Thank you, b, for guiding us away from re-re-considerations of what look to be Trump’s blind alleys.  I would like to pick up on this open forum what seems to be a reworking of some of our more absolute truths such as expressed by Putin and Xi in their Joint Declaration following their recent summit meeting in China.
 
To me, there is something very Platonic about the assertions they, and also Lavrov have been making about the ultimate legal scenario that all nation should abide within.  karlov begins such linkage at the bottom of b’s recent posting ‘s first page, with his (karlof’s) opinion of what the two leaders are focussing on with said Joint Declaration.  Platonic?  Well, I go to a source translation of Plato’s Republic by Sterling and Scott of Dartmouth College,  and I quote from a segment in which I find those Platonic echoes – an explanaatory segment titled ” The Divided  Line”:
 

…   The line is illumined by two centers of light.  One is the sun, governing the visible world.  The other is the good — or goodness —  governing the intelligible world.  Plato connects the two  sources of light and converts them into symbols in order to accent a startling argument:  one cannot see visible objects without the sun;  neither can one understand reality without the good  …   we add a brief explication here.
 
The link between understanding and goodness is likely to be startling because of the logical inference:  at least some kinds of perception cannot be attained without moral as well as intellectual effort.  To see and know things as they really are, Plato says, one must be just, one must be good.

The line embodies still more unorthodox doctrine:  the universe is neither evil nor ethically neutral.  Instead it is governed —  though not without obstructions  — by goodness.  The proper purpose of individuals and societies is to imitate and reproduce within themselves the order of the universe by pledging fidelity to the governance of the good …

The line is a statement of human dependence.  The body is dependent on the sun, and the soul dependent on the good.  Plato offers this lesson as a way of approaching a realistic and unobstructed perception of life.  Those who recognize dependence are realistic; in harmony with the real world they are also free.  Those who disclaim dependence must necessarily  become victims of error and bondage.

 
[I have omitted a few short sentences in the above.  The  …  signal where that has happened.  And there is much more explanation involved in the case of the dialogue itself.  But perhaps these short sentences will give us a reference to the importance of the Joint Declaration in our present day understanding of what Lavrov, Xi, and Putin are trying to accomplish here and now.
 
I think they do.]
 

Posted by: juliania | May 21 2026 21:12 utc | 3

After Castro Charges, Critics Ask: When Are Indictments Coming for Trump-Hegseth ‘Extrajudicial Murders’?
 

“Apparently you’re not allowed to kill people in international waters now?” said one progressive organizer.

Over the last eight months, at the direction of President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, the US military has bombed at least 57 boats and killed close to 200 people—among them fishermen, a young man known in his town for his indoor soccer playing, and working people who had recently struggled to make ends meet—in what human rights experts have called “murders” and extrajudicial killings.
 
But the indictment filed this week regarding unlawful killings by government forces in the Caribbean region had nothing to do with Trump’s boat bombing spree, which the White House has claimed it aimed at stopping drug trafficking. Instead, the target of the indictment filed by the US Justice Department was 94-year-old former Cuban President Raúl Castro, who was charged with one count of conspiracy for his alleged role in shooting down planes that flew into Cuba’s airspace in 1996.
 
The planes were operated by an anti-Fidel Castro group, Brothers to the Rescue, and four Cuban-Americans were killed in the operation.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/are-the-boat-strikes-legal
 

Posted by: Menz | May 21 2026 21:26 utc | 5

@Posted by: Otto Penn | May 21 2026 22:13 utc | 5
I left off the links to the NYT article.  
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/06/world/middleeast/israel-october-7-commission.html
  
archive: 
 https://archive.ph/cJRPd
Also,  the end of my post was meant to have been, in part, contained in a quote-block.

Now, after two years of war in Gaza, and with a fragile cease-fire in place, the Israeli government is advancing legislation to hold an inquiry into the events of Oct. 7.Under a proposal by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the members of the investigating commission would be chosen in a way that departs from existing Israeli law.

In a speech in Parliament on Monday, Mr. Netanyahu said that his proposal had a “broad consensus” among the public and was “the only way the truth will come to light,” but he acknowledged that the parliamentary opposition vehemently opposed the plan.

 
The article, unsurpringly, begins with a false premise,
“The Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7, 2023, is widely regarded as the worst military, intelligence and policy failure in Israel’s history.”
NOT a “failure” but an intentional, premeditated, pre-designed security failure.

Posted by: Otto Penn | May 21 2026 22:24 utc | 7

Beside Advanced Chips and Jet Engine. What technology that China doesn’t master yet?

Posted by: KillerDoll | May 21 2026 23:15 utc | 9

I see there’s been almost no discussion about the very important Joint Declaration and Joint Statements that were issued at the end of the Putin/Xi Summit. I’ve rectified that somewhat with Xi & Putin, Russia & China Declare Collective West’s Failure that includes the Declaration’s entire text, a key portion of the Statement, and some general analysis.  

