I don’t really fit in with any group. Too woo-woo spiritual for the Marxists. Too angry for the Buddhists. Too political for the nondualists. Too much of a liberal-hating commie for the witches. Too radical for the socdems or demsocs. Too grown up for the anarchists.

I Love You Guys

I don’t know what kind of future we’re moving into — could be very, very bad, could be very, very good. But I’m glad we’re moving into it together.

BY Caitlin Johnstone

Framing the Pacific as a permanent contest with China overstates the symmetry between the two powers, underestimates Pacific agency and risks producing the very outcome Australia fears.

In June 2024 Foreign Minister Penny Wong told the ABC that Australia had lost the chance to be the Pacific’s “only partner of choice”. According to Wong, Australia was therefore locked in a “state of permanent contest” in the region.

As diplomacy resumes, a proposed settlement would combine Ukrainian neutrality and EU membership with an armistice line, limits on NATO enlargement and a new European security framework.

The war in Ukraine can be ended permanently on terms that protect Ukraine’s statehood, meet Russia’s security concerns, and lay the foundation for a durable European security order.

Jeffrey D. Sachs

A huge global survey found Israel is the least popular country on Earth, following its genocide in Gaza. Another poll shows 67% in dozens of countries oppose Israel. Even 62% of Americans dislike it.

Ben Norton PopularResistance.org

Comprehensive global polls show Israel is now the most unpopular country on Earth, following its thoroughly documented genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza.

A mine upstream of the Great Barrier Reef is “two signatures away” from a Queensland government green light, ignoring Federal government rules. Andrew Gardiner reports.

The proposed 272-hectare gold and copper mine project, Dittmer Mine, poses potential risks to local waterways and fauna. Critics also say two of its main backers should have been banned from mining after Bowen Coking Coal walked away from environmental obligations and Bowen Basin Mine went broke last year.

It takes a lot to get tens of thousands of people to riot. For it to happen simultaneously across several countries points to a supranational underlying cause, as opposed to local grievance at an egregious state injustice. That the temporary collapse of authority and restraint will allow some opportunists to loot is an inevitable concomitant. That does not make theft the cause. 

Craig Murray: ‘France Has Never Been Richer’

Riot and rebellion are acts of extremely high risk and they are a sign of an epidemic sweeping the Western world — an epidemic of billionaires.

Religious nationalism is increasingly entangled with political and military power in the United States and elsewhere. Australia should ask what that means for an alliance on which it continues to rely.

The reason for Pete Hegseth, Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump’s Iranian conflict, which seems without end, and in the process wreaking untold global damage, has not been properly documented. Its primary cause is not military threat but religious nationalism – in Hegseth’s case, Christian nationalism; in Netanyahu’s case, Zionistic nationalism.

George Browning

For over a decade, scientists have warned the world must limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) to avoid the most severe consequences of climate change.

That goal is no longer within reach.

Russia is ready to resume three-way negotiations with the US and Ukraine to discuss security arrangements for when the conflict has ended, Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov has said.

The announcement followed nearly three hours of talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff at Constantine Palace in St. Petersburg on Wednesday. Jared Kushner joined by video link after illness prevented him from traveling.

Ushakov said Putin told Witkoff that Moscow was “in principle, ready to resume” trilateral negotiations in mid-November, with the main topic being a post-conflict security system for Russia and Ukraine. Witkoff indicated that Trump would welcome the proposal, the aide added.

Residents of New South Wales, Australia could soon have the option to make a final contribution to their garden upon death, after the state’s parliament approved turning human remains into compost as an alternative to burial and cremation.

The bill, introduced by Independent Sydney MP Alex Greenwich, cleared the upper house on Wednesday after passing the lower house unanimously last week. It now awaits assent, with a minimum two-year wait before going into force.

Known as ‘terramation’ or natural organic reduction, a body is placed in a vessel with wood chips, straw, and other plant material. Microbes break down the remains, producing material that can eventually nourish trees and gardens.

US operator Recompose says its process takes 8-12 weeks, including a curing period. Remaining bones are mechanically ground down and mixed back in, and artificial implants are removed.

The images of French and Italian cities gripped by unrest are shocking, while Albania is in turmoil, police are dispersing demonstrators in Argentina, and India’s protests show no sign of abating. Add the upheavals across the Global South, and the parallels with 1968 become difficult to ignore.

That year, political and social unrest swept across much of the world almost simultaneously. It was a less interconnected age, divided by the Cold War, yet similar movements erupted in countries with vastly different political systems as a remarkable synchronization of discontent took place. 

Direct comparisons are inevitably imperfect, but many of the underlying grievances are familiar, such as inequality, problems in education, wars without clear objectives, and growing frustration with political elites unwilling or unable to adapt.

The US arrest warrant for former Cuban leader Raul Castro is political revenge, Russia has said, warning that escalating pressure on Havana could destabilize Latin America and the Caribbean.

A Florida judge issued the warrant on Monday against Castro, 95, on a charge of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder over the 1996 downing of two planes operated by Brothers to the Rescue – a Miami-based Cuban exile group led by CIA operative Jose Basulto, who has long pressed for charges against Castro. Four men were killed in the shootdown.

The US authorities accuse Castro of ordering the attack. Havana maintains it acted in self-defense against aircraft violating its airspace. The Cuban Embassy in Washington accused the group of committing more than 25 airspace violations from 1994 to 1996, despite repeated warnings from Havana.

The U.S. and Japan kicked off their biennial Keen Sword military exercise on Monday, one of the largest joint drills between the two countries. This year, the exercise will focus on Japan’s southwestern islands, including its westernmost island, Yonaguni, just 68 miles east of Taiwan.

We have explore psychopathy and sociopathy in depth somewhere on this site with the caveats that about four per cent of men are psychopaths and one per cent of women are psychos as well…

Meanwhile social-sociopathy should be defined differently as sociopathy…

THIS ANALYSIS IS A SIMPLISTIC SHORT CUT TO A COMPLEX PROBLEM….

By Gus leonisky

Psychopaths are usually born with the symptoms and are difficult for a social construct to deal with them when they become dangerous. They usually are “uneducated” and end up in prison or an asylum for “mad” people, more often than not. 

These cases are usually self-contained individual vessels who interfere ALONE with their relationships — be with their family, neighbours or social networks.