The antidote. For now.

Critical thinking. Critical thinking. Critical thinking. We won't survive without it.

The million-dollar question is: How does Trump force Putin to capitulate without losing face?

Frankly, I'm really surprised that this hasn't happened already. When you give lethal weapons, huge bounties for the taking, and anonymity to a bunch of low IQ rednecks and then set them loose into populous areas with minimal limitations on their actions, this was inevitable.

That's a relief. Don't know if I could stomach watching Trump be humiliated and openly mocked by a smug authoritarian. Yet again. Not so much because I value Trump's dignity. More that I value American peoples' dignity.

Virginia Giuffre was trafficked by Ghislane Maxwell and Epstein when she was working for Trump as a maid. She was 17 when the filth that is Maxwell pounced on her and presented her to that other piece of filth, Epstein for sexual exploitation. Virginia Giuffre took her own life last year at 41.

Half of Trump's cabinet once called him much worse things than Rudd calling him the most destructive President in history in 2019. Rudd has a doctorate on Xi Jinping & is fluent in Mandarin. His cool, measured gaze on China and his multiple decades of senior public service make him indispensable.

Every nation should have their own secure and foolproof cloud computing storage system. Obviously.

"...weakening the west is also an end in itself. A strong EU and Nato alliance would prevent Russia from reclaiming its sphere of influence in central and eastern Europe." Trump is Putin's golden ticket to achieving his aims. He couldn't be more obliging even if he willed it to be so.

Handing over our critical thinking to a machine is to also hand over one of the few things that is within our control – our agency.

This book reminds me of what the actor playing Lee in the eponymous film says to the young man interviewing her when he asks: "How is it that you didn't know what was coming?" Her response: "Because it all happened so slowly. Until it didn't" An unshakeable moral core is what we all need right now.

I dips me lid to all you fine American sisters and brothers who came out in force to defend your democracy. www.theguardian.com/us-news/live...

Fuck AI and fuck all its proponents. "...If AI products were a car or a new medicine, the impact would be tested and modelled before it was let loose on the community. But simply by being new, Big Tech seeks a free pass based on a trust that it hasn’t earned..."

It's obvious, isn't it? Playing to the center is killing the center. The only way that the Democrats will ever regain power is if they defy the corporate sector and champion the people instead. Someone like Bernie Sanders is the only possible way to defeat a populist. Corporate blandness will fail.

One of the brains departments behind the moving light show of incompetents in the regime. In any monarchy, there is always a few who actually know what they are doing and do it with intellect. Vought is an excellent example of the fact that intelligence does not always align with goodness.

Well, at least shaming the shameful still works in some quarters...

The highest court of Australia backs the government's decision to deny entry to Candace Owens. The woman has a highly likely “capacity to incite discord” according to the government. Sounds logical to me.

Anyone who has seen the flattened devastation that is now Gaza knows that it is nigh on impossible for the rest of the remains of hostages to be found. The Palestinians were set up to fail. Again.

"I Am The Only One That Matters" Never a truer statement was ever made.

CCDH said the latest model appeared designed to boost user engagement, calling the findings “deeply concerning”. “OpenAI promised users greater safety but has instead delivered an ‘upgrade’ that generates even more potential harm,” said Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the CCDH.

The Trump Effect. “It’s not as bad as we feared but it’s worse than we anticipated a year ago and worse than we need,” IMF Chief Economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas said in a briefing with reporters. “We still see the risks tilted to the downside.”

An American Tragedy.

Slowly but surely the world is waking up to the reality that we can work-around the shrinking relevance of Trump's house of cards empire.

“We can no longer talk about tipping points as a future risk,” said Prof Tim Lenton at the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute. “The first tipping of widespread dieback of warm water coral reefs is already under way.”

The difference between the wise and the perennially stoopid is that the wise learn from their mistakes. Trump, and his merry band of low calibre refugees from reality, are in the latter category.

Just love Norway. It's integrity, decency, fierce independence.

The U.S. economy is teetering on the edge of recession. The EU needs to find alternate markets rather than rely on one that is clearly unstable. India, China, Indonesia, Pakistan all have enormous populations and expanding market share. Think bigger.

The public comment period on the proposal to rescind the Public Lands Rule is open until Nov. 10. www.regulations.gov/commenton/BL...

So far, so good.

Lest We Forget.

I once was sitting reading a book in my garden when I felt the need to look up. Three little tawny frogmouths were on the branch above my head watching me calmly.

Another nation defies the idiot savant tech brotherhood.

‘You’re not making art, you’re making disgusting, over-processed hotdogs out of the lives of human beings’ Humans are not for sale, AI brotherhood. Hands off!

A reminder to those who wonder at the cruelty, lack of moral justice & steely determination of the current administration that their methods come from a deeply religious zealotry. Trying to attribute reason to their behaviour is pointless. They believe they are right.

Everyone's child.

So much to like about this woman.

Intimidation to cower populations who are seeing their rights and wealth misappropriated, to be sure. But what else is behind these acts? The same tactic that trump has used repeatedly. Pushing the Overton Window wider & wider until this becomes the new normal in readiness for voter intimidation.

The U.S. economy is teetering on the edge.

War historian Yuval Noah Harari has some interesting insights on the war against Ukraine: news.online.ua/en/ukraine-i...

It's ok to condemn Netanyahu and the anti-democratic zealots in the Knesset. It is absolutely reprehensible, however, to condemn every Jew on the planet for what is happening in a tiny piece of land a kazillion miles from where they live. Tribal stupidity is never a good look.

Three public intellectuals on how to live a good life in times of crises.

A bulwark against China's growing influence in the Pacific perhaps? Strange times when a Thatcherite leader in Japan could well be deemed to be a good thing for the global South. www.scmp.com/news/china/d...

"Same cruel routine, day after day – people die from hunger, from weakness, from the rockets that never stop...A man not far from us died recently. I still can’t believe how ordinary his death felt, how quickly a life can vanish and leave only a hollow silence..."

Russia is attempting to jam UK military satellites on a regular basis, according to the head of the UK Space Command, Major General Paul Tedman. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Negotiations are closer to being reached this morning. It's difficult to imagine how it would be possible unless Netanyahu changes his position on a Palestinian state & offers Hamas a means of safe passage to somewhere far away from Palestine.

Five lawmakers vie for the Prime Ministerial leadership in Japan this week. Let's hope that it will be Shinjuro Koizumi or Yoshimasa Hayashi. The lady below has Margaret Thatcher as her role model. Shudder. www.reuters.com/world/who-co...

Instrumentalized migration explained. These times demand rational, cool-headed thinking. The ruthless are banking on our passions. www.hybridcoe.fi/publications...

The forgotten war. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...

An allegorical tale to brighten your day.

Trump has zero capacity for understanding anything more complex than his own voracious appetite for attention. No interest in increasing his knowledge base on the nuance of entrenched & protracted tribal conflicts. No moral framework to guide his actions. He's a bit of a nothing man really.