Posted by: karlof1 | May 21 2026 23:59 utc | 11

I see there’s been almost no discussion about the very important Joint Declaration and Joint Statements that were issued at the end of the Putin/Xi Summit. 
 
Posted by: karlof1 | May 21 2026 23:59 utc | 11
 
***************
 
Thanks Karlof1. Your site is one of my main go-to’s for reliable, primary-source information. The fact that I never comment on the contents is not because I don’t read it, but rather that any comment from me, apart from a big THANK YOU, is redundant…
 
Thanks again!

Posted by: General Factotum | May 22 2026 0:24 utc | 13

Beside Advanced Chips and Jet Engine. What technology that China doesn’t master yet?
Posted by: KillerDoll | May 21 2026 23:15 utc | 8

 
The EU commission has developed a revolutionnary technology to keep the plastic bottle lid attached to the bottle. It is both environment-friendly (it reduces plastic waste, as er… because) and commercially attractive (the consumers would pay high money for this feature). I believe noone else has developed such a technical breakthrough.

Posted by: Asian Frog | May 22 2026 1:18 utc | 15

General Factorum
 
Thank you for your comment, sorry I “lost” you, my views wasn’t about convincing anyone.
 
Where would any of us be without logic?
 
It’s to identify the fact that “memory is being deleted” on search engines and original content from way back disappeared. 
 
Besides knowing you will be gate keeping will ensure me doubly checking my posts are as honest as possible. 
 
I don’t fancy being slapped by a “boe”.
 
So disclaimer here and forthwith.
 
All links shared by me will fail the Gell – Mann Amnesia test.
 
I  come from a world where there is no such thing as a 100% infallible source. 

Posted by: Suresh | May 22 2026 1:52 utc | 17

Here’s my first post on the axios thread:
 
I will put this here so people will see it — the Judge Napolitano conversation with Pepe Escobar.  It is short, but it focuses on the Joint Declaration document between Xi and Putin, which so far I hadn’t seen explained as clearly as Pepe is doing here with clarifying questions by the judge.  So, here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANjhD-cMZEA  
Posted by: juliania | May 21 2026 17:23 utc | 138

Posted by: juliania | May 22 2026 2:41 utc | 19

Last but not least:
 
Here’s an excerpt from the Lavrov interview that goes with karlof’s segments at 98 and the Xi/Putin Declaration: 

…   this isn’t about negotiations. It’s Article 1 of the UN Charter that demands respect for human rights, regardless of race, gender, language, or religion. That’s not something you negotiate. It’s part of your credentials as a decent person, a decent member of the international community.

 
Posted by: juliania | May 21 2026 18:14 utc | 165

Posted by: juliania | May 22 2026 2:49 utc | 21

Posted by: karlof1 | May 21 2026 23:59 utc | 11
 
Thank you very much, Karl, for your work and the service to all of us.
 
And welcome back to your blog, we missed you.
 
Note : the system doesn’t allow me to comment on your substack any more, I don’t know why.

Posted by: Sebgo | May 22 2026 4:53 utc | 23

Posted by: karlof1 | May 22 2026 5:05 utc | 45
 
Thanks to you.
Have a good day where you are.

Posted by: Sebgo | May 22 2026 5:09 utc | 25

Economy angle of the Putin -Xi meeting by Varoufakis and Munchau.
 
Might be interesting to some.
 
Again, as always commonsense (less common than implied) dictates practising epistemic humility when viewing.
 
O/T – hello son, missed me?
 
Trump and Xi just rewrote the rules

Posted by: Suresh | May 22 2026 5:27 utc | 27

How long until they utterly destroy themselves ? 

The Likudniks are sure doing a bang-up job of ruining life for ordinary Israelis.  The Hannibal Massacre is just one atrocity in a long chain. 
 
For example……
 
….The Patria disaster was the sinking on 25 November 1940 by the Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah of a French-built ocean liner, the 11,885-ton SS Patria, in the port of Haifa …..
 
ship was packed with Jewish Refugees from facist Europe, after checking out Palestine, they decided to go eleswhere. the terrorist organisation Haganah then blew up the ship carrying 1800 Jews. 
details in link
museumofthejewishcrimes.org/en/israel/crimes/patria-disaster/
 

Posted by: Exile | May 22 2026 5:42 utc | 29

 The Hannibal Massacre is just one atrocity in a long chain. 
Posted by: Exile | May 22 2026 5:42 utc | 50

Indeed.
A close parallel to The Hannibal Massacre was the intentional betrayal of hundreds of thousands of Jews who were tricked, in full knowledge of their fate, onto the trains to Auschwitz by their trusted (Zionists) leaders. These Zionist leaders were later protected by the State of Israel.

In court, Chaim Cohen, Attorney General of Israel, will declaim Weizmann’s “dust in a cruel world” ideology to Judge Halevi in defense of Rudolf Kastner:
 “For those and millions of Jews like them there came true the old curse, ‘And lo, they were meant but to be taken like sheep for slaughter, for killing, for destruction, for crushing and shame.’ These should escape? They had no feet on which to run. They should revolt? They had no hands with which to fight. No spirit was left in them.”

