"An elder is someone who is older than olive trees" is about asking why does the Israeli state harm olive trees, and reflecting on how I came to loathe state borders as someone who grew up in Lebanon to a Palestinian grandfather -- plus my love of trains. www.hauntologies.net/p/an-elder-i...

Elon Musk is bringing all the pedophiles together

“I am also the grandson of non-existence.” 💔

I've published two things today, a @thefirethesetimes.com episode with Nicole Rose from Solidarity Apothecary on Burnout, Grief, and Solidarity and a Hauntologies essay entitled "An elder is someone who is older than olive trees" 🧵

it is very easy to oppose the insane American occupation of Venezuela without downplaying how horrible Maduro is look I am doing it right now

Men are using Elon Musk’s Grok to ‘undress’ women, girls and even toddlers and we’re supposed to pretend to be living in a meritocracy when that creep is the richest man in the world

In their response, NYT calls us “trans activists.” Am I? I began health care, changed my name and sex on my ID. Continue to work and care for my home and family. Object to hearing lies about me and my community and caregivers. I live! “Trans activist” sounds like yet more dehumanizing language.

One of my eternal frustrations will always be how often politicians claim to do 'realpolitik' when they are in fact just being cowards. They are not being 'realists' in appeasing the man who said he wants to annex Greenland. They're just hoping he won't do it. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...

"There isn't an obvious answer" implies that there is a non-obvious one. It just cannot be done. It's just simple math. The decision to demonise migrants and treat us as a strain on the UK's resources when we are the exact opposite is in fact a decision by Labour to destroy what's left of the NHS.

A hacker known as Martha Root broke in and deleted three white supremacists websites at the end of a talk during the annual hacker conference Chaos Communication Congress in Germany.

"US President Donald Trump's second term is being shaped by his foreign policy ambitions." Describing this as "ambitions" is a choice www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

It does not matter if you are 'very clear.' Nothing Trump has done has let to any meaningful push-back from the UK government in any way. What will the UK do when Trump does what he *said* he wants to do? Concretely, what is the plan here? Nothing else matters.

If only there were signs that Trump is a White supremacist

read this paliacatepress.org/invasion-tra...

No matter how dumb things seem, they can apparently always be dumber: "Mr. Maduro's regular public dancing and other displays of nonchalance in recent weeks helped persuade some on the Trump team that the Venezuelan president was mocking them and trying to call what he believed to be a bluff"

Given everything happening right now, I updated this article with options for weather apps, web forms, and translation services — along with some tweaks to existing categories. I hope it helps your transition off US tech!

The New York Times and Washington Post both knew of the Trump plan to kidnap Maduro and chose not to publish it to protect US troops. At least 40 Venezuelans were killed by US troops. www.semafor.com/article/01/0...

Yesterday a group of survivors of the Bosnian genocide were apparently required by the President of the German Parliament, Julia Klöckner (CDU), to remove memorial pins they wore because these pins were “political” and therefore violated the Parliament’s clothing regulations.

“Audacious” is an interesting way of not writing “a violation of the UN charter and international law that is also a violation of US law”

They are this close to just posting “we blew shit up and it was so cool, bro“ The price of not holding men accountable is fascism. It’s also very cringe because these are profoundly stupid men with zero self-control or emotional self-regulation.

Good read. The reaction of most Western politicians since confirms her thesis too

Albanese might as well have just tweeted out his infamous selfie with the rapist pedophile and current US President. That's all this amounts to: grinning subservience to this utterly evil war machine masquerading as a country.

In typical Starmer fashion, he reiterates his ‘support for international law’ while backing the violation of international law

I don’t think this administration is disciplined enough to even pretend that this has anything to do with drug trafficking or Maduro being horrible

Statements like this one will age really well

I feel like Trump is jealous of Obama for taking out Bin Laden. He wants his own heavily publicized victory against a monstrous enemy of the people who killed huge numbers of U.S. citizens. More than oil or anything else he wants the optics of quickly and (for us) painlessly taking out an "enemy".

Hard to imagine this not causing a backlash. Regardless of Maduro himself, this also tells heads of states that no one is safe.

We are having our first monthly Patreon hangout at 4pm UK time today. I’m guessing the topic of conversation will be Venezuela. fromtheperiphery.com/hangout/

I worry about people in Venezuela, and about what it means for all of us for the world’s largest military power to go fully rogue

Spain's RTVE has live coverage from Venezuela (Spanish only). Currently Vice President Delcy Rodriguez has no information on the whereabouts of Maduro. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ku09...

Sky News quotes sources within the Venezuelan opposition claiming that Maduro's capture was a "negotiated exit" news.sky.com/story/venezu...

It’s a calculation that comes from genocide and it makes complete sense from the point of view of the genocidaires. Complete control over who gets to live and who gets to die is the point.

Born in Trinidad, Dr. John Alcindor earned his MD in Scotland in 1899 & was a physician, political activist, & senior district medical officer in London. He was awarded a Red Cross medal for his work treating the wounded in WWI. His great-nephew is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

it’s cool how predictable enshittification is

It's worth reading the whole interview in full. It basically verifies that the NYT has spent the past decade-plus doubling down on top-down narratives for coverage, getting more intense over time. Sulzberg personally picked & chose whom the news apparatus would target and whom it would kiss up to.

Excellent talk by Cory Doctorrow on the post-American and enshittification-resistant internet archive.org/details/doct...

A young woman leads a group of protesters into chants of "don't be afraid, we're all together" in Tehran's Grand Bazaar. Location: maps.app.goo.gl/sDDP83mJR1GH...

A group of protesters in the small city of Azna, in the western porvince of Lorestan, set fire to the local police station on 1 January, the fifth day of protests in Iran. Location: maps.app.goo.gl/FvzkwLsChdLT...

Unrelated to anything but I spent years writing about the ideological similarities between the authoritarianism of Netanyahu-style Zionism and Assadism www.hauntologies.net/p/notes-on-a... Video is on the fascist website x.com/clashreport/...

THREAD: Verified videos of anti-establishment protests currently unfolding in Iran Protesters push back police and security forces on Tehran's Jomhouri Street. Location: maps.app.goo.gl/LKZH6YbnT2WE... @geoconfirmed.org

Happy new year from Brighton folks

This is the impact of networked incitement. And now every other “citizen journalist” wannabe Nick Shirley is on the ground in Washington, Ohio, and I assume elsewhere trying to break/make the next viral story. There’s potential for this to spin further out of control, hoping it doesn’t

Anyone who knew anything knew that Starmer’s strategy of courting the Right and abandoning Labour’s own base was going to be disastrous, but that didn’t stop highly paid ‘strategists’ from f-ing everything up

Nazis are getting mainstreamed in Europe www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...

Just watched Hadestown, my first musical in a while. Just brilliant through and through. Was already in love with the original album, and I’m in awe of what Anais Mitchell created. While watching it I also felt utterly certain that AI can never replace such life-affirming creations

I’m reading LotR for the first time in a long time. I was wondering how long, until I remembered that I had made a note the last time I read it! It’s been almost exactly 21 years since I actually finished it (I read passages every now and then) but I intend on doing it now

Alaa is here! Wonderful Christmas news