I don't claim to have the film chops to understand everything in this article by Ruby Hamilton, but it contains numerous amusing anecdotes about the late David Lynch and insights into his remarkable filmmaking career. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

he's baaaaack

I'm still looking forward to learning more about this. @minczifra.bsky.social I know this isn't regional politics, but it might be of interest.

Even when Thomas Friedman tries to celebrate Ukrainians’ self-sustaining democratic spirit, he manages to make them sound reliant on the U.S. Also, despite the “fighting” focus of the headline, he says nothing of the brutal draft terrorizing Ukrainian men. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/23/o...

Russia is reportedly weighing restrictions on diesel exports amid Ukrainian drone strikes on its oil refineries, but it would be limited to resellers (companies that buy diesel inside Russia and then ship it abroad), which would have less of an impact on global fuel markets than a full halt.

Russia has applied “torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, including sexual violence” in a “systematic and widespread manner” against Ukrainian civilians in 100+ detention centers, the U.N. Human Rights Office reported today. www.ohchr.org/en/documents...

Reuters reports that ExxonMobil and Rosneft have signed a non-binding initial agreement to help Exxon recoup a $4.6 billion write-down it made on its activities in Russia in 2022, following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. But don’t expect any real progress until the sanctions end.

Macron, the man who often presents himself as the European leader to stand up to Putin, will totally end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, just as soon as he is done losing this “negotiation” with a random New York cop.

ruh roh, Trump’s enemies have turned his Gold Statues against him

If Apple’s thinking is that they can’t release the show in the wake of horrifying gun violence in the USA, I guess the show will stay mothballed forever.

just make all the players robots too already

I hope it doesn’t come to this, but Moscow seems very clearly to be testing NATO’s defenses with its recent trespassing, and these countries can’t be expected to sit on their hands forever.

There’s something rather strange going down between Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov and one of Russia’s most influential judges. Krasnov is poised to head Russia’s Supreme Court, and his office is now targeting the Council of Judges chairman who just endorsed his promotion. meduza.io/en/feature/2...

somewhere in Moscow, in the basement of the Kremlin’s secret mind-control branch, the entire staff is being shot

many things that can be said about Trump’s latest Truth, but this is undeniably an unintentionally very funny introduction

Trump now says Ukraine can win back all its territory, “in its original form,” and “maybe even go further than that” (huh?). What will this guy say next?

two-weeks inflation!

boom

Just a fly-by of the Moon, but still looking forward to witnessing it. Would be the first crew to travel beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972. www.bbc.com/news/article...

TASS had to make a very funny correction to its headline about the audience for Intervision (a replacement for Eurovision, which I’ve also never watched). “Intervision Broadcast Watched by 4 Billion Viewers Worldwide” became “Intervision Broadcast Accessible to 4 Billion Viewers Worldwide.”

Norway says Russian warplanes have violated its airspace three times, so far this year (not including a potential fourth incident today involving unidentified drones near an airport in Oslo). Before 2025, this kind of thing hadn’t happened in more than a decade. www.regjeringen.no/en/aktuelt/n...

Oregonian article on Portland's troubled library system. I recently spent the day at one of the newly remodeled branches (not the Central Library, the focus of this text). It was a very nice experience, until I realized that I'd been pickpocketed. 🤷‍♂️ www.oregonlive.com/politics/202...

On Substack, @radchenko.bsky.social recaps yesterday's UNSC debate, noting how Russian Deputy Rep Dmitry Polyansky trolled creatively by quoting JD Vance. Radchenko gives high marks to Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski's WWI allusions and no-nonsense threat to fire on future fighters.

For Medvedev's 60th birthday, Kommersant published a Medvedevism generator, "an instrument that allows you to begin each day with a properly chosen address to your enemies." Not sure if this is personality-cult flattery or satire. Either way, pretty lame. www.kommersant.ru/doc/7992199?...

Russia has agreed to build nuclear power sites in Iran at a meeting in Moscow between Vladimir Putin and Tehran’s atomic energy chief. “Within this framework, construction of the second and third units of nuclear power plants in Bushehr is underway.” www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2...

Under IMF pressure, Kyiv reportedly agrees to double its projections of additional funding Ukraine will need through late 2027 to around $65B. Zelensky is working toward a new IMF loan, reportedly for $8B. Ukraine’s main donor today is the EU, which lends Kyiv the income from frozen Russian assets.