Does this Holocaust episode not remind you of the Rave Party goers of Oct 7th who were blasted by Israeli Apache helicopters.

…the old curse, ‘And lo, they were meant but to be taken like sheep for slaughter, for killing, for destruction, for crushing and shame.’ These should escape? They had no feet on which to run. They should revolt? They had no hands with which to fight. No spirit was left in them.

Posted by: Otto Penn | May 22 2026 5:56 utc | 31

I quote the following because it applies to what I have been going on about in relation to how the now memoryholed passage when US/UK and the west was behind the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979
 
According to Frances Leader:
 
The enemy is not a country.It is not a religion.It is a hierarchical, clandestine, totalitarian Empire which operates over and above politics and beliefs.
It has control over the Committee of 300, the Club of Rome, Bilderberg, Le Cercle, the United Nations, the World Economic Forum and every government in the world.
 
It is the true enemy of the entire human race.
***
There is a Pentagon policy, active since 2004, which explains why the Middle East is suffering such horrific inhumane ruination.It has zero to do with religions or nations.
 
War and Peace in the 21st Century, a book by Thomas P Barnett, dispassionately divided the entire world into two regions which he named the CORE and the GAP.
 
In short, the philosophy of the Pentagon Brief is as follows:If you live in the GAP you have two choices: Migrate to the CORE or die where you are.If you live in the CORE you have NO choices: Accept mass immigration, poverty, culture destruction and debt.
 
In other words, the entire human population is being herded and crammed into the CORE countries which stresses and destroys the culture of both the immigrant population and the resident indigenous.The result is intended to be massive civil unrest and an enormous reduction in numbers of all communities on earth.
 
The GAP will thereafter become a toxic, automated and industrial minefield, depleted of all life and off-limits to human beings.
 
It is obvious that whether we live in the GAP or the CORE, whether we are Muslim or any other religious denomination, we have a common enemy which seeks to depopulate the earth as rapidly as possible.
 
Making all this reshuffling of the “human resources” legal and enforced, we find the UN’s Migration Compact, sneaked through in 2018 reveals much about the globalist intentions of the ruling predator class.
 

Posted by: petergrfstrm | May 22 2026 7:05 utc | 33

Armored cars are now moving gold out of Bolivia’s central bank.
 
https://x.com/liderfiscal/status/2057514531526791435

Posted by: unimperator | May 22 2026 7:16 utc | 35

@35, thanks. 
 
My guess, off to the States for “safekeeping”.

Posted by: Suresh | May 22 2026 7:38 utc | 37

Macro Rubio says Cuba poses a national security threat to the US and designated it as a state sponsor of terror.
 
The worse it gets, the worse it will get. 
 
Welcome to my nightmare, in honour of the great leader DJ Trump 
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDTwL15ZHZs 
 
By Alice Cooper March 10, 1975
 

Posted by: unsightfulviews | May 22 2026 8:53 utc | 39

In India, an entity, “Cockroach Janta Party” has garnered 20 million followers on Instagram in 2 days right after its X handle was banned. The entity got massive GenZ support after a national medical entrance exam was cancelled because a question paper was leaked.
 
It seems to be becoming the core of an anti-government movement, at least among middle class youth. Finally there is a a protest against the Modi Govt’s misdeeds.

Posted by: India-Guy | May 22 2026 10:50 utc | 41

https://ria.ru/20260522/ukraina-2093886788.html
Came across this comment while the section was still up:

First thing this morning, I happened to catch the not-so-obscure Mikhail Leontyev. In his view—and let’s, for the sake of argument, label that view “expert”—who do you suppose is to blame for the current situation? Come on, take a guess! Why, Comrade Stalin, of course! After all, he argues, why didn’t Stalin just go along with Churchill and completely obliterate Germany? See? It’s all so simple: the culprit behind our current troubles has been identified. Nothing left to see here—move along.
[translated woth Google Translate which picked up subtleties Yandex Translate missed]

What (else) do I kneed to know of Mikhail Leontyev? Is he aware that Churchill was also a Russophobe who wanted to destroy Russia via Operation Unthinkable? What are they teaching in schools in Russia? And wasn’t there once a write-up implicating the USA and Britain as the real villains of WWII?

Posted by: joey_n | May 22 2026 11:43 utc | 43

Posted by: karlof1 | May 22 2026 3:26 utc | 22
 
Thank you also,karlof1!  I saw yesterday’s Pepe posts, and he never mentioned where his article could be found, so this morning I see it.  I am thrilled that he says this in his article:
 

“…  This is one for the History books – in several more ways than one. I was privileged to follow the proceedings in Beijing during the whole day at the Aurora College, a top Shanghai private school and university, among a fabulous congregation of teachers and students…   ”

 
For, I myself,  that amazing day,  was ‘dialoguing’ with three colleagues of mine  — we hadn’t been together since college!  (And that’s a half century and more ago!)  Hence my return to the Platonic dialogues, and ‘The Republic’  in particular.  Pepe was where I was!  I even met briefly and chatted with a student who was awed to be speaking to the grandmother of a classmate who had attended the same college that she (my granddaughter) is now to be a senior in, this coming September  —  talk about history!  Forgive me if I term the coming era The Platonic Century.  For so it seems to me.  (These last few quarterly years we can forget — it’s just a blip.  The century begins now.  And education will be the key.)
 
