The 60 Minutes episode about CECOT was not only worth running, it was an exceptionally powerful work of journalism that made clear the US government has embraced torture. You can read the transcript here: www.thenation.com/article/soci...

Nothing to see here Just the NIH Director trashing, um, one of the world’s best respected journals, Science It makes sense really—power-hungry, power-consolidating autocrats love to criticize the media, it’s one of their favorite tactics

Not sure what the American aversion to calling concentration camps "concentration camps" is, but the distinction is breaking down pretty quickly

@anitaoakvilleeast.bsky.social @mark-carney.bsky.social what a great time for Canada to show leadership on the international stage!

41 years old. ICE Detainee Dies After Being Held at a Troubled Jailhouse in Newark — one of four in a week www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/n...

In upping its public health game, Canada needs to ask itself (a) how to combat misinformation domestically; (b) whether to start demanding proof of vaccination from US travellers.

ICYMI Canada’s prisons plan to experiment on prisoners with opioid withdrawal treatments that may constitute torture. The move appears linked to lobbying by the pharmaceutical company holding the patent. Hundreds of experts are sounding the alarm. drugdatadecoded.ca/150-experts-...

Zohran: "I mean, think about when you fly.  We have made it such a difficult experience to go through TSA that there's now a financial incentive to sign up for a separate program that can move you through it quicker. We have monetized the dysfunction."

This is metal

Israeli settlers entered Gaza today. They were “returned by the IDF” without being arrested despite entering a combat zone where Palestinians are shot and killed merely for walking in the ruins of their own homes @mairavz.bsky.social

🤖🫧💥 www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Palestinian prisoner dies in Israeli custody amid surge in torture-related deaths - https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/second-palestinian-prisoner-administrative-detention-dead-week

Just want to share with my American friends how the Australians respond to a shooting tragedy. Action, rather than thoughts and prayers.

What a time to be alive.

Noting power/wealth disparity>> in pre-Revolutxary France, this (sub-billionaire? CEO-authored) criticism of billionaires says w/o evidence our Louis XVs r 'whip smart', while plebes' vision/self-respect barely lets us ask 4 a tepid little wealth tax. Think bigger. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/14/o...

Indeed.

Incredible investigative reporting by Mada Masr on how a network of businessmen reaped over $1 billion “coordinating” the entry of goods into Gaza over the past 2 years in a system under complete Israeli control that profits from Palestinian starvation www.madamasr.com/en/2025/12/1...

Conservative MPs who don't like Poilievre could sit as independents. The fact that they are willing to join the Liberal party -- and potentially hand them a majority -- says a lot about how well aligned Liberal and Conservative policies are and about whether this is based on principle versus power.

When the winner of the Nobel peace prize smuggled herself over the water and out of Venezuela to attend the ceremony in Oslo this week, her allies called the Pentagon to ask them not to arbitrarily murder her. www.wsj.com/world/americ...

People keep wondering why they're going after Venezuela. It's because they want to do regime change and control its oil, then use a big tract of land there to keep a tax free "network state" that looks like Dubai but operates like Rhodesia. They are saying this out loud! Believe them!

Richest 1/1000th of world’s population controls 3 times more wealth than the poorest 50%. "The global wealth gap has become so staggering, and its impact on economies & democratic institutions so corrosive, that policymakers should treat it as an emergency..." www.commondreams.org/news/world-i...

It’s been two weeks since ICE took Yuanxin Zheng from his father. He is six years old. He’s still not home. This has to end.

Absolute nonsense. Researchers who are already here punch above their weight despite low levels of support. We do not need to spend a billion dollars recruiting Americans, we need to fund the excellent scientists we already have.

AI awarded me a bunch of convincingly-specific imaginary honours! Only the 1st (my winning entry 4 which criticized the vacuous & politically appalling gazillionaire-led current direction of AI & tech industries) is real, along w my book titles & journalism. What a bloody mess.

The trials in 2030: "The disease commonly known as Silent Mouthdeath that killed 14 million Americans in the winter of 2026 is being taxonomically reclassified as Poliovid. Secretary Kennedy was first made aware of Poliovid at the ribbon cutting ceremony for Arby's Beef Tallow Onion Rings in 2025."

