Maurice J. White

Bushland at the back of Black Mountain, Canberra, Early Spring 2025.

They won't sell meat in Australia.

After the Spike by Dean Spears and Michael Geruso review – the truth about population We shouldn’t celebrate a falling population, according to this persuasive debunking of demographic myths

"Spears and Geruso argue that future people who live alongside only a couple of billion others will have significantly worse lives than we have today. Stabilisation, not depopulation, they argue, is the right path for humanity."

www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...

Trump's renewed interest in Pakistan has India recalibrating China ties Donald Trump's lunch meeting with Pakistan's military chief and other tensions in the U.S.-India relationship, after decades of flourishing ties, have cast a shadow in trade negotiations.

Trump alienates India. Meanwhile, "New Delhi has largely concluded that it should respond to creeping Chinese influence by focusing its pressures on its nearest neighbours and not on China."
www.reuters.com/world/china/...

Trust in the US is eroding. Now the question isn’t if the dollar will lose supremacy: it’s when | Kenneth Mohammed De-dollarisation is not a threat to global stability. Countries are simply questioning the rules of a game long rigged in Washington’s favour

"Trading partners must earn dollars through exports or debt in order to interact with the global economy, while the US absorbs the benefits of infinite liquidity."

www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

Got damn

Caribbean leaders back Jamaica petition to King Charles for slavery reparations Caricom summit gives ‘broad support’ for request to Charles as region steps up campaign for justice

Jamaica's petition asks "whether the forced transport of Africans to Jamaica was lawful, if it constituted a crime against humanity, and whether Britain was under obligation to provide a remedy to Jamaica for slavery and its enduring consequences."

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

Thawing of relations between Pakistan and US raises eyebrows in India Army chief’s effusive welcome in Washington hints at strategic recalibration amid Middle East turmoil

Pakistan Army Chief Munir, who said Trump should be considered for Nobel Prize for ending clash with India, welcomed to U.S. , but India’s foreign secretary, Vikram Misri, insists no third-party mediation took place.

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

Netanyahu attacked Iran to avert an ‘existential threat’. He may have made it worse | Jonathan Freedland Israel has eliminated many of the brains behind Tehran’s nuclear programme. But don’t expect the regime to back down, says Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland

"A nuclear weapon will only become more desirable. And a tinderbox region that is already the most unstable in the world will become more dangerous still."

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

A bad President, for instance, has the power to do what? What can he not do? If he wanted to revolutionize this government, he could easily do it with this ponderous power; it would be an auxiliary power. He could cry “havoc, and let slip the dogs of war,”29 and say to the conspirators: “I am with you. If you succeed, all is well. If you fail, I will interpose the shield of my pardon, and you are safe. If your property is taken away from you by Congress, I will pardon and restore your property. Go on and revolutionize the government; I will stand by you.” The bad man will say or might say this. I am not sure but we have got a man now who comes very near saying it. Let us have done with this pardoning power. We have had enough of this. Pardoning! How inexpressibly base have been the uses made by this power—this beneficent power. It has been that with which a treacherous President has trafficked. He has made it the means of securing adherents to himself instead of securing allegiance to the government.

very fun to read frederick douglass accurately describe the problem with the pardon power in 1867

There is one place, however, where Musk, with the help of his minions, achieved his goals. He did indeed shred U.S.A.I.D. Though a rump operation is now operating inside the State Department, the administration says that it has terminated more than 80 percent of U.S.A.I.D. grants. Brooke Nichols, an associate professor of global health at Boston University, has estimated that these cuts have already resulted in about 300,000 deaths, most of them of children, and will most likely lead to significantly more by the end of the year. That is what Musk’s foray into politics accomplished.

Musk should be asked about this in every interview he does now and forever. To ignore it is a dereliction of duty.

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/o...

Uneasy India-Pakistan ceasefire holds but is a return to war inevitable? Trump’s interventions have infuriated India, which has emerged from conflict not as triumphant as it had hoped

India-Pakistan hostilities likely to resume given both sides invested in militarization, while the Indus River treaty, "which ensures Pakistan gets a vital supply of river water from India, remains suspended by New Delhi."
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...

Trump can complain all he wants – but he can’t stop his own economic mess | Sidney Blumenthal Between his tariffs and his regressive ‘big, beautiful bill’, the president is wreaking havoc – and he never learns

Trump has "created a reality he can’t disguise or bully. The planets are hurdling into collision. He’s done it to himself by himself."

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

India and Pakistan can ill afford war, but who will talk them down? | Hannah Ellis-Petersen The US has brought the two sides back from the brink before, but the mood is very different with Trump

With an unpredictable general in charge of decision-making, an unpopular government confronting Islamist centripetalism & needing popular support, & without the U.S. effectively intervening, Pakistan seems likely to soon escalate the dangerous dispute.

