The US's weakness is misreading aggression as strength.

Meanwhile in Spain - this excellent piece explains how memory wars are getting louder and more fragmented. www.eurozine.com/spains-forev...

MWF 2025: FWICS no mention of Israel, Ukraine, Climate change or Trump. The closest is "Living Fully in an Age of Crisis" Where "Wilson is a brave, nuanced and ultimately hopeful guide for anyone who feels overwhelmed by the state of the world." I'm living in the Truman show.

Melbourne Writers Festival is steering well clear of anything that could be considered remotely controversial this year: mwf.com.au/program Especially compared to SWF: www.swf.org.au/program Playing it too safe.

Sometimes the free market is a lot of fun. timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/sha...

He's not not a knob www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

This is a big deal not because it means that AI is samrter but because of US expertise in chip design could be waning. www.livescience.com/technology/c...

Barcelona airport has a salami vending machine

Baltasar Garzon: what a CV: - Instigated the arrest of Pinochet - Arrested Argentine Navy officer from crimes against humanity - Ordered the arrest of Bin Laden - Cracked down in socialist death squads - Launched an inquiry into crimes against humanity in Francoist Spain www.bbc.com/news/world-e...

Tech's total capitulation to Trump should have been obvious for the past 15 years. Any alignment to principles of liberty were about convenience. The media were so quick to fawn over social media during the Arab Spring without paying enough attention to how protesters were sold out.

The "Sputnik moment" came up last week with DeepSeek. Truth is that China has been starved of US innovation for since Trump's first term. My review for Eva Dou's House of Huawei is about a Sputnik "moment" which took place over the last 8 years - with the growth and plateauing of the tech giant.

Here is a recording of responses provided by DeepSeek that are then revoked/censored. I've had the same thing happen when asking "what happened in Tiananmen Square in 1989?" and "Who are the Uyghurs?" Just another example of why we can't go all in on AI LLMs.

Jewish Italian Primo Levi wrote about his experiences of being sent to Auschwitz in the famous If this is a Man. It contains the immortal response from a guard "There is no why here" Just finished The Truce "the sequel" a surreal and strangely funny journey home through the immediate post-War chaos.

Reviewed Bruce Wolpe's book back in 2023: www.smh.com.au/culture/book... Back then it seemed mad that Trump might win again. Prepare for the worst...

That's a 100 articles I have published. Check out the latest: - How Spain still grapples with the history of its Civil War: www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/share/19919/... - The geopolitics of Wine in Georgia: www.cntraveler.com/story/in-geo...