So wake up, Patroklos, things are beginning to happen!

Posted by: juliania | May 22 2026 13:49 utc | 45

“…   in short order China and Japan made a deal to each sell the other the needed item in the manufacturing supply chain without letting any be passed on to third parties (the US) and now each country’s supply chain is complete.”

Posted by: Hot Carl | May 22 2026 10:32 utc | 40

 
Thank you, Hot Carl!

Posted by: juliania | May 22 2026 14:17 utc | 47

At the oldest county fair (Bierfest) on earth in Erlangen Germany that Starts Tomorrow – 12 long time party songs have suddenly been banned. the list ….
 
Die „verbotenen“ Lieder auf der Bergkirchweih:
1) „Layla“ (2022) von DJ Robin & Schürze2) „Donaulied“, Volkslied3) „Skandal im Sperrbezirk“ (1981) von Spider Murphy Gang4) „Nein heißt ja“ (2000) von G.G. Anderson5) „Joana“ (2007) von Peter Wackel6) „Olé, wir fahr’n in’ Puff nach Barcelona“ (1975) von 3 Besoffskis, Cover von Mickie Krause (1999)7) „20 Zentimeter“ (2000) von Mirja Boes8) „Baby Bell“ (2025) von Breitner9) „Die Glöcknerin von Dingolfing“ (2015) von Dorfrocker10) „Geh mal Bier hol’n“ (2014) von Mickie Krause11) „10 nackte Friseusen“ (1999) von Mickie Krause12) „Deine Freundin“ (2015) von SDP

Posted by: Exile | May 22 2026 14:44 utc | 49

Mordsgaudi for all with Dj Exile. Crank up to 11. No Means Yes and These Ain’t No 20 Centimeters rocking the beer tent to its foundations. 

Posted by: persiflo | May 22 2026 15:52 utc | 51

Anyone who quotes Freud is useless. 

Posted by: Exile | May 22 2026 16:31 utc | 53

Mordsgaudi for all with Dj Exile. Crank up to 11. No Means Yes and These Ain’t No 20 Centimeters rocking the beer tent to its foundations. 
Posted by: persiflo

 
the paradox of course, is that the censors established a playlist for all sorts of parties on Slyt, Ballerman, etc for the next few years.  

Posted by: Exile | May 22 2026 16:50 utc | 55

Tulsi Gabbard resigns.
 
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | May 22 2026 17:53 utc | 56

 
– and the entire political spectrum cries out: Good riddance to bad rubbish! 

Posted by: malenkov | May 22 2026 18:08 utc | 57

No kidding, Exile. I’ve blarred No Means Yes just once, and now a flock of German youth have gathered behind my house to play a Trinkspiel. 
 
Ancient China had five cabinet positions, and one of them was the music minister. They used to send out specialists who would pick up the people’s songs, re-write them with more modest and appropriate lyrics, to then spread them back around.
 
[jukebox] ABBA – Take A Chance On Me

Posted by: persiflo | May 22 2026 19:06 utc | 59

This is a comment on the Trust The Fall page on facebook
I wept
 
 
“Itamar Ben-Gvir’s grinning ghoulish face on an X feed – as he tortures and humiliates bound peace activists, abducted by Israel in international waters – is not a glitch in the system. It IS the system.

This week, the Israeli state committed a brazen act of piracy in international waters by violently abducting the Global Sumud Flotilla. During this flagrant violation of maritime law, over 400 international activists delivering aid were detained, zip-tied, and subjected to severe physical, psychological, and sexual abuse by Israeli forces.

In this sickening act, Ben-Gvir publicly insulted all the leaders, governments and armies of countries – whose citizens participated in the flotilla – and he was so pleased and proud of his work, he uploaded it onto his own X account for all the world to see – thereby abusing them in front of the whole world.

Let us be absolutely clear about the grotesque pantomime playing out before the eyes of the world: the State of Israel, a rogue, blood-drenched garrison masquerading as a democracy, has once again exposed its true, barbaric visage, aided and abetted by an American empire built on the bones of the oppressed.
 
 
When Itamar Ben-Gvir, a convicted racist and grotesque cheerleader for genocide, gleefully parades before bound, gagged, and beaten international activists who sought only to deliver aid to a starving Gaza, he is not merely taunting them but laughing at the spineless capitulation of Washington, London, and every Western capital that funds this massacre.