In May, Human Rights Watch released a report showing how gig platforms use opaque algorithms to erode workers' wages. Now a new investigation finds Instacart is running AI price experiments: charging different people different prices for the *same* groceries, sometimes by more than 23%. Read this:

ChatGPT cuts the crusts off my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I'm a big business boy.

‼️ "The measure wasn’t included in the version of the Liberals’ Nov. 4 budget that was given to reporters. It was not discussed in the govt’s speeches in Parliament about this bill. No opposition party aside from the Bloc Québécois seems to have noticed it was there until the Star pointed it out." ‼️

They're using the confinement box, one of the most horrific methods of CIA torture in the post-9/11 black sites, against migrants now. This is the direct result of the lack of consequences for the architects of the torture program. Either there will be criminal penalties for this or it will expand.

TIL about a memorial ceremony in Iceland in 2019 to mark the end of a glacier, changing the place name from Okjökull to Ok (jökull = glacier). Uncompromising wording on the bronze plaque: "This is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it".

Carney government wants to let ministers decide what (non-criminal) laws apply, when. www.thestar.com/politics/pol... via @althiaraj.bsky.social

There is no sight that more efficiently puts the lie to immigration “court” than the common sight of children “representing themselves.” Children too small to climb into the chair, children in pajamas who don’t know where they are, children not yet old enough to speak.

The GBD libertarians declare victory

"The secret of Nazism in practice, as Mein Kampf states time and again, is to do the most outrageously secret things quite openly. The Nazi success with this practice has been so great that there is nothing they will not dare." - Bella Fromm, Berlin, 3/20/1938

Trump says that price of beef is down. The receipt from my last trip to the grocery store says it is up. For busy shoppers, it can be hard to know who to trust.

No literature, no science. Sagan himself'd have trouble grasping our impoverishment as a result of the wealthy global kakistocracy's deployment (military analogy deliberate) of what cld be amazing technology. Impoverishment (material & cultural) will persist til current power structures dismantled.

These people are an inspiration but should not have to be. No one should be forced to succumb or survive, despite creating beauty and shaming the world with their courage, in misery and constant danger. To enrich and empower those who allow this racist genocide and occupation to continue.

The people need to take back control of computation, artificial intelligence, and energy from the handful of gazillionaires driving us & our planet towards extinction, with stops for steeply declining quality of life for us masses along the way.

This is horrifying. More MAHA recklessness in drive 2 make as much $ as possible from as much grift as possible & 2 profit from their own underfunding & decimation of actual medical research & treatment. Extremely well-done article by @sarahdigregorio.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

rfk jr wants to kill your kids, it’s really that simple.

"Does this feel like or look like a well-run competent administration? It took them 10 months to discover that the United States doesn't grow bananas and that therefore if we tariff bananas that that's not going to bring banana factories on shore."

Very important court case. Worth reading @aivl.bsky.social filtermag.org/dulf-constit...

If you want to learn more about the extraordinary side benefits of vaccination that are currently being lost, along with their advertised benefits, thanks to RFK Jr., I wrote about what's called their 'non-specific beneficial effects' a few months ago for @salon.com. www.salon.com/2025/07/12/b...

I won an essay competition! This was previously subtitled How to Save Us from the Worst of Us. “How Might Current and Emerging Technologies Best Be Mobilized to Secure Perpetual Peace?” open.substack.com/pub/hinterne...

There’s something visceral about blowing up defenseless men clinging for life in the ocean

“…he was like a poisonous mushroom with a beard, emitting a bilious cloud…“ You shld of course read @angierasmussen.bsky.social 4 the content, to stay on top of the US admin’s so-far-successful attempts to send the world careening back to medieval times, medically-speaking. But also for the style.

Climate Action Tracker's update on Canada's climate policies is a grim read. "Our rating of Canada’s policies and action has worsened to 'Highly Insufficient', with the latest emissions projections now higher than previous updates" climateactiontracker.org/countries/ca...