The Iran war has exposed Gulf Arab states' vulnerabilities, including through their reliance on a U.S. whose priorities are diverging from their own.
A new Democrat-led House Committee on the Judiciary report released this week sheds more light on President Donald Trump's close relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. The Document, entitled "We Have Certain Things in Common, Jeffrey': The Case Against Donald Trump Emerging in the Epstein Files and DOJ's Desperate Efforts to Cover it Up," is based on the accounts of eleven women, five of whom alleged Trump raped or sexually assaulted them in the presence of the disgraced financier. Two of those women were 13-year-old children at the time of the alleged events. Read more
Nov 1 (Reuters) -- The four members of a crew who took part in a simulated mission to Mars have emerged after 378 days in isolation at the US space agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston, an endeavor designed to help prepare for a possible future excursion by NASA astronauts to Earth's planetary neighbor. "It's been a hell of a year -- analog astronauts living in captivity of our own free will," Ellen Ellis, the medical officer on the Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog, or CHAPEA, mission, said in remarks at Johnson Space Center after emerging with her three crewmates on Saturday. Read more
The thread link is to the generic site. Below are more specific links ...
Dozens of unexplained drones flew over and near U.S. nuclear facilities between February 2024 and March 2026, according to records the Nuclear Regulatory Commission made public this week. In all, facility operators filed 67 reports of drones over or near 28 sites in 17 states. They include the Three Mile Island site near Middletown, Pa., where Constellation Energy plans to restart Unit 1 as the Crane Clean Energy Center.
Timothy Ryback is the author of a number of books, including a particularly interesting and original one on Hitler's book collection. ... His new offering, "53 Days: How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy," is a readable tour of the remarkable period from Jan. 30, 1933, when Hitler was sworn in as Reich chancellor, to March 23, when he cajoled and bullied the Reichstag to pass an "Enabling Act" solidifying his dictatorial power. The speed and violence of this transition were shocking to everyone.
Itchy Boots (pro geologist) takes us on her first ride in Japan through a valley of young sister active volcanoes on the southernmost island.
C'mon Bolts! Don't Stink Up the Place!
News coverage of Trump misses the point. Sure, he is racist, cruel, ignorant, corrupt and a pawn of Russia. But the reason he's unfit to be president is that he is a loathsome human being.
Halloween is the season for haunted houses, campfire ghost stories, and manufactured frights. In politics, however, one of the scariest stories is told year-round. The perennial bogeyman? The all-powerful corporate behemoth allegedly buying elections and haunting our democracy. We are told that, unless the government takes radical measures, shadowy corporate titans will devour our civic life whole.
Scare up some good tunes this weekend, any kind you like.
Thread link is:
Creedence Clearwater Revival - I Put A Spell On You
In a priceless troll, a man attending a Trump rally in South Carolina stunned Fox News viewers on live TV. Read more
Europe looks past rioters to their parents and the apps in their pockets
Dockworkers in 22 countries will strike on Friday, protesting against war and the use of ports for arms exports in action organisers say could disrupt over 40% of Mediterranean cargo and snarl over $2 billion worth of freight. 'WE WILL NOT WORK FOR WAR' Read more
At a Dummkopf Trumpf political rally in Rock Hill, South Carolina, an attendee floored a Faux News reporter during an interview, as follows:
Senile Satan
Novelist Patricia Highsmith (1921 " 1995), who gave us The Talented Mr. Ripley, neatly summarizes America in this paragraph from Strangers on a Train (1950). This suspense novel was published decades before NYS Judge Juan Merchan sentenced Dummkopf Trumpf to "unconditional discharge" (10 Jan 2025). Here, protagonist Guy Haines reveals to his fiance Anne his disgust with his soon-to-be ex-wife Miriam (p. 44): She's everything that should be loathed ... .Sometimes I think I hate everything in the world. No decency, no conscience. She's what people mean when they say America never grows up. America rewards the corrupt ... .. This excerpt explains how abolitionist John Brown could be caught, tried, sentenced, and executed, all within an astonishing 45 days (18 Oct - 2 Dec 1859), yet treasonous Jefferson Davis could outlive A. Lincoln unscathed by 24 years or how Jeffrey Epstein or Senile Satan could get away with their evil for so long: Corruption in America.