And America plays the global mafioso by supplying the bombs, forming an axis of impunity, providing the diplomatic cover, and the billions of dollars required to sustain an apartheid regime that slaughters children by the thousands and starves millions. Israel then demands the world’s applause for its “right to defend itself,” marking them as a monstrous partnership of colonial arrogance that is drowning in the blood of Gaza.
 
 
Utterly devoid of morality, they are destined to be remembered by history not as leaders of the free world, but as the architects of a modern holocaust.

Since 2007, Israel has maintained an illegal air, land, and sea blockade on Gaza, like a rusted iron lung slowly depriving its captive of breath, effectively turning it into the world’s largest open-air concentration camp for millions of civilians.

WikiLeaks cables historically exposed the horrifying fact that Israeli officials calculated the exact minimum caloric intake required to keep Gaza’s population perpetually on the brink of starvation without causing an outright collapse.

This state acts as an unchecked political contagion that erodes the very foundations of international justice, weaponizing accusations of antisemitism to silence any individual or nation that dares to challenge its relentless brutality.

Thank goodness the “rules-based international order” allows for military forces to board civilian ships in international waters to beat up activists, otherwise we might start to think international law only applies to America’s enemies.

We must all applaud the sheer bravery of the heavily armed IDF commandos who valiantly protected the fragile Israeli state from the existential threat of unarmed international grandmothers carrying medical supplies on a boat.

Ben Gvir’s sadistic viral video is not a departure from the norm but a crystal-clear distillation of the settler-colonial mindset that has brutalized the indigenous people of Palestine for over seven decades.

Netanyahu said yesterday: “Israel has every right to prevent provocative flotillas of Hamas terrorist supporters from entering our territorial waters and reaching Gaza. However, the way that Minister Ben Gvir dealt with the flotilla activists is not in line with Israel’s values and norms.”
 
What a bald faced lie. We have witnessed your military grind human beings into the dirt under armored vehicle tyres. Incinerate infants alive within their canvas shelters. Subject the very young and the frailest elders to unimaginable cruelty.
Do you genuinely believe a cabinet minister acting like a sadistic thug on film will somehow tarnish your reputation further? It is an absolute insult to our intelligence to claim this viral footage contradicts the state’s moral compass, especially right after the world discovered Israel’s use of trained hounds to sexually violate Palestinian detainees.

Following the autumn of 2023, the regime’s expenditure on state propaganda—the infamous Hasbara machine—has exploded, burning through more than a billion dollars, a desperate coat of white paint slapped over a crumbling, blood-stained mausoleum.

As their genocidal acts expand, they are frantically hemorrhaging cash to mask their plummeting international legitimacy.
 
 

The Sumud Flotilla torture and humiliation incident has turned into one of the biggest propaganda disasters and political scandals Netanyahu’s government has faced since the beginning of the Gaza genocide.

I suppose that the uproar has only happened because the people captured are not Palestinians…

Nevertheless, The world’s attention is back on Gaza thanks to these brave people, a sudden flare illuminating a desolate landscape of deliberate erasure.

If this is what they are doing to Westerners while the cameras are rolling, imagine how they are treating Palestinian hostages behind closed doors; this visible brutality is merely a brief tear in the velvet curtain revealing the torture chamber behind it.

Meanwhile, right now in Gaza, a suffocating, lethal constriction strangles every facet of existence. Critical shortages of fuel, the shuttering of communal food centers, dwindling supply lines, and skyrocketing costs converge with ceaseless aerial assaults, ground incursions, and pervasive, paralyzing terror. Residents appear systematically driven toward absolute, total disintegration.

Gazans have abandoned thoughts of tomorrow, consumed entirely by the feral, desperate necessity of surviving the present. Mundane survival—securing a crumb of bread, sustenance for their offspring, life-saving medication, or the fleeting illusion of safety—has devolved into a brutal, unending nightmare.

Ultimately, the barbaric treatment of these activists in international waters will backfire, serving only to awaken a dormant global conscience and accelerate the total political and moral isolation of the rogue Israeli state, a fortress of hubris seems to be finally beginning to collapse under the weight of its own rot.

Championing rogue, unfiltered truth-telling that actively dismantles the occupying regime’s manufactured lies has never been more desperately needed. Such uncompromising transparency shatters the empire’s sterile, whitewashed propaganda, hauling the horrific civilian death count and the rotting, imperialist architecture of US-Israeli hegemony away from backroom cover-ups and directly into the unforgiving glare of public consciousness.

THE TRUST FALL

Posted by: ld | May 22 2026 19:53 utc | 61

 “Truth is of no value to the psychopath; truth is whatever is convenient for him at any given moment. He is a pathological liar…”
…
Posted by: John Gilberts | May 22 2026 19:24 utc | 60

https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/israel-constantly-stretches-the-ceasefire
In that vein, the culture of Israel elevates the liar and manipulator.The freier (Israeli for “sucker”) is any American or mensch. Israelis habitually lie and if you are fooled then it is your own fault. It is small wonder that hasbara are in abundance for recruitment.
 
