1/. This is what's happening in America.....in Russian.
We both grew up in Russia in the early 2000s and lived through the country’s gradual slide into authoritarianism under President Vladimir Putin. In our 20s we started working in human rights. Now we live abroad, knowing that a return to Russia would almost certainly mean jail. Over the recent months we have been noticing something worrying: The same markers of authoritarianism we know from our youth have been appearing in America.
Most everyone other than apologists and professional contrarians would agree at this point that President Trump aims to make the United States a personalist autocracy, where his whims are policy and his will is law.
But the execution has been haphazard. Trump tried to overwhelm the public with a campaign of shock and awe. His executive orders targeted a broad swath of civil society, forcing states, localities, colleges, universities and law firms into a defensive crouch. His so-called Department of Government Efficiency — run until recently by Elon Musk, his billionaire ally — ransacked the federal government, fired thousands of civil servants, obliterated critical state capacity and destroyed entire agencies, including U.S.A.I.D., a move that may kill countless thousands of people worldwide. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/
Six months ago, Alex Hammer was diagnosed with colon cancer at the age of 37. Dianne Chambers endured surgery, chemotherapy and dozens of rounds of radiation to fight aggressive breast cancer, and Janan Haugen spends most days helping care for her 16-year-old grandson, who is still being treated for brain cancer he developed at the age of seven.
The three were among a group of about two dozen people who came together last week in a small town in central Iowa to share their experiences of cancer. They are part of a new research project investigating potential environmental causes for what the American Cancer Society’s advocacy arm calls a cancer “crisis”.
For the last few years, Iowa has had the second-highest rate of cancer in the nation, and is only one of two US states where cancer is increasing.
https://www.theguardian.com/
In the canon of spectacular resignations, Megan Greenwell’s is up there.
On her last day as editor in chief of the beloved sports blog Deadspin, Greenwell published a blistering essay on the site about her soon-to-be former bosses at the private-equity firm Great Hill Partners, which had acquired Deadspin and other former Gawker properties earlier in 2019. In the essay, Greenwell accused Great Hill of undermining Deadspin’s staff at every turn and seeking a “quick cash-out” on its investment.
The following tweets, we have to keep reminding ourselves, are not from some incel loser on 4chan. They are from one of the closest advisers to the president of the United States. “Deport the invaders, or surrender to insurrection. These are the choices,” is one of Miller’s recent contributions to the discourse. https://andrewsullivan.
It’s easy to miss it amid the nonstop avalanche of news, but we are on the cusp of a technology revolution — one that could usher in an entirely new information landscape.
After 30 years of shockingly few regulatory restraints, America’s tech giants were beginning to operate almost like wrecking balls, slamming their weight into industry after industry and taking them out one after another. Boom. Uber crushed the taxi limousine business. Boom. Facebook toppled the news business. Boom. Amazon wiped out numerous small retailers.
Finally, our courts are beginning to push back.
50+ heads of state gathered in the French Riviera last week for a big UN Ocean Conference. The oceans absorb 90% of annual anthropogenic heat—some 370+ zettajoules in the last 70 years. One zettajoule is equivalent to 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 joules if you’re counting. A proposed international treaty to regulate international waters is lacking a few more states before it can enter into force, following 18 more state ratifications last week. It will be the first treaty to focus on protecting biodiversity in the high seas.
Deserts are spreading across great tracts of Britain, yet few people seem to have noticed, and fewer still appear to care. It is one of those astonishing situations I keep encountering: in which vast, systemic problems – in this case, I believe, covering thousands of square kilometres – hide in plain sight.
I realise that many people, on reading that first sentence, will suspect I’ve finally flipped. Where, pray, are those rolling sand dunes or sere stony wastes? But there are many kinds of desert, and not all of them are dry. In fact, those spreading across Britain are clustered in the wettest places. Yet they harbour fewer species than some dry deserts do, and are just as hostile to humans. Another useful term is terrestrial dead zones.
The sea looked warm. It felt warm. But the water he pulled up from nearly a mile down came out bone cold. As if the rope had been dropped into a buried memory.
https://medium.com/the-“The cold increased regularly, in proportion to the depths, till it descended to 3900 feet: from whence the mercury in the thermometer came up at 11.6°C (53°F); and tho’ I afterwards sunk it to the depth of 5346 feet, that is a mile and 66 feet, it came up no lower.”
Ihope you have had enough time to recover from Robyn Malcolm’s barnstorming performance as a harrowed wife and mother labouring under burdens no one should have to endure in the acclaimed After the Party, because here comes another one.
