Sunday, June 30th, 2024
The Biden administration extends Temporary Protected Status to 309,000 Haitian refugees in the United States until February 2026, offering them deportation relief and work permits. (Reuters)
Maldivian Minister of the Environment Fathima Shamnaz Ali Saleem and three others are arrested for allegedly performing black magic on President Mohamed Muizzu. (Hindustan Times)
Thousands of left-wing protesters gather in cities across France to protest the National Rally‘s lead in election polls, while showing support for the New Popular Front left-wing alliance. (France 24)
French citizens vote in the first round of legislative elections for the 17th National Assembly of the Fifth French Republic. (AP)
A man attacks a police officer guarding the Israeli embassy in Belgrade, Serbia, with a crossbow before being shot and killed. Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić calls the incident a terrorist attack against Serbia. (Reuters)
Thousands of Haredi Jewish men protest in Jerusalem, Israel, against a recent Supreme Court ruling that ordered the conscription of Haredi yeshiva students, clashing with Israel Police. (AP)
A Chinese Tianlong-3 rocket is accidentally launched during a static fire test in Gongyi, Henan, China, causing the rocket to crash and explode. No casualties are reported. (CNN)
The film Inside Out 2 surpasses $1 billion in worldwide box office earnings in less than three weeks, the fastest of any animated film in history. (Reuters)
At least six Palestinians are killed in Rafah in the Gaza Strip, as Israeli tanks re-enter Shuja’iyya and parts of northern Gaza, displacing more than 60,000 people. (Al Jazeera) (Reuters)
M23 rebels take control of Kirumba, the largest town in Lubero Territory, Democratic Republic of the Congo, as they continue north. (VOA)
At least one person is killed and ten others are injured when a Russian guided bomb hits a postal sorting hub in Kharkiv, Ukraine. (Bloomberg)
At least four people are killed and two others are missing after landslides and torrential floods in Ticino and Valais, Switzerland. (Reuters)
Uruguayans vote to elect the presidential candidates for all political parties that are running in the general election on October 27. (Reuters)
Hurricane Beryl undergoes rapid intensification and strengthens into a Category 4 hurricane, becoming the earliest Category 4 Atlantic hurricane on record. (AP)
Saturday, June 29th, 2024
British police arrest 27 Just Stop Oil activists accused of planning to disrupt airports during the upcoming summer holidays. (Reuters)
George Alvarez, the perpetrator of the 2023 Brownsville crash in Texas, United States, that killed eight people and injured ten others is found guilty of eight counts of intoxication manslaughter and ten counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and is sentenced to sixty years in prison. (CTV News)
Over 100,000 German protesters and 1,000 police officers clash at an Alternative for Germany event in Essen, Germany. Police use pepper spray and batons on protesters. (Al Jazeera) (BBC News)
Several hundred people march in Paris, France, to honour Nahel Merzouk and protest against police brutality and far-right parties. (Al Jazeera)
M23 rebels take control of Kayna, Luofu, Kanyabayonga, and surrounding areas after heavy fighting with FARDC. Almost the entire population of Kanyabayonga, including refugees it had taken in from Rutshuru, flee the rebel advance. The town is considered a pathway to the cities of Butembo and Beni. (Radio Okapi) (VOA)
Thirty people are killed in Borno State, Nigeria, by bomb blasts at a hospital, wedding and funeral. (CNN)
Five large bombs planted by ISIL are discovered in the walls of the Great Mosque of al-Nuri, Mosul, Iraq. (Al Jazeera)
At least twelve people, including four children, are killed by Russian attacks in Ukraine. (Al Jazeera)
The Rapid Support Forces launch an assault and capture the town of Singa, the capital of Sennar State, Sudan. (VOA)
Five Indian soldiers are killed in Ladakh, India, after their tank sinks in abruptly increased water levels in the Shyok River during a military exercise. (AP)
Tropical Storm Beryl intensifies into Hurricane Beryl, becoming the first hurricane in the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season. (Reuters)
Saeed Jalili and Masoud Pezeshkian advance to the Iranian presidential run-off, amid record-low voter attendance. (Reuters) (Al Jazeera)
Mauritanians vote between incumbent Mohamed Ould Ghazouani and six other candidates for President, in the first of two rounds of voting. (Reuters)
Friday, June 28th, 2024
At least one person is killed and twelve others are injured when a Russian missile hits a nine-storey residential building in Dnipro, Ukraine. (Reuters)
The Russian Ministry of Defence claims that its forces have taken control of the village of Rozdolivka in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine. (Anadolu Agency)