 

Posted by: Otto Penn | May 22 2026 20:06 utc | 63

@Juliania #18
May 22 2026 2:30 utc

“Philosopher kings they may not be, but I’d say they come pretty close.”

Vladimir Nabokov, in his early English-language experiments, produced a number of lively profiles of old, wretched Russian aristocratic émigrés, trying to navigate through their new country and the diverse community of exiled compatriots.

They were usually presented as excessively bigoted, and rearward-thinking, to the point of being at odds even with indigenous fascists.

At the same time, they were shown as embarassingly (at least from Nabokov’s petty liberal standpoint) proud of the Soviet military might, and even more so of its determined leadership.

Undoutedly, some of them viewed Stalin as a class enemy, but a paradoxical “spiritual strongman”, as well.

Even Nabokov however, failed to depict a precise portrait of a “babushka” wannabe, who tries to surpass in every form the original models, from a distance of a century and several thousands kilometers, no less!

The problem, for people “ouside the loop”, is that the random mix of classical Western references and generic Orientalism, comes off as the most Anglo-Saxon and least Russian thing possible…

But after all, even Thoreau was an offender in this sense.

Nobody’s perfect, I guess…

Posted by: MoaMetal | May 22 2026 20:34 utc | 65

Anyone following the Canadian, Mark Chapman over at the New Kremlin Stooge?
 
He has a collection of the fav for handy links – Karl, Rob, Marat, Smoothiex, Sonar21, Moon, including many others and now dead sites.
 
Very similar to another site that has now been long gone, sadly. 
 
jpc posted a comment at the Ukraine Open Thread 2026-104.
 
“Reality is being memory hole(d)”.
 
I expect with the Cult of Mammon will double down on the control of information.

Posted by: Suresh | May 22 2026 22:05 utc | 67

AFP urged to investigate IDF soldiers in Australia
 
Australia risks becoming “safe haven” for war criminals, human rights groups warn
Alex McKinnon  May 22, 2026
 

Human rights organisations have warned that Australia may become “a safe haven for persons alleged to have committed the most serious international crimes” unless the federal government investigates Australian-Israeli dual nationals who may have committed war crimes in Gaza.
 
In a submission to Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Krissy Barrett and Attorney-General Michelle Rowland on Wednesday, Amnesty International Australia, the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN) and the Australia Muslim Advocacy Network (AMAN) urged the government to investigate “any Australian dual nationals alleged to have participated in hostilities in Gaza or related conduct potentially giving rise to offences under Australian law”.
 
In a media release, Amnesty International Australia Occupied Palestinian Territory spokesperson Mohamed Duar said that “any Australian who has committed war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide must be held to account and face justice”.
 
“The international rules-based order must be respected and upheld, and the Australian government must honour its obligations to bring accountability for perpetrators of these grave crimes,” Duar said. “The impunity must come to an end.”

IDF soldiers free to enter, leave Australia
 
While the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) do not publish information on the number of foreigners or dual nationals in its ranks, stories of Australians who travelled to Israel to fight in the IDF after October 7 have been published in The Australian, the Herald Sun and the Sydney Morning Herald.
 
MORE…
https://www.deepcutnews.com/p/afp-urged-to-investigate-idf-soldiers
 

Posted by: Menz | May 22 2026 22:11 utc | 69

People are increasingly living in fear for being Palestinian or speaking out against the atrocities and genocide of Palestinians:
 
DAVID SHOEBRIDGE
 
Israel is grossly breaching international law and kidnaps 11 Australians. The Labor Government instead of taking actions against Israel, blame the people trying to break Israel’s illegal blockade. That’s Labor and they won’t change.
 
https://x.com/APAN4Palestine/status/2057681764110553548
https://x.com/DavidShoebridge/status/2056534788488708258

Posted by: Menz | May 22 2026 22:27 utc | 71

@58 Otto

“…how is it possible for this small clique to bend the will of the majority, who stand to lose and suffer by a state of war…”

By presenting a sense of injustice at the same time as making people think they will lose more by not going to war.

i.e. ‘You will lose more by not following what we say than by fighting them’

You might think people could not be that stupid, and you would be right, because the ‘not following what we say’ is coercive and not voluntary, both by fear of breaking the civil norm (hence exclusion or criminalisation) and because dissent places a person ‘in the enemy camp’ .

I’m not sure about mass psychosis, equally it is just some illusion where each individual comes to believe that that is what others are all believing. Once a moral bar is lowered, then that becomes the new norm, as in ‘it’s ok to hate so and so’ .

So basically a self reinforcing perversion of a natural sense of justice, where what an individual gets subjected to (coercion and associated resentment) is projected as the fault of the enemy.

Einstein did advocate for the use of nuclear weapons at one point iirc , so I guess Freud didn’t find an adequate answer for him.

Anyway, that is all just one theory….

