Booklover by the coast. Born again cynic. Nice person really!
Joined April 2014
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bookworm retweeted
🇵🇱 “The myth that Russia always wins has been successfully planted in the West. But history tells a very different story,” — Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski
The minister pointed out that Russia has not always emerged victorious from its wars:
“They lost the Crimean War. They lost the war against Japan. They emerged from World War I with their tails between their legs. They lost their invasion of Poland. They lost in Afghanistan. And they lost the Cold War.”
“So things can turn out very differently,” Sikorski emphasized.
Blimey that was quick!
🛰 Great news! Ukraine has launched its first satellite for its own communications network
Himera, together with Denmark's GomSpace, has launched the Obria Nano satellite into orbit.
With its help, Ukraine will be able to develop its own communications infrastructure, relying less on foreign satellite systems.
The first test satellite of Ukraine's future sovereign satellite communications network is already undergoing testing.
bookworm retweeted
🚨🇺🇸 This may become one of the biggest political and corruption scandals in American history – directly connected to the Kremlin.
According to The New York Times, a $25 billion Alaska gas project discussed in U.S.-Russia talks had alleged secret Russian financing and involved people connected to Trump’s circle.
But if you look at the behavior of the White House from this perspective, the questions become even bigger. Intelligence support for Ukraine was disrupted, NATO and EU allies were attacked rhetorically, Putin was praised, and Starshield restrictions complicated Ukrainian operations.
🇺🇦 And if Musk is so concerned about Russian soldiers, there is a very simple solution: they can stay home in Russia and live. The moment they cross Ukraine’s internationally recognized border, Ukraine has every right to defend itself.
So the real question is: are American interests being sacrificed for Russia-linked business interests?
Share to spread the truth, tell me what you think in the comments, and subscribe to demonstrate your solidarity with Ukraine. 🔥💙💛
#StandWithUkraine #RussiaIsCollapsing #MakeRussiaSmallAgain #Ukraine
bookworm retweeted
Between 1936 and 1967 a neurologist with no surgical training drove across America in a camper van he called the lobotomobile, performing lobotomies in state hospitals at twenty-five dollars a head with an ice pick from his own kitchen drawer, and the newspapers, the hospitals and the American Psychiatric Association cheered him the whole way.
Walter Freeman had the look of a great man: the beard, the cane, the wide-brimmed hat, the professorship at George Washington University. In 1936 he and a surgeon called James Watts drilled into the skulls of their first patients and cut the fibres to the frontal lobes, and Freeman, who understood publicity better than any doctor of his generation, went straight to the press. The Saturday Evening Post and the New York Times ran it as a miracle of the age: the surgery of the soul, worry cut out with a knife. Patients who had howled in the back wards sat quietly. The journals printed the series. The Nobel committee gave the inventor of the operation the prize for medicine in 1949, and Freeman wrote to congratulate him.
Then he dispensed with the surgeon. In 1946 he took an ice pick, slid it under the eyelid of a patient on his office table, tapped it through the orbital bone with a mallet and swept it side to side through the frontal lobe, both eyes, ten minutes, no theatre, no anaesthetic but a jolt from an electroshock box. He called it transorbital, and it meant any doctor in any asylum could do a dozen before lunch. He took it on the road. The state hospitals were drowning in patients and begged him to come, and he came, in the van, with the picks in a case, doing them in rows: twenty-five women in one afternoon in Nebraska, a four-year-old boy, nineteen children in all, patients lined up on trolleys while he worked both hands at once for the photographers. He kept a scrapbook of the press cuttings and a count. Three and a half thousand by the end.
The profession never stopped him. The mortality on his own figures was one in seven. The results, when anyone went back and looked, were a population of quiet, incontinent, affectless people who had been returned to their families as cured, and he wrote that he had turned society's misfits into good American citizens. Nobody at the association that had elected him to its council asked for the evidence, because the hospitals wanted the beds and the families wanted the quiet.
