Oh, to live in the present where infinite potential exists! We all have a hand in the wake that will reverberate

Daily reminder I made and maintained cooking playlist called Recipes to Watch over YouTube. Please check them out at https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXaOg8GwdqyZFiaCjp0U4amyUAA_Fj2ak

Jsyk the playlist is still alive and I even added some more of my fav videos!

Daily reminder I still maintained this playlist

Here to tell yall that this absolute creature exists

Its called the Palawan Peacock-Pheasant and its endemic to the island of Palawan in the Philippines

It’s really fun spotting liberals who spend way too much time on this website and have convinced themselves that the transgender commie bloggers have somehow made imperialist jingoism an oppressed minority position and not like, the dominant strain of political thought in every western country on the planet

Ahahah, guys I put my jeans on this morning that have holes in and one of the holes lines up perfectly with my tattoo 😭

Loooook

What started organically, therefore, morphed into a planned campaign to create a coalition of mostly Jewish activist academics, pro-Israel and national representative bodies in the Jewish Diaspora, and the aforementioned major American Jewish organizations to take the discussion in an increasingly political and ideological direction, linking anti-Zionism and antisemitism ever more closely. A key player in and growing influence on this campaign was the Israeli government, pursuing a new policy since the late 1980s, through its then-recently-established Monitoring Forum on Anti-Semitism. The policy aimed at establishing Israeli hegemony over the monitoring and combating of antisemitism by Jewish groups worldwide. This was coordinated and mostly implemented by Mossad representatives working out of Israeli embassies.

The policy served to bind Diaspora communities more closely to Israel, their self-appointed “defender against external threats”; to promote Zionist immigration by using highly problematic data on antisemitic manifestations to stress the fragility of Diaspora Jewish communities; and to portray Israel as equally in the firing line of antisemitic attack by increasingly linking criticism of Israeli policy with antisemitism.

I had close personal experience to the role the Mossad played in establishing Israeli hegemony over the monitoring and combating of antisemitism. While I was director of the Institute of Jewish Affairs (IJA) and its successor the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) in the 1990s, I founded and was principal editor of the annual Antisemitism World Report, the first objective, independent, country-by-country survey of antisemitism worldwide. The London Mossad representative dealing with antisemitism made it clear to me that they were unhappy about our independent operation and tried to pressure us into either ceasing publication or merging our report with one that the then-new Project for the Study of Antisemitism at Tel Aviv University, headed by Professor Dina Porat and part-financed by the Mossad, was beginning to produce. I vigorously resisted the pressure, as I recalled in my book, The Making and Unmaking of a Zionist: “I tried to persuade the Israelis to allow us to operate without interference, but was given short shrift by the Mossad representative at the Israeli embassy in London and by the Israel ambassador [Moshe Raviv] himself,” with whom I had met, together with the chairman of the IJA, to discuss the matter in 1994. Notwithstanding, we continued to produce our report and continued to come under pressure from the Mossad. A year or two later, I made a further effort to persuade them to end their attempts to undermine our work—which they were having some success in doing as certain Jewish antisemitism monitoring bodies in other countries succumbed to Mossad demands that they cease to provide us with information about developments in their countries. In 1994 the IJA had severed its connection with the World Jewish Congress and had entered into a relationship with the American Jewish Committee (AJC), which was very keen to be associated with our Antisemitism World Report. The head of the AJC’s Israel office at that time was Dr. Yossi Alpher, former head of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, but more important, he had been a Mossad officer for twelve years, leaving the agency in the late 1970s. Alpher and I developed a good working relationship and he fully understood the value of the independent antisemitism work we were undertaking. He offered to use his good contacts with the Mossad to broker a meeting between me and the Mossad official responsible for overseeing the agency’s role in centralizing global Jewish monitoring and combating of antisemitism. This meeting took place in Tel Aviv, but to no avail. The exchange was polite, but he had absolutely no intention of relaxing pressure on us. We soldiered on, but the obstacles placed in our path proved too onerous to allow us to continue, and the publication of our Report in book form ceased in 1999.

– Antony Lerman, “Antisemitism Redefined: Israel’s Imagined National Narrative Of Endless External Threat” [bolding emphasis mine]

EDIT: the original archive.org link to the essay is now unfortunately broken, and I have not been able to find a more convenient link. so far, the only way I’ve been able to re-find the essay is through the collection On Antisemitism: Solidarity and the Struggle for Justice, ISBN: 9781608467617 or ISBN: 9781608467624, which can be found through [common method of finding pdfs and epubs by ISBN]

i don’t care what anyone says, the “multiple floating weapons controlled by telepathy/whatever” is, has been, and always will be cool as shit

She’s just like me honestly

in what way was kunlun's sale of grindr forced? what would have happened if they didnt sell?

imo this was a fucked up event. Forced sales arent sales, theyre confiscations with significant compensation. If it was a fair price, it would have already sold at that price without being forced. I think these things should be handled by voluntary sales. If it's a national security risk for grindr to be owned by a chinese company, the us dept of state should buy it. Then resell to an American company, presumably at a lower price (or the american company would have bought at the full price already). The loss would be explicit on the us govt's books

this may seem to create a perverse incentive to create national security risks but the problem originated wheb the us govt didnt stop grindr from being bought by chinese company in the first place. instead, the us govt allowed the sale to a chinese company, objected after the fact, and then made the chinese company take the loss from a forced "sale", which resulted from the govt's own inaction when the chinese company bought grindr

i actually think a lot more expenses of regulation should be borne by the govt btw. Ive thought this especially with regard to pharma. The FDA should be resourced to make much quicker decisions and should bear much or all of the expense of human trials required by regulation. Or companies should at least be compensated after the fact. Essentially the govt acting like a prosecutor, making the expense to build a case that a drug should be banned, instead of everything being banned by default

are you actually claiming that pharmaceutical companies should basically bear no risk if their compounds kill people/are ineffective but continue to profit when they work? just wanted to be sure because this is genuinely bizzare to me. that example really weakens the case you’re making in the first post tbh, bc that was a much clearer case of regulatory enforcement not occurring on time.

