People clinging to falsehoods is not a failure of intelligence, but a deeply human attempt to protect emotional stability in an overwhelming world.

Chas Key’s recent article in _Pearls & Irritations_ raises a question at the centre of our political and cultural turmoil: why do people cling so fiercely to beliefs that are demonstrably untrue? Why do falsehoods, conspiracies and simplistic narratives not only survive but prosper in societies that pride themselves on being better educated than at any point in history?

Shortly after 3:46 p.m. Doha time on September 9, Osama Hamdan received a call from a journalist asking him if he knew anything about the explosion that had just taken place in the Qatari capital. The senior Hamas leader was at a meeting across town from the Islamic resistance movement’s offices on Wadi Rawdan Street in the upscale Legtaifiyah District.

Weapons of Willpower: Hamas and Islamic Jihad on Trump's Gaza Plan

The UN put a stamp of legitimacy on President Trump’s colonialist plan for Gaza. In a Drop Site exclusive, Palestinian resistance leaders assess the state of the war.

BY JEREMY SCAHILL AND JAWA AHMAD

Andriy Yermak’s exit as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s all-powerful chief of staff is a tectonic shift for Ukraine that sets the stage for a fierce battle over how the country is governed.

Nicknamed the “green cardinal” for wearing the military-inspired outfits his boss popularized, Yermak — a once little-known lawyer and B-movie producer — rose to wield immense influence as Zelenskyy’s top aide and was seen by many as virtually a co-president.

The US is keeping the EU “in the dark”regarding ongoing diplomacy and possible draft documents aimed at ending the Ukraine conflict, Politico Europe has reported, citing an unnamed EU diplomat.

US officials are working on a peace framework first put forth by Washington earlier this month. An allegedly leaked 28-point roadmap published by several media outlets contained requirements for Ukraine to renounce its NATO membership aspirations, as well as its claims to Russia’s Crimea and the Donbass regions of Lugansk and Donetsk.

Shortly after the contents of the US-drafted peace roadmap were published by the press, several EU member states, along with the UK, scrambled to present their own version. Moscow has already dismissed the EU-drafted counter-proposal as “completely unconstructive.”

OpenAI, the owner of ChatGPT, may need to raise more than $200 billion by 2030 in order to continue operating, according to HSBC research cited by several media outlets. 

The company needs the funding to continue expansion as computing costs climb amid an accelerating and increasingly frantic global AI race.

OpenAI needs $200bn to continue losing money – HSBC
Surging computing costs could keep the maker of ChatGPT scrambling for fresh cash, a bank research report has estimated

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The US has initiated a campaign to recruit hired guns in the Philippines to fight for Ukraine, with the German Embassy in Manila facilitating their travel by issuing Schengen visas, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday.

"According to incoming information, US representatives have launched a campaign in the Philippines to recruit local citizens to fight on the side of the Ukrainian armed forces ... Preference is being given to former employees of Philippine security agencies and retired military personnel. Applicants are promised a monthly salary of $5,000," Zakharova told at a briefing.

The US-run recruitment drive, operated by a Florida-based security agency, includes training by American instructors and the issuance of German Schengen visas for recruits before they are sent to the conflict zone, the spokeswoman added.

This paper analyzes the historical genealogy of conspiracy theories about a global supergovernment by focusing on one period of American history in which it attained particular visibility. The formation of the United Nations in 1945 and the onset of the Cold War galvanized speculation on the political margins that a shadowy, malevolent international government was seeking world domination by targeting the United States and its political culture.

The United Nations as a New World Government: Conspiracy Theories, American Isolationism, and Exceptionalism

 by Helen Murphey

As if the news weren’t bad enough, recent tests show American students are getting worse at history, geography, and civics—and they were pretty bad to begin with. We can fix this, but first we need to understand what the problem is.

Why Kids Know Even Less About History Now—And Why It Matters
By Natalie Wexler

Apr 24, 2020......

The Vatican has warned Catholics against polygamy, insisting that real marriage is a lifelong and exclusive union of one man and one woman.

In a new doctrinal note backing monogamy signed by Pope Leo XIV and released on Tuesday, the Vatican rejected both polygamy and polyamory, saying these practices rely on “the illusion that the intensity of the relationship can be found in the succession of faces.”

The document said that “various public forms of non-monogamous unions – sometimes called ‘polyamory’ – are growing in the West.” It argued that every genuine marriage is a union of two people “of exactly the same dignity and the same rights” and therefore demands exclusivity.

It framed both polyamory and polygamy as incompatible with the equal dignity and mutual belonging that the Catholic Church considers essential to marriage.

As Palestinians face another winter of displacement and bombardment, Australia celebrates Christmas while ignoring its own obligations under international law. If recognition of Palestine is to mean anything, the government must act – not look away.

Stuart Rees,  Margaret Reynolds

Ukraine is running out of men, having lost 47,500 troops in October while mobilizing only 14,000, Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed on Thursday. How do the facts on the ground affect the negotiating process?

"The casualty trends are extremely negative for Kiev," National Defense magazine editor-in-chief Igor Korotchenko tells Sputnik. "But despite these highly unfavorable developments, the Zelensky regime continues the conflict with Western support."

Everything depends on two factors, the pundit says:

What impact further Russian military gains have on Ukraine along the front line

How much pressure the US will put on Zelensky to make him acknowledge reality

While there is no denying that Europe during the last 500 years was the foundation of Western civilization and led the way in the industrial revolution and scientific advancements, it also created a bloody colonial legacy that produced incalculable human suffering across the globe.

Why Europe No Longer Matters

by Larry C. Johnson

Europe, along with the United States, has ruled the world financially for the last three centuries. But the sun is setting on Europe. It is no longer relevant in the new financial and political order that is forming in the Global south, with China and Russia playing critical roles in the birth of this new world.

Political analyst Rostislav Ishchenko explores how trade shapes the rise of states, the crisis of U.S. hegemony, and the birth of a new global order.

FRED TURNER, Editor

Political analyst Rostislav Ishchenko argues that both socialist and feudal societies treated trade as an unworthy occupation — something equally alien to the proletarian and the nobleman. Yet, he stresses, neither system could survive without it. In his view, commerce is the engine of progress and the very foundation of civilization.

HOPE IS AN IMPERSONAL HEROE…..

Who tries to defy net zero

contrarily to RATIONEMACY

Forgetting SAPIENTIAMACY

And abandoning IUSTUMACY

The eternal rose on my desk

Could appear as grotesque

Being made of fine Chinese silk

Like so many fakes of her ilk

Contemplating alternative to DUMBOCRACY

There’s no answers in the aequus of MAGICRACY

Sprinkling dust into our naive eyes

As we see pies in the stormy skies

While the fake rose maintains beauty

Beyond my own life’s fading bounty

Surviving the ravages of climate change

Unlike the natural flower that can’t last

A day of sunlight's wavelength range

Perishing with hope of a seed blast

May be may be NOT

As the weather gets quite HOT

Hope is an IMPERSONAL HEROE

Trying to define DEMOCRACY