Big Bloomberg report on Russian election meddling in Moldova. Tactics include recruitment of Moldovan voters abroad, staging protest and disinfo campaigns, and (this seems like the worst one) “the use of compromising material to pressure public officials to disrupt the electoral process.”

Russia’s Finance Ministry, ever the sticklers, is reportedly “committed to keeping expenditures steady” next year, while also weighing tax hikes, as the bill comes due for wild war spending over the past three years. Sucks to be you, “some spending on civilian programs.”

Germany’s Surgeon General said he expects to treat 1,000 wounded troops per day “should a large-scale conflict between NATO and Russia break out.” “The wounded would undergo initial treatment at the frontline, before being transported back to Germany.” I wonder where this “frontline” is…

Moldovan police carried out 250 raids against more than 100 people “over alleged Russian-backed efforts to destabilize the country ahead of Sunday’s parliamentary election.” Igor Dodon said the cops targeted some members of his electoral bloc, which is the ruling party’s biggest competition.

can’t wait to watch Kimmel’s monologue after he returns to ABC tomorrow — when it’s uploaded to YouTube

booyah

Tara Reade is now a Russian citizen. I interviewed her five years ago, after she’d accused Biden of sexual assault but before he won the 2020 presidential race. I focused my questions on what Tara knew of Russia, given the “Russia connections” allegations against her. (It wasn’t much.)

welcome back, old friend

oh brother

Someone needs to give Anders Aslund a hug: another Eastern European nation has let him down. First Poland, now his trusted Estonia.

Roman Alekhin, the Z-blogger recently accused of embezzling donations to troops in a very convoluted scandal, responds to his new "foreign agent" status. A feast of irony here. He blames Governor Khinshtein and tries to reclaim the agent status as a force of independent good. t.me/Alekhin_Tele...

The Pentagon is now requiring journalists to surrender their right to investigate the U.S. military in exchange for access or credentials. The First Amendment is nearing its "Cut me, Mick!" moment. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/20/b...

somebody please get this guy in a room with Putin and Xi and record what they say about tech and anti-aging

Very good news from my little corner of the world. (I guess this means my edgy afterlife as a starving Substack blogger will have to wait for another day.) Huge thanks to anyone and everyone who pitched it! meduza.io/en/feature/2...

Corporal Ivanov: private, have you hit your “amplifying divisions in the U.S.” quota for today? Private Propaganda: yes, sir. societal divisions are up 37% thanks to our #KimmelLied botnet. Ivanov: you fool! they’ve raised it to 42%!

Why is Putin suddenly talking about raising taxes & using “hey, America did it, too” rhetoric? New Reuters calculations show that state oil & gas sales in Sept are set to fall by around 23% from a year earlier on lower prices & a stronger ruble. Revenue for the first 9 months is set to fall by 20.5%

In a bid to squeeze Russia’s frozen assets for higher returns, the E.U. is discussing a “coalition of the willing” to replace the mostly matured $250 billion, mostly held in Belgium, with zero-coupon bonds to underpin a “reparation loan” to Ukraine. Would be a big incentive never to lift sanctions.

Citing U.S. tax policies during the Vietnam and Korean wars, Putin said today that Russia, too, could consider raising taxes on the wealthy. “I don’t want to politicize this,” he said before making the analogy. Brother, I think you’re safe from “politicization.” www.reuters.com/business/ene...

Dear Russians and other oppressed peoples, got some tea to spill? Dirt to give? Scoop to dish? Whistle to blow? Britain’s spy agency says it’s ready to receive your truth bombs via a new Dark Web portal called “Silent Courier.” Silent but deadly, no doubt. www.reuters.com/world/uk/bri...

Eyes on the prize, Dems! The arc of the moral, uh, universe, is long, but, um, have you been badmouthing me? My brother is in Philadelphia and, well, break a leg! I didn’t lose!

Here we go again: A major, 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck in the North Pacific Ocean on Friday, according to the United States Geological Survey. The earthquake prompted a tsunami advisory, the second-highest alert level, for some coastal portions of western Alaska. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

RFE/RL regularly publishes excellent reports on Russia, and I support their continued funding wholeheartedly, but I recoil at the idea that it should be funded explicitly to “promote America.” I realize that this is baked into the project, but good journalism doesn’t always promote America.

we’ve gone from “Not My President” to “Not Your President”