Author: nick
Photograph Source: kremlin.ru – CC BY 4.0 “You should write about Viktor Orbán,” a close English friend told me before heading back to the Himalayas. Orbán? I wondered. As leader, he has “ceased to be,” “expired,” and is “no more,” to borrow from Monty Python. Then I saw his point. Orbán is not yesterday’s story so much as a figure already ripe for perspective. A proper valediction might do more than mark the end of one career. It could help frame the twilight of a political generation. For Orbán belongs, perhaps, with Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, and even JD Vance—leaders…
You could say the impending stagflationary tsunami serves him right because Trumpy is an arrogant, clueless know-it-all, who basically knows practically nothing at all. At least with regard to the manifold issues of prosperity, constitutional governance and war & peace now plaguing the nation. Thus, he was saying quite militantly before February 28th that there is no inflation, claiming during his recent speech to the 2026 Davos conference that— “We have virtually no inflation… inflation [has been] defeated… Grocery prices, energy prices, airfares, mortgage rates, rent and car payments are all coming down, and they’re coming down fast.” Not so…
Photograph Source: J Stimp – CC BY 2.0 Art is everywhere, since artifice is at the very heart of reality. And so art is dead, not only because its critical transcendence is gone, but because reality itself, entirely impregnated by an aesthetic which is inseparable from its own structure, has been confused with its own image. Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation (1981) The French social theorist and philosopher Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007) memorably argued, “We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.” Today, we might see the advent of smartphone culture as…
A few days ago, the D.C. Circuit sent the East Wing case back down to Judge Leon. In my view, the plaintiffs clearly have no standing. Judge Rao’s separate opinion cogently explains why. Judge Leon, undeterred, ruled against Trump again! The White House can continue with “underground” construction but not “aboveground” construction! I suppose Judge Leon is an expert in construction, as he seems to think these two levels can be separated! His new order had fewer exclamation points, but he still declined to address standing. Should this case get to SCOTUS, it will be very easy for the proceduralists…
A ceasefire in Lebanon was announced on Thursday by US President Donald Trump, but its reality tells a very different story. The ceasefire was not the product of American diplomacy, nor Israeli strategic calculation. It was imposed – largely as a result of sustained Iranian pressure. Washington, Tel Aviv, and their allies – including some within Lebanon itself – will continue to deny this reality. Acknowledging Iran’s role would mean admitting that a historic precedent has been set: for the first time, forces opposing the United States and Israel have succeeded in imposing conditions on both. This is not a…
The diplomatic process to end the war on Iran is not buried yet. President Donald Trump, in a post on Truth Social, said that “most points were agreed to” during U.S.–Iranian talks in Islamabad last weekend. “In many ways,” Trump added, “the points that were agreed to are better than us continuing our Military Operations to conclusion.” There is hope among the mediators that the gap could be narrowed and talks could resume before the ceasefire ends on April 21. But the first round in Islamabad—the highest-level face-to-face talks between the U.S. and Iran since the Islamic Republic of Iran…
Hayden Valley, Yellowstone. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair. Bill Rees likes to say that ecological footprint analysis began with an epiphany—when he was 10 years old. Sitting down to lunch on his grandparents’ Ontario farm with relatives he had worked with that morning, the sweaty kid realized he had played a small part in raising everything on the table—beef, chicken, potatoes, carrots, and a few other items the farm had produced so far that season. Rees remembers the moment as thrilling. “You know the expression, ‘You are what you eat’? As a child, I realized I am what I eat, and that I grew…
The AI Images Trump Can't Get Enough Of Source link
After watching the latest rounds of right-wing podcasters intoning that somehow Trump is demon-possessed or out of his mind or fill-in-the-blank crazy conspiracy theory, or “It’s all about the Jews!”, it’d probably be good to broach what is apparently a unique thought to the daily bloviators. When it comes to the “Don-roe Doctrine,” perhaps President Trump actually sees the broader geopolitical realities America has lived under for generations and is trying to do something to ensure that America remains safe and our economy remains robust. Here’s the frame everyone seems to be missing: Whatever you think about the Iran situation…
Guys, I went through the Artemis photos of the moon and honestly all my photo programs say that the photos are overly edited already…meaning either AI or they spend a lot of time editing each and every moon photo. Compound this with the fact, no real looking moon photos yet exist, only these AI moon versions that all look fake. Remember I have gone through thousands of photos of the past Apollo missions from 13-17 and I doubt there is a photo in the Apollo mission indexes that I have not seen. They look more real than these current photos of…