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...

US consumer sentiment sees largest drop since 1990 after Trump tariff chaos Experts warn of slowing economy after score based on Americans’ financial outlooks fell by 32% since January

"The index of consumer sentiment, a score based on a monthly survey asking Americans about their financial outlooks, fell by 32% since January – the largest drop since the 1990 recession."
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Carbon majors and the scientific case for climate liability - Nature A transparent and reproducible scientific framework is introduced to formalize how trillions in economic losses are attributable to the extreme heat caused by emissions from fossil fuel companies, whi...

Published in Nature, an important analysis of the liability of fossil fuel polluters for climate change impacts.

“Chevron, the highest-emitting company, very likely caused between US $791 billion & $3.6 trillion in heat-related losses over the period 1991–2020”

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Sudan in ‘world’s largest humanitarian crisis’ after two years of civil war NGOs and UN say country is ‘worse off than ever before’ with wide-scale displacement, hunger and attacks on refugee camps * Timeline: Sudan’s two years of war and its devastating toll Sudan is suffering from the largest humanitarian crisis globally and its civilians are continuing to pay the price for inaction by the international community, NGOs and the UN have said, as the country’s civil war enters its third year. Two years to the day since fighting erupted in Khartoum between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, hundreds of people were feared to have died in RSF attacks on refugee camps in the western Darfur region in the latest apparent atrocity of a war marked by its brutality and wide-scale humanitarian impact. Continue reading...

Sudan in ‘world’s largest humanitarian crisis’ after two years of civil war

He did it because those tux-wearing bastards never once said "thank you."

Bigger than Texas: the true size of Australia’s devastating floods In outback Queensland, an area four times the size of the UK has been inundated with torrential rain, leaving many cut off or forced to abandon homes

Area the size of Egypt, four times the size of the U.K., larger than France and Germany combined, and much bigger than Texas, affected by flooding in western Queensland;
www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Several Australian territories tariffed more than Australia, including some not inhabited by humans.

YouTube video by Graham Hughes Benedict Cumberbatch can't say "Penguins"

Topical Reminder: Benedict Cumberbatch can't say "Penguins". www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GnL...

The Guardian view on South Sudan: the world's youngest nation is on the brink of a new conflict | Editorial Editorial: The arrest of vice-president Riek Machar takes the country closer to a second civil war

South Sudan sliding into a second civil war?

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Another beautiful Summer is slowly ending here in Australia. A cold front has littered the long hightide line with thousands of dead little fish.

South Coast of New South Wales, March 2025.

The Black Mountain Nature Park in Canberra, A.C.T.

The Black Mountain Nature Park in Canberra, A.C.T.

The Black Mountain Nature Park in Canberra, A.C.T.

Ebola-infected monkeys cured with a pill, raising hopes for humans: study Monkeys infected with Ebola can be cured with a pill, according to a new study out Friday that could pave the way for more practical, affordable treatments in humans.

Ebola-infected monkeys cured with a pill, raising hopes for humans: study f24.my/B15N.BS

"Pharmaceutical companies have lacked financial incentives to develop treatments, and the sporadic nature of outbreaks has made clinical trials difficult."

Iran Signals Openness to Limited Nuclear Talks With U.S. Iran’s U.N. mission said it would be willing to discuss its nuclear program if talks were restricted to military concerns, after its supreme leader appeared to reject President Trump’s offer to start ...

Iran Signals Openness to Limited Nuclear Talks With U.S. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/10/w...

What is this era of calamity we’re in? Some say ‘polycrisis’ captures it The term ‘polycrisis’ has gained traction as we face one disaster after another. It’s overwhelming – but diagnosing the catastrophe is the first step to addressing it

Thomas Homer-Dixon, “We’ve moved so far and so fast outside our species’ previous experience that many elites don’t have the cognitive frame to grasp our situation, even were they inclined to do so,”

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

World Food Programme halves food rations for Rohingya in Bangladesh Decision made after attempts to raise more funds had been unsuccessful, agency tells authorities

Rations for Rohingya refugees have been slashed in half by the WFP, … because cost-saving measures could not cover the funding shortfall… “a result of ‘indefensible harm’ caused by aid cuts by the US, UK and others.”

www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

UH researchers discover plastic degradable marine fungi UH researchers have discovered several species of marine fungi that can break down plastics.

🧪I'm no expret in this, but it seems like an important thing.
"UH Manoa researchers discovered several species of fungi from Hawaii’s nearshore environment have the ability to degrade plastic, with some species conditioned to do it faster than others.