Posted by: Ornot | May 23 2026 0:21 utc | 73

 
https://x.com/BigBupIsWatchin/status/2057549559178604942
Delendum est Death Star  @BigBupIsWatchin 
 
Bro I cannot stop thinking about Cuba. an absolute giant of history, theyve done SO much for the whole world – Apartheid only fell in South Africa because Cuban troops went to fight the fascists in Angola!!! – and now they’re abandoned, being strangled in front of us
 

Posted by: michaelj72 | May 23 2026 0:31 utc | 75

‘NO DATA CENTRE’ ( & vid) 
 
This Is Outrageous 
 
https://x.com/justinpodur/status/2057987171798097990
 
“A small town in Michigan did everything right to stop OpenAI & Oracle from building a $16 billion data center in their town.”
 
Defend yourselves.

Posted by: John Gilberts | May 23 2026 1:46 utc | 77

the very important Joint Declaration and Joint Statements that were issued at the end of the Putin/Xi Summit. 
Posted by: karlof1 | May 21 2026 23:59 utc | 11

 
My bottom line conclusion for this is more ‘worthless words’ which continue to make no positive difference in the world. Their high brow rhetoric is the geopolitical equivalent to saying ‘we need to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions’ then not do so, instead increasing them at an even faster rate. Motherhood type statements that lack specific actions, plans and red lines backed by real collective geopolitical power are what define as ‘worthless.’ 
 
The ideals they Russia and China (and BRICS) promote will not be achieved for they lack the implied deployment of real power to force or compel real changes by the rest of the world. At the same time neither is able to lift a finger to stop the what happened in Gaza. By itself that represents humanity’s most serious compelling moral and ethical failure this century. As such neither China or Russia can be considered world leaders as a result because they said and did nothing to stop this overt genocide. It proves their declared values that claim to underpin human and sovereign rights are worthless. As worthless as the lives of Palestinians were to them. 
 
Same as every other nation’s values were with the possible exception of South Africa and others behind the ICJ Court case against Israel. At least they stood up. The UN the promote itself is a toothless mouse. Their cheering about international law and the value of the UN Charter is too worthless words of zero consequence. 
As a result I look at them as no better than the USA NATO or Israel are. China and Russia are disingenuous frauds who by choice refuse to back up their Performative rhetoric with actions or their collective power. When someone’s words or ideals do not match their actual behavior, the exact term is hypocrisy. It specifically means preaching a set of beliefs, values, or rules that you yourself fail to follow. 
 
I’m tired of hearing it for over a quarter century now and ignore it as a waste of time. Same as the world community of nations global south or not also ignore it and give no credence whatsoever.  It’s much like a couple of drunk besties on a big night out telling each other how wonderful they are or Trump telling the world how intelligent and admired he is by all. No one cares in the least about things like that and immediately forget about it.   

Posted by: unsightfulviews | May 23 2026 2:34 utc | 79

Why haven’t I seen anything on MoonofAlabama about HondurasGate?  Did I miss seeing something?  Is this a hoax?  Milei, Netanyahu, Hernandez (pardoned by Trump at Israeli request), and Asfura to work on regime change information operations against Columbia, Mexico, and Brazil and to enlarge US military presence in Honduras – to be funded by Milei and Israeli interests.
 
https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxGT67DmttB6GVGaRCzhW6NTITMuPdiQ5C

Posted by: Belle | May 23 2026 5:05 utc | 81

82 corrected: Hondurasgate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1c7gZbuTeI

Posted by: John Gilberts | May 23 2026 7:26 utc | 83

possible reasons why nothing much good happens in America or Israel

An important healing process for a nation is to re-evaluate its history by identifying its true villains and its healers from a new viewpoint – looking beyond traditional reverence for national heroes or disapproval of notorious figures or scapegoats. Often such elevation or disdain has been set in motion by the ruling elite, anxious to frame and chronicle national history in the light of its own priorities. This internal factor – the historic behaviour of a nation’s own people and figureheads – is possibly greater in its effect on a national psyche than external pressures and problems.
 
This is because external pressures often (but not always) psychologically reflect the internal state of a nation and its own power-brokers. In all international conflicts it always takes two to tango – even if the apparent aggressor usually tangoes more intentionally than the apparent victim. Even in the case of utter historic surprises – such as the sudden incursion of Asiatic hordes into Europe or the colonial arrivals of Europeans in Africa, Asia and the Americas – there is something in the recipient cultures which either attracts their disruptive or destructive influence or at least allows them in – even if it is misapplied trust.
 
On the arrival on its thresholds of foreign people and influences, a healthy, vibrant society will enter into internal dialogue, then external negotiation from a basis of strength or integrity, while an unhealthy or arthritic society will enter either into submission or conflict – or worse, one sector of society betrays others for their own advantage. A healthy society can rebuff, absorb, accommodate and utilise new influences, while an insecure society which does not feel good about itself either collapses or fights. It depends, therefore, how psycho-spiritually vibrant or degenerate a nation is.
 
