In 1898, Hermon Bumpus gathered 136 house sparrows immobilized by an ice storm, noting that the averages of several morphological traits differed between survivors and nonsurvivors. This was one of the first attempts to measure the phenotypic selection component of Charles Darwin’s thesis, that adaptation is driven by heritable traits that affect fitness.

After the failure of numerous Washington emissaries’ attempts to change Saudi Arabia’s perception of the world and force it to take a place in the ranks of “US supporters”, the current US administration has decided to use its latest weapon in this effort by “throwing President Biden to the wolves”.

As a republican, I’m not sure whether to rejoice or rage at the latest display of idiocy by the presumptive future King of Australia, Prince Charles. One the one hand (hooray!) he has demonstrated once again his unfitness to succeed Queen Elizabeth, who, understandably, is beginning to show her considerable age and restrict her public engagements. On the other (shame!) the fact that he demonstrates his unfitness on a regular basis has done nothing to increase the prospect of Australia cutting our constitutional links with the British monarchy.

BY David Solomon

The corporate media landscape has saturated our feeds with images of NATO allies as superheroes, science fiction and fantasy protagonists, and pop culture icons. NATO’s enemies are villainized as the primary antagonists of major fandoms. The indoctrinated masses therefore cannot break free from seeing the wars their country started as a game where you merely root for the right team. Distancing wars from geopolitical realities and likening them to cartoon characters and childrens’ stories invents a reality in which morality is undisputed and it’s always the good guys who have to win. In just the past two months, an explosion of such images has defined the liberal discourse and obfuscated the gruesome realities of the preventable, NATO-instigated conflict in Ukraine.

Babushka Z: The woman who became a Russian propaganda icon

By Sofia Bettiza & Svyatoslav Khomenko

BBC News

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61757667

An elderly Ukrainian woman brandishing a red Soviet flag has become the unlikely face of Kremlin propaganda after a video of her encounter with Ukrainian soldiers went viral. The BBC tracked down "Babushka Z" to try to establish the truth behind the incident.

"I don't think they should glorify me. I am just a peasant woman. I don't understand why I've become a celebrity."

In a time of multiple crises the sophistry of our leaders is more than dangerous. The narratives their words weave might advance their personal agendas but will leave the world ill-equipped to handle pandemics, wars, social upheaval, and climate disruption.

Sophistry much concerned Plato. In Gorgias he has Socrates compare sophistry to “cosmetics” or “self-adornment”. Condemnation of sophistry is also a common theme throughout Plato’s Phaedrus, Sophist, and Protagoras. Plato associates sophistry with appearance and therefore as being distanced from reality. 

BY Mike Scrafton

It should come as no surprise that Gus-the-LeonMinus and his loony old mad mates of useless pub-trivia losers think that Volodymyr Zelenskyyy-y is not very intelligent. Not intelligent at all.

Zelenskyyy-y is a clever play-actor for his jewish handlers, but he has been overtaken by reality. He does not understand the moment. Like most of us — the average Sunday barbecuing bloke who has forgotten the sausages of the previous burn-off on the hot plate, now greasy ciders — he has no understanding nor any skill in understanding the minutiae of diplomacy. We know boofheadry...

There is a surprising debate taking place in in the West – they are arguing about French President Emmanuel Macron’s call not to humiliate Russia.  

The point here is not that the question itself is ridiculous – generally speaking, the West cannot currently humble our country. Because you can only humiliate someone who depends on you (and with whom you have, if not common values, then at least a harmonized system), but nothing like this can be said about relations between Russia and those countries today.  

Poland and Ukraine have a complex history of massacres on both sides. However, for eight years, they have been united against Russia. After having considered annexing a Russian territory if Moscow loses the war, Warsaw would like to annex a Ukrainian territory, if Kiev loses. President Andrzej Duda has reportedly received guarantees from his counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky that, in gratitude for his military aid against the Russians, his country could annex Galicia.

RISING TENSIONS (22)

Poland and Ukraine

by Thierry Meyssan

This is an old story but it fell again on the laps of the Leonisky gods today. So here we go:

US President Joe Biden has pushed back against criticism that excessive government spending on his watch has contributed to the US inflation crisis, furiously denying that he has been fiscally reckless and blaming Republicans for obstructing him from curbing runaway prices. 

“I don’t want to hear any more of these lies about reckless spending,” Biden shouted on Tuesday at the AFL-CIO’s convention in Philadelphia. “We’re changing people’s lives.”

The president argued that in contrast to his predecessor, Donald Trump, he has reduced federal budget deficits. In fact, he claimed to have achieved the largest deficit cut on record, a targeted $1.6 trillion in the government’s current fiscal year after paring $350 billion in his first budget.

June 7 was a bad day for Luis Almagro, secretary-general of the Organisation of American States (OAS). During the ninth Summit of the Americas, a young man declared to him what he is: an assassin and puppet of the White House, instigator of the coup in Bolivia. He said that Almagro cannot come to give lessons on democracy when his hands are stained with blood.

The president's opponents have repeatedly questioned his ability to serve as POTUS amid repeated gaffes, slips on the stairs and even entire statements that the White House was forced to walk back - including some that may have triggered armed conflicts with other countries.

New White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre has laughed off a question from the CNN anchor regarding President Joe Biden's ability to serve beyond 2024.

The question came amid a New York Times report that other Democrat leaders are concerned about Biden’s age and ability to finish a potential second term. Any second Biden term would see him reach 86 by the end.

The war in Ukraine has been characterised by misinformation almost from the very beginning. The Western media has shown an amazing capacity for selective memory. Accounts of the war almost always commence with the Russian intervention in the Donbass in February 2022. It is as though the events in the preceding seven years never happened, at least if one relied upon the Western selection as being in any way a representation of actual events.

Let us look at the beginning of this war which began in fact in 2014 with an American inspired coup against the legitimately elected government of Ukraine. There is no question about American involvement in the events of 2014 from day one. No less a figure than Victoria Nuland has openly boasted upon her intervention in Ukraine being largely instrumental in the violent overthrow of the government.

Anyone who has spent any time in Washington and who has been reasonably engaged in watching the fiasco playing out there might agree that the most powerful foreign lobby is that of Israel, backed up as it is by a vast domestic network that exists to protect and nourish the Jewish state. Indeed, it is the domestic element of the lobby that gives it strength, supported as it is by extravagantly well-funded think tanks and a media that is Jewish dominated when it comes to developments in the Middle East.