It ended in 1967 when a patient he was operating on for the third time bled to death on the table and the hospital took his privileges. He spent his last years driving the van again, state to state, calling on his old patients with a camera to prove they had been improved. He died in 1972. Rosemary Kennedy outlived him by thirty-three years.
A profession that could not cure anyone decided a man who could make people quiet was the same thing, and put him on the cover.
bookworm retweeted
🇺🇸 THE WHITE HOUSE IS TURNING INTO A POLITICAL WAR ZONE — BUT UKRAINE HAS NOT BEEN ABANDONED
With America's midterm elections approaching, Donald Trump's administration is reportedly descending into internal conflict, distrust, and a desperate struggle for political survival.
According to CNN, senior officials are increasingly worried that a Republican defeat could trigger a sweeping purge across the federal government.
Inside the White House, the question is no longer simply whether Republicans will lose. It is who will be blamed, who will be fired, and who will resign before the political storm arrives.
One source described the atmosphere to CNN as more ruthless than anything seen in the modern White House, where trust has become a dangerous luxury.
A Trump adviser reportedly warned that losing both the House and Senate would create an unpredictable situation in which everyone could become a target.
And the consequences could extend far beyond personnel changes.
If Democrats regain control of Congress, they could launch investigations, summon administration officials, demand documents, and scrutinize financial relationships, government contracts, foreign policy decisions, and pressure exerted on American allies.
For some senior officials, leaving the administration might become preferable to spending months defending themselves before congressional committees.
BUT THERE IS ANOTHER WAR INSIDE THE WHITE HOUSE — OVER UKRAINE.
Trump's administration is reportedly divided between two competing visions of American foreign policy.
One faction questions Washington's traditional commitment to European security and continued support for Ukraine.
Political analyst Scott Lucas, a professor at University College Dublin's Clinton Institute, identifies Vice President JD Vance and adviser Stephen Miller among the influential figures associated with this approach.
But another faction remains committed to the traditional American strategy of containing Russian aggression and maintaining European security.
According to Lucas, officials who support Ukraine remain within the State Department, Treasury, intelligence community, and military establishment.
They cannot openly challenge the president without risking their positions. Instead, their disagreements sometimes emerge through media reports and carefully communicated messages.
These officials reportedly oppose efforts to pressure Kyiv into unacceptable concessions, threats against President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and any diplomatic arrangement that would sacrifice Ukraine's interests to satisfy Moscow.
Lucas also pointed to CIA Director John Ratcliffe as an example of the administration's harder line toward Russia, referring to a reported message that Putin would not win the war.
The larger problem is that these competing factions weaken Washington's ability to act decisively.
A divided administration may prevent the United States from completely abandoning Ukraine. But it also makes it harder to deliver the weapons, intelligence, diplomatic support, and security commitments Ukraine urgently needs.
Meanwhile, reports of pressure on Kyiv through energy-related measures and threats involving intelligence cooperation raise further concerns about Washington's intentions.
THE PARADOX IS BRUTAL.
The same internal divisions that may protect Ukraine from a disastrous political deal could also prevent America from providing the assistance necessary to defeat Russian aggression.
Trump's political survival, the Republican Party's electoral future, and the direction of American foreign policy are becoming increasingly intertwined.
And while Washington fights its internal battles, Ukrainians continue fighting a real war.
They cannot afford to wait for the White House to decide who wins its next political power struggle.
Ukraine needs reliable allies, not a government consumed by its own internal warfare.
bookworm retweeted
Except, obviously, the posts saying I’m getting no views… 🙏
Thank you to everyone sharing. Please keep liking, reposting and showing the reality on the ground in Ukraine.
Every share helps challenge the lies and misinformation.
Keep Ukraine visible.
bookworm retweeted
Clotted cream is the richest dairy product in the British kitchen, nearly two thirds fat, and it was invented as a way of keeping milk in a county with no ice.