Philippine troops claim to have killed at least 10 suspected communist guerrillas, including three commanders, near a village in Pantabangan, Nueva Ecija, Philippines. (ABC News)
The Argentine Chamber of Deputies approves economic reform measures proposed by President Javier Milei, which include investment incentives, the privatization of numerous state-owned entities, and tax overhauls. (Reuters)
Four people are killed and nine others are injured when a minivan crashes into a nail salon in Deer Park, Long Island, New York, United States. (CBS News)
A roof at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi, India, collapses amid heavy rains killing one person, injuring eight others, and leading to the cancellation of some domestic flights. (Reuters)
A magnitude 7.2 earthquake strikes off the coast of central Peru, injuring 23 people. (Bloomberg)
The U.S. military dismantles the Gaza floating pier for the third time due to bad weather. (AP)
A mass shooting in Corpus Christi, Texas, United States kills two people, an 18-year-old and a 15-year-old and leaves three other people injured including two 19-year-olds and a 20-year-old. (Killeen Daily Herald)
Indonesian officials arrest and intend to deport 103 Taiwanese nationals suspected of running a cybercrime operation in Tabanan, Bali, Indonesia. (Al Jazeera)
Iranians vote in a snap presidential election following the death of president Ebrahim Raisi. (AP)
Mongolians vote for members of the State Great Khural. This is the first election since the Khural was expanded to 126 seats and the first to use parallel voting. The ruling Mongolian People’s Party loses its supermajority but claims victory, maintaining a slim simple majority. (AP)
Thousands of Japanese people protest at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo over multiple alleged sexual assault cases involving U.S. service members against Japanese people on Okinawa Island. (Al Jazeera)
In ice hockey, the first day of the draft for the National Hockey League is held at the Sphere in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., with the San Jose Sharks selecting Macklin Celebrini with the first overall pick. (ESPN)
A magnitude 7.2 earthquake strikes the area near the coast of central Peru around 00:36 am local time. Eleven people are reported injured. (Bloomberg)
Water quality tests on the Seine river show highly elevated levels of the E.Coli bacteria, raising concerns of it being unfit for use in outdoor Olympics swimming events. (France 24)
The End
Zulu Kilo 
she has an interesting body. rather outsized.
Mia Sand, she’s a pretty big woman. Not fat, just big. I think.
So, maybe those “rock gardens” on Easter Island could reliably support 3000 people. But, when there were trees, and they could go fishing, in addition to tending the rock gardens, there must have been more people? I guess.
Also, they must have had a surplus of people, not gardening and/or fishing. That surplus of people would have had time and energy to allow them to carve and transport stone heads. I guess.
I have to guess that there was some sort of population reduction on Easter Island, prior to the arrival of Europeans.
“I have to guess that there was some sort of population reduction on Easter Island, prior to the arrival of Europeans.”
that’s what Diamond and those he quotes are saying.
Maybe I’ll look into the details. But I think I have to go along with Diamond. The whole ecocide thing, with rats making some contribution to that, maybe.
D. Orlov
Jun 29 00:02
Beavis and Butt-Head Debate: Who Runs America
This is my translation of an article by the Russian political philosopher Alexander Dugin. I was going to write something about the presidential debates but Dugin beat me to it and did a better job of it than I could have.
In the 90s a cartoon series, “Beavis and Butt-head,” directed by Mike Judge, was popular both in the USA and in Russia. Its heroes were two American mentally retarded teenagers, spewing obscenities at each other, expressing one absurd thought after another, unable to solve a single everyday situation, but… despite their complete debility and senselessness, somehow coping with life. Every time a series of idiotic actions brought them to the brink of total disaster, an equally absurd accident or failure in the logic of things saved them, giving them another chance — which, of course, they immediately missed. And then it all happened again, cyclically. Failure after failure, completely wrong decisions, breaking all possible logical connections, and at the end the two would watch a heavy metal video in which horned people with guitars actually devoured women or live goats right on stage.
What the world saw during the Trump-Biden debate was just a fresh episode of Beavis and Butt-head. Moreover, both, as if on purpose, were copied from these two cartoon characters: Trump is a recasting of Beavis, Biden is a recasting of Butt-head. Trump even has the exact same hairstyle as Beavis. And the content of the debate is completely in the spirit of that cartoon series.
