

Gita Gopinath on the crash that could torch $35trn of wealth The world has become dangerously dependent on American stocks, writes the former IMF chief economist

‘A market correction of the same magnitude as the dotcom crash could wipe out over $20T in wealth for American households, equivalent to roughly 70% of American GDP in 2024. This is several times larger than the losses incurred during the crash of the early 2000s.‘ www.economist.com/by-invitatio...

Bank of England chief warns of ‘worrying echoes’ of 2008 financial crisis Andrew Bailey says a close look is needed at the private credit market after collapse of two big US firms

Bank of England chief warns of ‘worrying echoes’ of 2008 financial crash.

Dash to the next crash:
Post-2008 crash laws mostly repealed.
No regulation of shadow banking
More deregulation.
Bankers collect rewards for speculation, people fund bailouts.

still thinking about this adam phillips piece on resistance. "Psychoanalysis begins when conversation breaks down, where the conversation becomes impossible, where there is a reluctance to go on speaking, a pause, a hesitation, a wilful changing of the subject." www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

ah, finally some good news