The method is older than anyone can trace. Fresh milk from the morning is left in a wide pan until the cream rises, then the whole pan is set over a very low fire or in a cooling bread oven for hours, never boiling, until a thick crust forms on top the colour of old gold. It cools overnight and the crust is lifted off with a skimmer. That crust is the cream, and the scalding is what kept it. Heated that way it lasted for days when fresh cream would have turned by teatime.
Devon and Cornwall argued over it for centuries and still do. The Cornish got the legal protection in 1998, on condition that the milk is Cornish and the fat is at least fifty-five per cent, though the good stuff runs higher. The argument about whether the cream or the jam goes on the scone first has split the two counties for as long as there have been scones, and it is the only question in British food that people will genuinely fight over.
If you grew up in the West Country it came in a cardboard tub with a crust you broke through with a knife, and it went on everything: the scone, the apple pie, the porridge, a spoon of it straight off the blade when nobody was looking. A pot sent by post to a relative in London was the standard Christmas present from Cornwall for a hundred years.
It is milk with the water taken out and the fat left in, and it was the ordinary household food of the two poorest counties in England.
The cream tea is now a treat you drive to and photograph. In 1930 it was what a dairy farmer's wife did with Tuesday's milk, and the fat was the whole point of doing it.
bookworm retweeted
I rarely do this…
But @Shearings you are a disgrace. My in-laws, in their 70s, spend their pension on a holiday with you in St Ives
…and this is where you sent them?!
My father-in-law has Parkinson’s too - so well done for stressing him out.
And my mother-in-law cried on the phone to you asking for a full refund
And YOU REFUSED?!
bookworm retweeted
The global response to Musk and Trump's pressure on Ukraine, accompanied by a temporary shutdown of Starshield, was swift.
Here's where things stand now:
🇨🇦 CANADA
The Canadian government has signed a CAD 2.3 billion contract with national satellite operator Telesat to expand its Lightspeed low-Earth-orbit satellite constellation.
Lightspeed was originally developed as a commercial competitor to Starlink and OneWeb. However, the government is now funding the integration of a dedicated, secure military communications system operating in the Ka-band and has already placed an order for additional satellites with Canadian aerospace company MDA Space.
🇫🇮 FINLAND
Finnish company ICEYE, a developer of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites, and Nokia have announced a strategic partnership to develop sovereign LEO broadband communications systems for interested European governments.
The project aims to provide European countries with a ready-made platform allowing each government to fully own and control its own satellite communications infrastructure, including encryption, without dependence on foreign providers.
This concept is known as "Sovereign SatCom."
🇪🇺 EUROPEAN UNION
The European Commission has moved toward awarding manufacturing contracts and increasing funding for its sovereign satellite communications network, IRIS².
Airbus Defence and Space has already signed contracts in Toulouse to manufacture the first 66 LEO satellites. Thales Alenia Space has been tasked with developing specialized secure payloads for government applications.
The program has been expanded to 348 satellites, with an additional €4 billion in funding.
🇰🇷 SOUTH KOREA
South Korea has successfully conducted its first orbital launch of the year using its domestically developed Nuri (KSLV-II) rocket from the Naro Space Center.
The rocket simultaneously deployed 14 payloads, including additional satellites for the national NEONSAT constellation and several military CubeSats.
🇯🇵 JAPAN
Japan has allocated approximately $1 billion in subsidies to develop a nationally controlled direct-to-device satellite network.
The system is designed to allow ordinary smartphones to communicate directly with satellites during major earthquakes or military conflicts.
The project involves cooperation between Rakuten and AST SpaceMobile.
🇺🇦 UKRAINE
The UASAT project, an initiative by STETMAN and a consortium of partners, has successfully completed registration with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
Preparations are now underway for the UASAT-NANO test satellite, which will mark the first step toward creating Ukraine's own sovereign satellite constellation.
🇨🇿 CZECH REPUBLIC
At the same time, agreements with the Czech Republic are being finalized for the joint development of a constellation of optical reconnaissance satellites called Suziria ("Constellation").