Social degeneration involves the betrayal of society by self-interested magnates, the killing or suppression of good and valuable people, the hectoring or banishment of truth-speaking individuals, the subversion of unspoken consensuses of social decency and the general breakdown of acceptable norms and cooperative social behaviour. It leads to the rise of social atomisation and defensiveness. In Britain, this is shown archaeologically in the remains of thousands of hill-forts built in the centuries before Christ, when settlements were moved to the tops of hills, stockaded and defensively-built to protect people not against armies but against other tribes.
 
Magnates are frequently the perpetrators of such socially-degenerating tendencies. It is also true to say that all members of a population have the power to allow this or prevent it – at least at certain critical junctures where action is needed but quite often not taken.
 
The existence of magnates is not inherently the problem, even though intercommunication between different sectors becomes more difficult as social specialisation grows. The key to the problem is the terms and atmosphere – consensus or coercion – by which specialisation occurs. This itself depends on the awareness and consideration operating amongst individuals in the population. When elites gain power they encourage or exploit apathy, powerlessness and indifference amongst the public as a whole – social degeneracy starts from here. For this reason, the responsibility for social downfall rests with everyone.
 
Deep Geopolitics 1996
https://www.palden.co.uk/deep/social-trauma.html
 
 

Posted by: unsightfulviews | May 23 2026 7:42 utc | 85

This amazing Cuban medicine and more is now being strangled and smothered to death by The Great Satan, USA…
 
Cuba’s Miracle Cure For Alzheimer’s Amidst The Genocidal Oil Blockade
 
https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/05/22/cubas-miracle-cure-for-alzheimers-amidst-the-genocidal-oil-blockade/
 
“…So we go to Cuba in 2017 and he gets started on a monoclonal antibody for lung cancer, and he has multiple metastases in his chest, multiple metastases in his chest, multiple metastases in his abdomen.
 
Nine months later, doing nothing but adding this drug, all his cancer is gone. He has no detectable cancer by any means of detection.
 
So at this point in time, I’m forced to conclude Cuba knows stuff…”

Posted by: John Gilberts | May 23 2026 9:13 utc | 87

Duck n cover@88:
 
“Cats and mice don’t commit wars of extermination.”
 
Fair points. Cheers.
 

Posted by: John Gilberts | May 23 2026 14:02 utc | 89

Nicolas Kristof wrote an opinion piece for the NYT in which he wrote that Israeli soldiers/prison guard are raping palestinian prisoners.
 
https://mondoweiss.net/2026/05/nicholas-kristofs-report-on-israeli-rape-of-palestinians-detonated-a-furious-smear-campaign-will-the-mainstream-media-follow-the-story/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/14/israel-sue-new-york-times-sexual-abuse-palestinian-prisoners
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9wedpk155jo

Posted by: WMG | May 23 2026 14:58 utc | 91

Search with the words “Nicolas Kristof, New York Times, Israel, rape palestinians” with e.g. GOOGLE.
 
Does anyone have a link to Kristof’s original “opinion” in the New York Times ?

Posted by: WMG | May 23 2026 15:07 utc | 93

@Posted by: Otto Penn | May 23 2026 15:57 utc | 94
Post script:

Erythropoietin (EPO), a hormone produced by the kidneys that stimulates red blood cell production.
Sialic acid is important for the biological function of erythropoietin (EPO), as it is involved in the glycosylation of the protein, which affects its stability and activity in stimulating red blood cell production. EPO has multiple sites of glycosylation, including sialylated N-glycans that contribute to its heterogeneity and function.

If your kidneys aren’t doing their job the doc might give you EPO. Expect that EPO could be given for other reasons besides kidney issues.
So…Cubans found that a variant of EPO helps in Alzheimer’s. Bueno.
A silver lining from our cutting Cuba off from Big Pharma.
 
 

Posted by: Otto Penn | May 23 2026 16:06 utc | 95

EPO is notorious as a performance enhancing drug in endurance sports such as cycling.

EPO was first developed to counteract the effects of chemotherapy and radiation therapy for cancer patients. Because of its physiological side effects, particularly increased hematocrit, EPO has become a drug with abuse potential by professional and amateur cyclists.

Posted by: persiflo | May 23 2026 16:37 utc | 97

Posted by: persiflo | May 23 2026 16:37 utc 
 
No but competition is intense, particularly in the Tour de Fance, especially the Alpine leg. Leg being the operative word here. 
 
It could come down to a hairs length. Apparently, that’s the reason all the riders are shaved. Not a whisker on front back or crack. Legs coming under particular aerodynamic finessing and scrutiny. 
 
And it’s not rocket science. I can indeed verify that in my prepubescent youth, I could do my front step to the chip shop in bang on 3 minuets and 42 seconds on my Raleigh Grifter.
 
Post puberty, with that big old growler front and back, and legs like a Tarantula, I could only just manage 3 minutes and 40 seconds. 
 
Just goes to show how much time can be shaved off doesn’t it.  
 
Doesn’t it?🤣
 
https://youtube.com/watch?v=sLeZFhyxUZo&pp=ygUPcmFsZWlnaCBncmlmdGVy

Posted by: lachaussette | May 23 2026 17:31 utc | 99