Some of the world's biggest and most powerful brands are attempting to be more cute and cuddly.

Tech giants Microsoft and Apple are among a wave of businesses who have recently introduced new cartoon character mascots, a tactic experts say is often used to make a brand seem more human and friendly, and to build a stronger connection with customers.

Apple's character, a blue and white figure with an outsized head, has become unofficially known as Little Finder Guy. Introduced in March in social media videos to promote a new laptop, it has gained some positive coverage.

Paul Ehrlich, the leading false prophet of inevitable environmental doom and author of the infamous The Population Bomb, has died at age 93. Why infamous? Consider the prologue to the 1968 edition:

US President Donald Trump concluded his state visit to China on Friday afternoon and departed Beijing on Air Force One. During this historic and landmark visit, mutual respect, valuing peace, and exploring cooperation were the overarching themes of the summit.

Let 2026 be a historic, landmark year that opens up a new chapter in China-US relations: Global Times editorial

By Global Times

Within academia, there seems to be a growing consensus that the peer-review system—once the backbone of academic scholarship—is broken. But is it irreparably so? Perhaps. At the very least, the breakdown of its current form is worth exploring. However, rather than abandoning the entire endeavor, we believe we have a novel solution. First, though, let us examine where the system went wrong.

Peer Review Is Broken—Here’s How to Fix It

BY MICHAEL R. JENKINS, ROB JENKINS

BROWNSTONE INSTITUTE

Ancient sources for the legends of Daedalus give varying accounts of his parentage. It is reported that in a fit of envy he murdered his talented nephew and apprentice — named Perdix by some and Talos by Apollodorus — who is said to have created both the first compass (the type used in drafting) and the first saw. Daedalus is said to have thrown the boy from the Acropolis, for which act he was banished from Athens.

“I am Jewish, and the antisemitism I experience comes from Zionists and far-right supporters of Zionism because of my outspoken opposition to the actions of the Israeli state.” Judith Treanor on the Royal Commission.

I am a Jewish dual citizen of Australia and the United Kingdom of Ashkenazi heritage. Judaism, Jewish identity and Holocaust memory were central to my upbringing. From the time I first learned about the horrors of the Holocaust, I became deeply preoccupied with how such evil could occur and how ordinary people could allow it to happen.

The phrase “Never Again” carried profound meaning for me. Antisemitism terrified me. Still does. Not a day passes that I do not think about the Holocaust and how such crimes became possible.

Rudyard Kipling, a modern classic of the Western literary canon, was both a champion of British imperialism and too honest not to know its very sordid underpinnings of greed, lies, and sheer selfishness.

That’s why the same man who extolled the “white man’s burden” also wrote ‘The Man Who Would Be King,’ a story of two lowlife, ambitious adventurers who manage to swindle their way to becoming kings as well as rich in a remote country on the fringes of the empire, then at its late-nineteenth-century zenith of global primacy.

The Spoiled Prince of Kiev: Zelensky has deceived and ruined his country with Western help

An ex-aide lays bare the corruption, lies and coercion in Ukraine’s leadership – while Western backing keeps the system alive...

BY Tarik Cyril Amar

A recent article published by the US arms-industry, big-tech, banking, and other Western special interests-funded Lowy Institute’s “Interpreter,” boldly claims, “Afghanistan is surrendering its mineral wealth — and its future.” 

China is accused of simply digging up and removing raw minerals from Afghanistan for processing elsewhere — a process the article claims amounts to China robbing Afghanistan of its natural resources and deliberately leaving it in a state of perpetual destitution.

Thirty-four European countries plus Australia, Costa Rica and the European Union as an entity on Friday signed up to a future special tribunal that will seek to prosecute Russia for crimes committed during its invasion of Ukraine. 

The plan has been in the works since soon after Russia's full scale invasion in 2022, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed an agreement with the Council of Europe last year seeking to implement it. 

Ukraine: European countries sign up to special tribunal plan

Mark Hallam with AFP, open source material

At talks in Moldova, more than 30 countries have said they will join a future special tribunal for Ukraine prosecuting Russia over its invasion. How the body will force Russians to stand trial is not clear.

Washington and Moscow both enthusiastically celebrated the victory of the Allied “Grand Alliance” over the fascist powers at the end of World War II.  Since then, however, the two capitals have typically been on opposite sides of numerous nasty geostrategic struggles around the world.  They also have relished opportunities to work with foreign countries and political movements to create major headaches for the other great power.

Payback: Russia Uses Iran as a Proxy Against the United States

by Ted Galen Carpenter

… From her early writings onward she [Simone Veil] was to problematize the imagination as the “folle imagination”, a barrier between mind and reality, meaning that the human knower is kept from things-in-themselves. Weil’s epistemology, then, informed by her initial studies of Descartes, would take on inflections of Kant and Plato while positioning her against Aristotle.

“No drama” Starmer has not proven to be a leader for these times. In an age when style so regularly stumps substance, this dour 63-year-old has failed to meet the theatrical requirements of the modern day. But the revolving door at Downing Street – if over the coming days or weeks it revolves again – surely speaks of a larger problem. Maybe the United Kingdom has become ungovernable.

https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/australia-got-addicted-to-political-beheadings-ten-years-on-is-the-uk-following-suit-20260514-p5zx31.html

HERE, NICK BRYANT TRIES TO POLISH A DECEITFUL PIECE OF USELESS CRAP... I PREFER THIS ANALYSIS:

Modern despots increasingly mimic the language and rituals of democracy while concentrating power through manipulation, spectacle, nationalism and the managed consent of their citizens.

Let’s begin with a troubling truth: in many countries, hundreds of millions of people feel that when it comes to the biggest decisions affecting their lives, despite all the talk of ‘democracy’ and ’the people’, they have no control over those who decide things in their name. Their shared experience of organised powerlessness is amplified by fears that our small blue planet is spinning out of control.

John Keane

https://yandex.com/video/preview/16613307568494764927

https://yandex.com/video/preview/13089194321333632740

https://yandex.com/video/preview/2247940627282892935

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

         RABID ATHEIST.

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