Ukraine is also expected to gain access to backup capacity within Europe's GOVSATCOM system.
🇩🇪 GERMANY
German company Isar Aerospace successfully launched its Spectrum rocket into orbit carrying satellites on September 5.
THE BIG PICTURE
The brilliant strategists Elon and Donnie wanted to show us who controls the red button for satellite internet.
Well, they succeeded.
And in a strange way, perhaps we should thank them.
Because they have reminded the entire world of one simple truth:
Whoever controls your communications can control your future.
And now countries around the world are working to make sure that no single billionaire — or American president — can ever hold that power over them again.
It's up to Ukraineans how or IF they surrender. It's up to Europe to support them in their decision. And it's up to US to either help them or stay the fuck out of it.
Zelenskyy: “Trump Is Demanding That I Surrender to Putin”
Finally, the moment has come when we can stop pretending to be diplomatically polite, carefully choosing our words, and acting as though we are dealing with some sophisticated peace negotiations rather than the blatant coercion of a victim into surrender.
For the first time, Zelenskyy has said out loud what many have long suspected: according to him, the Trump administration is taking steps that are forcing Ukraine to surrender to Russia.
“I don't want to think that our American partners believe it is possible to end the war faster at Ukraine's expense. But that is exactly what it looks like.”
Trump is demanding capitulation!
Pay attention to that last sentence. No hysteria, no diplomatic scandal, not even an accusation. Just a statement of fact from a man who has spent far too long trying to convince himself that his ally really is an ally.
And indeed, a rather interesting picture is emerging.
Russia bombs Ukrainian cities, while Washington demands that Kyiv stop striking Russian oil refineries. Ukraine purchases American missiles for its Patriot air defense systems, but according to Zelenskyy, deliveries are being delayed. Restrictions on satellite communications are emerging, making it significantly more difficult for Ukrainian troops to conduct military operations.
And all of this is accompanied by endless talk about peace.
What kind of peace, gentlemen?
Imagine a robber breaking into your home, murdering your loved ones, setting your bedroom on fire, and then a police officer arriving at the scene. But instead of arresting the criminal, the officer demands that you immediately put down your gun because the shooting is disturbing the neighbors' sleep.
And, as a friendly gesture, he promises to help the robber get more gasoline.
That, in my opinion, is exactly what American diplomacy looks like today.
Trump loves to repeat that he wants to stop the bloodshed. A wonderful desire. Yet somehow, almost all his demands are directed at the country defending itself, while the man who unleashed the largest European war of our time is offered negotiations, economic concessions, and yet another opportunity to bargain.
There is one inconvenient detail for Trump here.
Zelenskyy cannot sign Ukraine's capitulation for the simple reason that Ukraine does not belong to him.
It is not a hotel that can be sold together with its guests, nor a golf course that can be handed over to creditors to settle debts.
Behind this country stand millions of people who have buried their loved ones, lost their homes, endured occupation, torture, and Russian prisons.
Trump can put as much pressure on Zelenskyy as he wants. But forcing Ukrainians to voluntarily recognize Russia's right to determine their fate is an entirely different matter.
The most disgusting part of this story is not even the pressure on Ukraine itself, but the attempt to present capitulation as a great humanitarian achievement for which humanity should thank the American president.
Putin demands Ukrainian land.
Trump demands peace.
And Ukrainians are expected to pay the price for both demands.
You know, history has seen deals like this before. They were usually signed by people who were absolutely convinced that someone else would have to pay the price.
And every single time, there was some solemn gentleman announcing that he had finally brought peace to Europe.
The only difference is that this time, Ukraine is still holding its weapons.
And it has no intention of laying them down.
© Valeriy Bochkov
bookworm retweeted
India said NO to Starlink.
Musk thought he could throw a public tantrum and bully India into handing him a telecom monopoly, but he completely miscalculated.