The Survivors is a six-part adaptation of Jane Harper’s bestselling Australian crime novel of the same name, by Tony Ayres – who did the same for Christos Tsiolkas’s The Slap 10 years ago, which followed families fracturing under the weight of a moment’s lost control, and who co-created Stateless in 2020 about lives intertwining at an Australian immigration detention centre. This is a writer who doesn’t shy away from the pain human beings can inflict on one other. The Survivors is technically a murder mystery but its real subject is grief and terrible, terrible guilt. https://www.theguardian.com/
I was there, which seems kind of weird sixty years on. Because many fans were not.
Canvass youngsters and ask them if they’re familiar with the Yardbirds. They probably don’t even know “For Your Love.” But Led Zeppelin? Led Zeppelin is FOREVER! Only rivaled in longevity by the Beatles. The Doors renaissance was unexpected, yet I don’t hear any kids talking about the band today. But Led Zeppelin?
Actually, it’s kind of funny. It’s the harder stuff that the kids cotton to. They love Black Sabbath too, the Ozzy years, “Paranoid.” It’s the raw power.
And most have no idea who Iggy Pop still is, never mind was.
So what we’ve got here is history, context, which is not what I expected.
The scene is set. We see footage of Lonnie Donegan. Jimmy being inspired by Rod Wyatt. WHO? We’ve all got our influences, not only household names, but the forgotten kid from the neighborhood who got us started and then dropped out, even though we ultimately went deeper and deeper.
https://lefsetz.com/wordpress/To watch this indulgent but madly watchable documentary about the life and times of Liza Minnelli is like snorting a pound of uncut showbiz glitter through a rolled-up copy of Variety off Joel Grey’s naked back on the Studio 54 dancefloor – though as ever with documentaries about celebrities facing the destructive power of drink and drugs, there is no mention of the limelight and praise addiction which they are expected to maintain.
Ihave been saying this a lot recently: “At last!” At last, a mainstream film bluntly revealing the plunder of our seas. At last, a proposed ban on bottom trawling in so-called “marine protected areas” (MPAs). At last, some solid research on seabed carbon and the vast releases caused by the trawlers ploughing it up. But still I feel that almost everyone is missing the point.
David Attenborough’s Ocean film, made for National Geographic, is the one I’ve been waiting for all my working life. An epoch ago, when I worked in the BBC’s Natural History Unit in the mid-1980s, some of us lobbied repeatedly for films like this, without success. Since then, even programmes that purport to discuss marine destruction have carefully avoided the principal cause: the fishing industry. The BBC’s Blue Planet II and Blue Planet Liveseries exemplified the organisation’s perennial failure of courage.
Aliens almost always invade New York, with a secondary preference for rural America. They’re typically vanquished by a collaboration of cowboy sacrifice and eloquent leaders who restore order under the stars and stripes. The Eternaut, Netflix’s new sci-fi series that became a global hit this month, breaks this mould: giant alien bugs controlled by an unseen extraterrestrial overlord take over Buenos Aires. Victory always seems far away – it’s not clear that humanity will triumph.
SIMPLE TRUTH 1:Lovers help each other undress before sex.
However, after sex, they always dress on their own.
Moral of the story -- In life, no one helps you once you're screwed.SIMPLE TRUTH 2:
When a lady is pregnant, all her friends touch the stomach and say, "Congrats".
But, none of them comes up to the man - touches his penis and say, "Good job".
Moral of the story -- Hard work is rarely appreciated.FIVE RULES TO REMEMBER IN LIFE:
1. Money cannot buy happiness - but it's far more comfortable to cry in a Porsche than on a bicycle.
2. Forgive your enemy - but remember the asshole's name.
3. If you help someone when they're in trouble - they will remember you when they're in trouble again.
4. Alcohol does not solve any problems - but then neither does milk.
5. Many people are alive only because it's illegal to shoot them.BONUS RULE:
Condoms do not guarantee safe sex.
A friend of mine was wearing one when he was shot by the woman's husband
MAN: "Hello"
WOMAN: "Hi Honey, it's me. Are you at the club?"
MAN: "Yes."
WOMAN: "I'm at the shops now and found this beautiful leather coat.
MAN: "Sure, go ahead if you like it that much."
WOMAN: "I also stopped by the Lexus dealership and saw the new models.
MAN: "How much?"
WOMAN: "$90,000."
MAN: "OK, but for that price I want it with all the options."
WOMAN: "Great! Oh, and one more thing... I was just talking to Janie and found out that the house I wanted last year is back on the market.
MAN: "Well, then go ahead and make an offer of $900,000.
WOMAN: "OK. I'll see you later! I love you so much!"
MAN: "Bye! I love you, too."
The man hangs up.
He turns and asks, "Anyone know whose phone this is?"
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