The two countries are at odds over how to respond to the ouster of the West African country’s president in July. France is refusing to diplomatically engage with the junta and strongly supports a regional body that has threatened military intervention. The U.S. has dispatched an envoy to meet with the junta leadership and held back from officially declaring the takeover a coup — insisting there’s still a negotiated way to restore democracy.[...]

The situation suggests a shifting balance of power in the region and underscores the differences between Paris and Washington’s interests in the country. The U.S., which uses Niger as a base for counterterrorism operations, may also believe it has more leverage than France, not least due to Paris’ baggage as its former colonizer.

Some former U.S. officials argue that France’s unhappiness with the U.S. approach is due in part to its agitation at losing one of its last strategic footholds in the West African Sahel, where other coups have already forced it to withdraw troops elsewhere. France has refused a request by the junta in Niger that it withdraw troops from the country.[...]

In West Africa, France is accustomed to seeing other world powers follow its lead, or at least its guidance. That’s not happening in this case.

Acting Deputy U.S. Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, on a lightning visit to Niger, met with coup representatives on Aug. 7 and urged them to reverse their actions. But she was denied a meeting with the deposed president, Mohamed Bazoum, and she acknowledged afterward that the junta appeared unwilling to reverse its anti-democratic moves.

French officials pointed to that as an example of being too quick to engage.[...]

Ali El Husseini, an American with connections to the junta, said Niger’s new military rulers do not trust the French, not least because French officials are acting like they “don’t exist.”

They blame the French for the pressure they are feeling from surrounding countries, as well as what they see as corruption in Niger. They are unlikely to allow Bazoum back in charge, blaming him for much of that corruption as well, El Husseini said. But they are willing to engage with the United States, which they see as being less condescending, he said.[...]

“There is no popular support for the junta,” a senior French diplomat said. “We don’t see a new regime that is gaining legitimacy. And we have a legitimate president who is fighting for survival.”[...]

The Elysée Palace refused to comment on potential frictions between the U.S. and France, but the same senior French diplomat admitted there were differences in the approaches of partner countries seeking to resolve the crisis in Niger.

“We all have the same aim of restoring constitutional order, but with just a couple nuances expressed [between countries],”[...]

France has pledged its full support to the West African body ECOWAS, which in meetings Thursday and Friday reiterated its threat of force if all else fails to restore democracy in Niger.[...]

Paris has indicated it would consider a request for military assistance should ECOWAS choose to intervene in Niger and ask for help.

France has 1,500 troops in Niger. Its refusal to quit the country militarily is partly about showing its support for the elected government, with which it struck the agreements for basing its troops.

The coup in Niger puts an end to one of the few solid partnerships Paris still enjoyed in the region, after it was forced to pull out troops involved in anti-terrorism operations in Mali and Burkina Faso.

It would also signal a failure of Macron’s revamped Africa strategy[...]

“If Niger falls, it’s not just France’s Africa policy that will be knocked down, but Europe’s entire policy in Africa because it will give terrorists a free rein in the region” with deep impacts on “migration routes” to Europe, said Michèle Peyron, head of the French parliament’s friendship group with Niger and a French lawmaker from Macron’s Renaissance party.

The United States has 1,100 troops in Niger, where it has spent hundreds of millions of dollars training security forces to battle terrorist organizations. Niger is a critical part of America’s overall counter-terrorism strategy, especially given the rise of Islamist extremist groups in Africa..

Unlike France, the United States has not yet formally designated the ouster of Bazoum a coup. Doing so triggers a law that could lead to an end to U.S. military aid to the country, although exceptions can be made.

The United States has paused some security and economic programs to pressure the junta to restore Bazoum to power. It views its aid as leverage, but it also worries that fully halting the aid could mean losing that leverage.[...]

The junta appears unwilling so far to let financial considerations move it off its current course. It has threatened to try Bazoum for treason or even execute him in case of an outside military intervention.

Some former U.S. officials said the United States should weigh its own interests before heeding French calls to shun the junta, and not just because of America’s counterterrorism interest in the country.[...]

“What good does it do to abandon the field to Russia, Wagner, or any other malign outside actor?” asked Peter Pham, a former senior State Department official with long experience on the continent.

18 Aug 23

as “a music theorist” a lot of what i read is basically a really specific slice of sociology, which may be of interest to folks here, so: here’s my reading list for comprehensive exams (skimming / intros & conclusions for now and i’m going to try and do more of a deep dive later). starred stuff is on zee lib btw (which, if you recall, still exists but under that new format where you sign up for a personal domain link). non-starred stuff might be on there too; idk (haven’t checked yet; i have some of these in physical form from my library). this stuff is all about genre theory, popular/classical crossover, music recording/production, and economics.

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