Thanks to Trump’s reckless betrayal of global allies and cozying up to dictators, the world is waking up to a terrifying truth: you simply cannot trust America—or its arrogant billionaires—with your national security anymore.
Fareed Zakaria:
“Elon Musk picked the wrong moment to lecture Indians.
Frustrated that Starlink had not been cleared to launch in that country, he accused the government of protecting Mukesh Ambani whose telecom network Jio will launch its own satellite service.
Musk cast himself as the champion of ordinary Indians against one of the country's richest men. It backfired. India's government dismissed his accusation as baseless.
An influential nationalist group close to the ruling party went further demanding that Starlink be kept out of India altogether citing national security. Media and online reactions were similarly hostile to Starlink.
Musk did not understand that in India as in much of the world, trust in America is collapsing. Indians have watched as Donald Trump has discarded 25 years of bipartisan outreach to New Delhi in favor of cozying up to Pakistan and its de facto dictator Field Marshal Asim Munir.
They have watched Trump essentially abandon Ukraine, where the military version of Starlink has been suspiciously restricted, thus crippling Ukraine's military response to Russian aggression.
Would India define itself in another crisis with Pakistan? Would it want its armed forces to be utterly dependent on a US satellite system controlled by Trump?”
bookworm retweeted
You absolutely must watch Zelensky’s interview with Stephen Bartlett. On camera, we see a man who is deeply weary—at times on the verge of collapse—someone who has spent nearly five years living under the constant, direct pressure of war. From the very first minutes, his exhaustion is palpable. When asked the standard question, "How are you?", he replies that he sleeps very little, spending his nights on the phone with military commanders, trying to shift the few remaining air-defense assets from one region to another.
He shares two particularly poignant stories. The first concerns a missile that struck a playground in a matter of seconds; parents watched, through their windows, as their own children were torn apart before their eyes.
The second involves presenting posthumous honors to the families of fallen soldiers: "You hand a medal to a father—you feel the strength in his hand—and he asks, in a hushed voice, 'May we have a hug?' In that moment, I simply cease to exist. Those people are gone, and the survivors will never be the same again."
When the host tries to take him back in time—showing him old photographs from Kryvyi Rih, images from his university years in the KVN comedy troupe, his voice work for *Paddington*, or scenes from the series *Servant of the People*—Zelensky looks on with indifference, as if these things belonged to someone else’s life.
He also recalls February 2022, devoid of any heroic rhetoric. He describes how, for the first twenty days, he was driven purely by adrenaline—rushing from office to office, making endless phone calls, and scrambling to organize supplies of food and water for Kyiv. The full weight of his fear, and the stark realization of what had truly transpired, only hit him three weeks later, when mass graves containing the bodies of hundreds of residents were discovered in Bucha. It is precisely through the example of Bucha that he explains why he is so deeply irritated by those who advise him to reach a quick agreement with everyone: "Imagine if a mass grave were discovered in the United States or Great Britain containing 500 people who had been tortured, their hands bound. How could one simply forgive all that?"
The rest of the conversation centers on the stalemate in which the Ukrainians—and everyone else—find themselves. Zelensky explains the reasons for the war in simple terms: Moscow is attempting to forcibly rebuild the Soviet empire, a project that would be definitively shattered by Ukraine’s move toward Europe. Yet, when he speaks about the present, his words reveal a profound sense of frustration.
Nearly a fifth of the territory is occupied, the east of the country is under heavy bombardment, cities are left without electricity, and people are dying every single day. Meanwhile, any discussion of a ceasefire would require Kyiv to withdraw from its fortified positions—with no guarantee that the offensive wouldn't simply resume within a year.
Finally, the conversation turns to the subject of Trump and the attacks on oil facilities. Trump has publicly criticized Zelensky for striking Russian refineries, fearing that such actions could lead to a sharp rise in diesel prices for American farmers ahead of the elections.