Butt-head: “You’re an old moron, I’m only three years older than you. That means you’re older than me. You’re almost a hundred.”
Beavis: “No, you are almost a hundred, actually, over a hundred, you’re communicating with spirits, groping for invisible chairs… You failed at everything, but I did everything perfectly.”
Butt-head: “No, I did everything perfectly, and you failed at everything. Besides, you are a horny toad.”
Beavis: “I’m not a horny toad, I don’t even know who Stormy Daniels is, my lawyers will tear her to pieces.”
Butt-head: “You’ll ruin NATO.”
Beavis: “What’s NATO?”
Butt-head: “Why did you even attack the Capitol?”
Beavis: “What’s the Capitol? But it doesn’t matter, you’re about to die, and we’ll make America great again.”
Butt-head: “I already made America great again because I let a lot of different people in here, and you want to ruin everything. Look at how many migrants climbed over your stupid wall! They shine with all the colors of the rainbow. I spend hours just looking at them.”
Beavis: “And you were scared of the easter bunny. I’ll build my wall again and hurl all the migrants over it.”
Butt-head: “I won’t give it to you, I’ll send my friend, the superhero Zelensky, to battle you. He has special yoga pants that let him fly.”
Beavis: “He’s a crook, he comes here and robs us. I’ll burn him alive with my own superpowers.”
Butt-head: “I’m the one who’s going to burn you or freeze you into a block of ice for being a horny toad.”
Beavis: “I don’t even know who Stormy Daniels is.”
And so on in this vein, while all of America watches and bets on which of the dotards will collapse first, and which will stand there and spew his nonsense until the end.
Mike Judge’s cartoon series is a harsh ridicule of the teenage consciousness of America as a superpower that is not sufficiently historically mature to rule all of mankind. USA is a teenager gone crazy and armed with a loaded machine gun. The entire nation is a school shooter. If you are holding a machine gun, then, according to moron logic, you have to fire it. And it doesn’t matter whom you hit.
The cartoon characters are teenagers while the actors in the TV debate are very old people. But such is the specific symptom of American identity: America cannot grow up. It is a terminal “kidult,” forever stuck between childhood and adulthood. In psychiatry, there is a disorder called “hebephrenia,” a mental disorder of adolescence, when a boy or a girl cannot naturally develop and adapt to adult life, becoming trapped in adolescence. In post-war Japan, which copied down to the tiniest detail the customs of its American occupiers, the phenomenon of “hikikomori” spread like a tsunami: young people reject the idea of growing up, lock themselves in their rooms with computer games and live off their parents like parasites, incapable of finding a job or starting a family. In essence, this is a faithful reproduction of the American cultural pattern. Beavis and Butt-head can’t grow up. They are terminal hebephrenics with a blocked mechanism of maturation. From the same source comes the flood of TV series based on Marvel comic books, produced at an industrial scale. They are aimed at ten- to twelve-year-olds, but all of America watches them. From the same source come the presidential debates.
As a result of the debate, the great superpower of halfwits picked a winner: Trump. He comported himself with greater confidence, his hairstyle was more aggressive and more convincing than that of the sleepy Butt-head, whose batteries ran down by the end and he began to simply groan monotonously.
If such a society, such a culture, such candidates and such voters determine the fate of humanity, then we have to admit that we are finished. It is impossible to even think about treating or applying developmental techniques to a clinically ill teenager if he holds a nuclear suitcase in his hands.
We like to say that Russia is ruled directly by God, since its existence is otherwise inexplicable. America also has such a secret. How is it possible, with such defective people who have such mental problems, to become the most important world power? This means that America is also controlled by someone more powerful yet invisible. But it doesn’t seem like it could be God. More likely, it’s…
Good bit by Orlov/Dugin.
product placement.
i’ll have some of those.
The strip mining of American industry continues.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/john-deere-announces-mass-layoffs-midwest-amid-production-shift-mexico
maybe time to boycott John Deere as no longer an American jobs supporting company. i guess Harley Davidson is next?
New York Times urges Biden to withdraw
“Voters can no longer ignore the president’s deteriorating condition,”… but they will be urged to do so, anyway.
https://www.rt.com/news/600181-nyt-board-replace-biden/
maybe they can prop him up on his horse like they did for El Cid.
she’s searching for a Dem president candidate without dementia or worm holes in his brain.