"I know it's not the sort of thing you usually do Mr Havelange but speaking as a nuclear power we'd appreciate Gascoigne's yellow being overturned and the match result annulled"
Gene O
@leicaboss63.bsky.social
Fountain pens, photography, history, running my gravity-feed smoker (not necessarily in that order, depending on the day).
Thoughts on Capitulation Day. This level of defeat in Iran is only possible at the hands of a super loser like Trump. To win a war means changing the politics of the enemy such that they must surrender. That is what Iran just did to the United States. Read more: snyder.substack.com/p/capitulati...
Putin’s magic is that he can always get close to Trump. But Trump’s magic is that he turns everyone who approaches him into a loser.
Zbigniew Ziobro was one of the authors of the attempt to transform Poland into an authoritarian regime. Ziobro is a wanted man with no passport. The Trump White House just went to a good deal of trouble to bring him to the US. snyder.substack.com/p/copycat-ty...
Copycat Tyranny
Why Trump imports foreign authoritarians
snyder.substack.com
The Holodomor Research and Education Consortium has newly assembled an informative free online course on the history of the Holodomor in Ukraine within a global context of famine and genocide. coursera.org/learn/holodo...
Famine as Genocide: The Holodomor in Ukraine
Offered by University of Alberta. The Holodomor, one of the major tragedies of the twentieth century, became the subject of serious study ... Enroll for free.
coursera.org
Haven’t seen a Hungarian autocrat take an L like that since Louis II thought he could handle Suleiman the Magnificent at Mohacs in 1526, amirite!
As Clausewitz remarked, war is about blowing random shit up according to a list of metrics you just made up
Shipwreck@shipwreck75.bsky.social · 4mo agoCJCS Gen Dan Caine says all three original US military objectives in Iran were achieved. US destroyed: • 80% of Iran’s air defense systems • 450 BM facilities, 801 drone facilities, 2000 c2 nodes • 90% of Iran’s regular navy
BREAKING: Pope Leo XIV declares the Iran War is “unjust” and “is not resolving anything.” After suggesting Trump is committing war crimes by targeting civilian infrastructure, he called on Americans to contact Congress to help end the war.
The Garden of Earthly Delights (detail), by Hieronymus Bosch, 1480-1505, 📸 by @alexbrandon
For 40 minutes the Artemis crew have no way of knowing what’s going on on Earth. Lucky bastards
But shall this crazed old man be tamely suffered to drag a whole ship’s company down to doom with him?
For months, lone vibe coder Rafael Concepcion has obsessively built tools to counter the federal immigration crackdown—pivoting as he’s been outmatched. He’s also lost his job and become a target.
Opposing ICE Might Save the Country. It Could Also Ruin Your Life
For months, lone vibe coder Rafael Concepcion has obsessively built tools to counter the federal immigration crackdown—pivoting as he’s been outmatched. He’s also lost his job and become a target.
wrd.cm
Trump has insulted and tariffed his European allies, persuaded Denmark to prepare for a US invasion and, by pressuring Ukraine and not Russia, encouraged Putin to keep fighting. All of which he has forgotten. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
Everyone but Trump Understands What He’s Done
Allied leaders know that any positive gesture they make will count for nothing.
theatlantic.com
Pope Leo at the Stations of the Cross: "Every person in authority will have to answer to God for the way they exercise their power." Jesus says. "Whatever you do to another human being, especially to the small and vulnerable, you do unto me. And it is to me that you will one day give an account."
A reminder that in addition to being a former FBI Director Mueller was a combat-decorated USMC Vietnam veteran.
Phil Lewis@phillewis.bsky.social · 5mo agoDonald Trump responds to Robert Mueller’s death:
Trump does not think strategically, historically, geographically, or even rationally. He does not connect actions he takes on one day to events that occur weeks later. Allied leaders know that if they help him in the Gulf, he won't be grateful, or even remember www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
Everyone but Trump Understands What He’s Done
Allied leaders know that any positive gesture they make will count for nothing.
theatlantic.com
How to understand war with Iran? We must get away from propaganda. Facts suggest two interpretive frameworks: a foreign war as a mechanism to destroy democracy at home; and a foreign war as an element of personal corruption by the president of the United States. snyder.substack.com/p/why-attack...
Why Attack Iran?
Our Authoritarianism and Our Corruption
snyder.substack.com
A list of things you might do if you were trying to end the republic. In other words: a news review. snyder.substack.com/p/cabinet-ap...
Cabinet Apocalypse
A News Review in an Imagined Conversation
snyder.substack.com
Russian embassy, Washington DC. To mark the fourth anniversary of the full scale invasion
Today marks four years since Russia invaded Ukraine. These are some thoughts (recorded yesterday) on what Ukrainians have done for all of us and what we can learn from them.
Sir Ian McKellen performing a monologue from Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More on the Stephen Colbert show. Never have I heard this monologue performed with such a keen sense of prescience. Nor have I ever been in this exact historical moment.TY Sir Ian, for reaching us once again. #Pinks #ProudBlue
I usually hesitate to post obituaries but this one, of my literary agent, Georges Borchardt, born in 1928, is so unusual that it deserves to be widely shared. An incredible 20th century life www.nytimes.com/2026/01/20/o...
Georges Borchardt, 97, Dies; Literary Agent Championed Wiesel’s ‘Night’
nytimes.com
The US could be solving this problem. We are letting Russia kill, injure, and harm people. Enabling massive human suffering — a cold winter without heat and water — is wrong in itself and will not lead to peace.
UNITED24 Media@united24media.com · 6mo ago⚡️Ukraine warns its air defense systems are running out of missiles as Russia ramps up massive high-intensity strikes.
There are a hundred more important things to say, and I tried to say some of them in my essay for "Thinking About...", but: invading a country for oil is also just atavistic at this point. Even if it worked, which it won’t, it still wouldn’t work.
Bloomberg News@bloomberg.com · 7mo agoWall Street’s biggest banks made more money financing green projects than they did from working with fossil fuel companies for a fourth straight year, even as they faced ongoing pressure to pull back from the business
The ethical and legal damage will be with us forever but it’s the raging incompetence that will strike first, within the next few days.
Nick Kodama@nickkodama.bsky.social · 7mo agoDirector of the CIA is in the room but you have OSINTdefender's twitter page up on the screen
"If there is no boundary between real and unreal, good and evil, life and death, then nothing means anything, and we face a nihilist abyss." @marcishore.bsky.social in #IWMPost @iwm.at www.iwm.at/publication/...
In a Post-Truth World: The Fate of Birth, Death, and Other Boundaries
If there is no boundary between real and unreal, good and evil, life and death, then nothing means anything, and we face a nihilist abyss.
iwm.at