It is here that it becomes clear just how much this attitude hurts Zelensky: his country is in flames, Moscow has rejected his proposal for a mutual halt to attacks on energy infrastructure, and the Americans are sending Patriot missiles—paid for by Europe—to the Middle East—yet he is the one being blamed for fuel prices in the United States.
The entire conversation leaves a rather bleak impression. A man trapped between the daily deaths in his own country and the pragmatic negotiations of allies—who have their own elections and political calculations to consider—can no longer distance himself from it all.
Look at it.
Ayan Sharipbayev
bookworm retweeted
“Dear Italian students, who today take to the streets carrying flags with the hammer and sickle and wearing T-shirts emblazoned with ‘CCCP’,” began an open letter in Italian by Lithuanian expat Neringa Budryt.
“I would like to ask you a question: do you truly know what the symbols you carry represent? And do you know what would have happened to many of you had you openly demonstrated in countries living under the oppression of communist regimes?
Let me tell you something. It is easy to display a red flag when, for you, communism is merely an abstract idea of equality, social justice, and rebellion against the system. It is easy to wear a T-shirt with "CCCP" on it when you have never experienced the reality of a communist regime.
We come from that part of Europe where communism was not a T-shirt, a symbol of rebellion, or a romanticized notion of equality. It was the system in which we lived—a system we never chose.
We know the history of Soviet repression, Stalinist purges, the Gulags, and mass deportations. Above all, we know the word "Siberia"—a place to which thousands of innocent people were forcibly deported, simply for thinking differently.
In Siberia—amidst freezing cold, starvation, and forced labor—many lost their lives; those who survived carried the scars of that experience forever. Entire families were torn apart, and generations were denied the chance to live freely in their own homeland.
In the countries of the Soviet bloc, censorship, political police, surveillance, and the suppression of dissent drastically curtailed individual freedoms.
We grew up in a system where state control permeated even our daily lives. At school, we were required to wear the red necktie of the "Pioneers." We were monitored; they tracked where we went and even whether we attended church. Even faith—a choice that should belong to an individual’s own conscience—could become a cause for suspicion.
We used to celebrate Christmas with our windows blacked out, to ensure no one would see us and report us. Because it was forbidden—just like so many other things: jeans, rock music, and all the symbols of a Western lifestyle. My mother returned from a Soviet labor camp. And do you know what happened to her? She was barred from continuing her education because she had been labeled an enemy of communism.
Under a communist regime, you could not protest. You risked arrest, imprisonment, interrogation, persecution—and, in certain historical contexts, even death. In the Soviet Union and other communist regimes, political dissent could cost you your freedom and your life.
Demonstrations independent of the authorities were not a guaranteed right; they were often suppressed by force.
That is why it strikes me to see young Italians proudly displaying the hammer and sickle—symbols associated with regimes that persecuted and imprisoned millions of people.
Today, you are free to take to the streets, shout against the government, criticize institutions, and wave your flags precisely because you live in a democracy that grants you these freedoms. Under an authoritarian regime of that kind, protesting against those in power could have landed you in prison.
This is not about denying the existence of social injustices, inequalities, or the right to fight for a better world. You are free to take to the streets to demand a more just society—but you should not idealize a system that denied so many people the very things you are free to exercise today: the right to choose, to believe, to speak, and to dissent. Before wearing a T-shirt with "CCCP" on it, listen to those who experienced that world. Talk to the deportees and their descendants; read the accounts of those who endured the gulags and forced exile to Siberia. Learn what it meant to be stripped of your freedom, your home, your loved ones—and even any prospect of a normal life—simply because of your background or your beliefs.
Before waving the hammer and sickle, please, study history thoroughly.”
bookworm retweeted
The recent Starlink / Starshield incident in Ukraine has created a dangerous precedence for the US export industry, many haven't yet grasped. The sudden deactivation respectively curtailing of those systems without warning not only cost precious lives, but also equipment worth millions.
Though the blame game between the White House (Trump) and SpaceX (Musk) is going on, ultimately it doesn't matter. It showed the world that the USA are not a reliable partner any more. Pointing at some obscure "violation of terms of services" without providing the exact passage are just increasing that notion that this was a political move.
