Thinking about this today:

'The Middle East is quieter than it has been for decades.'

Jake Sullivan, Foreign Affairs (Nov/Dec 2023).

The most unnerving thought is that the US is simultaneously bears ultimate responsibility for this situation and is also the one entity that can deescalate it almost at will.

Absurd

Typically a bear hug means an enthusiastic embrace. But what if you are actually trying to hug a bear? Not so nice, is it?

Human shields

The Israeli military command and control headquarters is placed right in the center of the densely populated stronghold of Tel Aviv.

So it turns out allowing a fanatical government headed by a desperate charlatan a free hand to run amok around the region wasn’t such a good strategy after all.

Hey NYC folks, do yourselves a favor and stop by the new exhibit on Radical Bookstores Tamiment Library NYU so you don't miss gems like this

Congratulations to the American trifecta of Jake Sullivan, Tony Blinken and Bill Burns for guiding world politics to somewhere even stupider than it was before

The king of my heart needs another surgery, it’s $1600 dollars, if you have ever liked my tweets please please please Venmo me to help. I don’t have a job but he is everything to me!! It’s not fun to beg strangers on the internet for money but here we are venmo.com/u/saribg

Sounds like things are getting really cool in the Middle East

nw

Germany's Interior Ministry has issued a “Betätigungsverbot” against me, a ban on any political activity. Not just a ban on visiting Germany but also from participation via Zoom. Here is the speech whose publication caused this ban. Judge for yourselves! yanisvaroufakis.eu/2024/04/12/my-…

🖕🖕🖕🖕

9 shots. For a USAID worker who stopped to help a person inhyred in a car accident and got into an argument with the Israeli policeman. Then Samantha Power issues a non-statement of 'thoughts and prayers' for their murdered employee of 20 years.

Lmfao dawg

105 years ago, on 13 April 1919, the Amritsar Massacre took place in northern India, when British colonial troops opened fire on a large crowd of unarmed civilians - one of the defining moments in the history of the British Empire.

And yes, I realise that I am a one-trick pony.

Eleanor Coppola, a writer and American filmmaker who chronicled her husband Francis Ford Coppola's taxing 238-day production of “Apocalypse Now” in her documentary “Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse,” has died. She was 87.

bit.ly/3xxDeZL

Rare photo of how the secret biological bomb, developed in 1950s by the Air Force & Army Chemical Corps, dropped its high-altitude balloon load over the 'enemy'. The picture shows how pathogen-filled containers dropped out of the mother cylinder. See article linked in comments.