The explanation that Starlink must not be used for "offensive" means is nonsense, too. Starlink has never been turned on over Russia, and using it in Ukraine is by definition defensive in nature. You can even argue that hitting Russian targets in Russia is defensive, since you don't have to wait for an attack to be conducted. Even the intention is enough to warrant action and to eliminate the threat at the source. But this is a different topic.
Furthermore, SpaceX has been fully aware that its Starlink terminals are being used by Ukrainian forces. Especially when considering that Ukraine only recently had to white-list their Starlink terminals for the Ukrainian military so that Russian forces, who have been abundantly using Starlink as well, were locked out. It has always been clear that those Starlink terminals are used for and by the Ukrainian military, and Ukraine has always been thankful for that.
Coming up with this bogus story, now, three weeks before midterms is therefore as transparent as it is shameless. It is obvious for everyone that this was just figleaf statement so that a political agenda can be pushed, an agenda which runs counter to the strategic nationalist interests of the USA, both political and economic.
And this is the real scandal. It is not new that the US had to lock out its technology or supplies to nations with which it had previously good and even cordial relation. Iran under the Shah, South-Vietnam and Cuba before Castro are just three to name it. But as you can see from them, it made perfectly sense back then. Those nations switched sides or disappeared altogether.
Ukraine on the other hand didn't switch sides and even helped the US in the most recent and botched Iran war, despite being short on ammunition itself. The Ukrainian government accepted every possible compromise and offered an unconditional ceasefire from the start. Russia on the hand refused all of it and is demanding surrender. Yet, it gets this treatment? Unbelievable.
This will be noted by all clients around the globe who purchase US weapons and technology. If agreements are not honored and can unilaterally and even clandestinely be altered based on the whims of a few, who only follow their own motives or election lies, then the all concept reliability falls apart.
Whether it is Starlink, the F-35, Tomahawk missiles or HIMARS. All those systems run on software and in many cases can only properly operate with recent updates. You don't even need have a kill switch. You can only refuse to update and many of those systems lose more than 90% of their effectiveness within a short period, making worthless.
This is why we see the blame game between Musk and Trump. I'm sure that people around those guys told them how absolutely shortsighted and stupid this step was. It will fall back on the entire US industry. Not even those two guys are worth that losses and backlash. A functional US Congress would immediately start subpoenas and hearings, asking questions in order to mitigate the damage, but here we are.
Trump and Musk have given the best reason why not to buy American. Customers - governmental and private alike - around the globe will take note of this and act accordingly, and I wouldn't be surprised if this won't be limited to US military products only. An absolutely senseless and avoidable own goal.
ALT F-35 (Credit: Von U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Donald R. Allen - http://www.dvidshub.net/image/935698/aerial-refueling-f-35-lightning-ii-joint-strike-fighters-eglin-afb-fla#.UZyEMrVU8QY, Gemeinfrei, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49689165)
ALT Tomahawk Missile (Credit: US Navy)
ALT M142 HIMARS /Credit: Spc. Russell J. Good - http://www.defenselink.mil; exact source, Gemeinfrei, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4233985)
bookworm retweeted
The US is willing to betray its closest allies in Europe, a market of 450 million people and an economy worth nearly $20 trillion, just to cut shady, corrupt deals with Putin's Russia, an economy roughly the size of Italy's.
What an absolutely insane foreign policy.
bookworm retweeted
In November 1941 the richest man in America drove his twenty-three-year-old daughter to a hospital in Washington without telling her mother, had two surgeons drill holes in her skull and cut into the front of her brain while she sang God Bless America to them, and when the singing stopped she had a mental age of two and the family did not speak her name for twenty years.
Rosemary Kennedy was the third child and the first girl, and she was slow. A nurse at the birth had held Rose Kennedy's legs together for two hours while they waited for the doctor, and the baby had been starved of air. She learned to read and write, but late, and in a family where the boys were being bred for the presidency and the girls for the right marriage, she was the one who could not keep up, the one who had to be coached and watched and given the simpler part in the photograph. She was also, by every account, the prettiest of them, and when the family went to London in 1938 she was presented at court in a white dress and curtsied to the King without a mistake.
Then she was twenty-one, and the trouble started. Moods. Rages. Slipping out of the convent school at night and coming back in the morning and not saying where. The nuns said she might be meeting men. For Joseph Kennedy, who was managing his sons towards the White House and could not have a daughter who might get pregnant or get talked about, that was the end of it. He had read about a new operation. Walter Freeman had promised the newspapers it calmed the agitated, and Joe Kennedy had never in his life been told that a thing he could pay for would not work.
Rosemary was given a mild sedative and kept awake. Freeman and his surgeon, James Watts, opened the skull on both sides and Watts pushed a blade into the frontal lobes and swept, while Freeman asked her to recite the Lord's Prayer and sing, and count backwards, so they would know how far to go. They went until she was incoherent. Then they stopped.
She came out of it unable to walk or speak. Years of therapy got her a few words and a limp. Joe moved her to a private hospital in New York and then to a convent school in Wisconsin, told the family she was teaching the retarded in the Midwest, and never went to see her. Rose, her mother, was not told what had been done until long after, and did not visit for twenty years. The brothers and sisters, including the one who became President, were told she was away. When Joe had his stroke in 1961 and could no longer manage the story, Eunice went to Wisconsin and found a woman of forty-three who did not know her, and came home and started the Special Olympics.
Rosemary lived to eighty-six, in the convent, and died in 2005 with her surviving sisters at the bed. The brother who became President had signed the first federal mental health law in 1963, and the family has said she was the reason.
Freeman kept operating for another twenty-six years. His notes on Rosemary have never been released.
That is what the expert's confidence looks like when it meets a powerful man with an inconvenient child. The science was published. The father was certain. The daughter sang to the surgeon until she could not.
Every institution that has ever decided it knows what is wrong with you and how to tidy it has the same two ingredients in the room, and the person on the table is still the only one who pays.
bookworm retweeted
This was inevitable. I’m not sure even Trump and Elon expected this level of blowback.
Ultimately, they have blood on their hands.
SpaceX Investor @GerberKawasaki tells me he’s not only “disgusted…from a humanity perspective” by restrictions on Starlink in Ukraine, but also: “…they've given everybody a reason not to use Starlink, that Starlink isn't reliable for national security for anybody but Trump.”
bookworm retweeted
⚡️️️️️️️Amid Starlink crisis, Finnish tech giants announce plan to help Ukraine build its own sovereign satellite system.
"Ukraine needs secure, sovereign, and high-performance satellite communications systems that it controls."
kyivindependent.com/amid-sta…
bookworm retweeted
Ukraine already had a "security guarantee" from the United States. And Russia, for that matter. A new one will be worth about as much as the old one.
The lesson learned by the broader world will be that nuclear weapons are the only actual guarantee. Everything else is a lie.
bookworm retweeted
Once again, I am personally convinced that the only right way to deal with this administration is a firm, confident, calm, and utterly non-negotiable “no.” And to calmly, methodically call things by their names in public. We call betrayal betrayal, lies lies, and truth truth.
Let him rage and spew whatever vile, lying curses and threats he wants, foaming at the mouth if he likes. If he thinks it will be easier to bully Ukraine into committing suicide for the sake of his own absurd whims of the moment and his itchy little hands, he is deeply mistaken. All that sickening groveling, crawling on our knees, and kissing his ass only makes him climb onto our heads, try to solve his problems at our expense, and go on pleasing his idol in the Kremlin.
Ukraine has the extraordinary heroism of its soldiers, Europe, basic common sense, and American public opinion on its side. And has no cards in his deranged attempt to collude with the Kremlin.
