The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    [World] UK, France at war?

    Comments

    commentary on the war situation by a sarcastic and very cynical Brit artist:

    It's all looking just a bit Playmobil https://t.co/igrBBOnRcJ

    — Brandford Industries (@Paul_was_Ringo) May 6, 2021

    Behold - the traitors in our midst.#FifthColumnistFilth pic.twitter.com/0rNvmZwVNC

    — Brandford Industries (@Paul_was_Ringo) May 6, 2021

    it's also helpful to follow a few serious Brit journos, though, cause then they retweet other Brit journos when they tweet something helpful to understanding the situation:

    Modest Proposal: if Jersey wants to be protected by the UK's Royal Navy, it should join the UK and pay UK taxes. if it doesn't, it should build its own navy.

    — Oliver Bullough (@OliverBullough) May 6, 2021


    Weird and anomalous fact: when Britain and France used to go to war a lot, the Channel Islands got a letter from the pope declaring them to be neutral, and then they could trade with both sides. #loyalty

    — Oliver Bullough (@OliverBullough) May 6, 2021

    Brazil: At least 25 killed in Rio de Janeiro shoot-out

    @ BBC News, 12 hours ago

    At least 25 people including a police officer have been killed in a shoot-out in Rio de Janeiro, according to local media.

    The shoot-out took place during a police operation in a favela in the Jacarezinho area of the city.

    Police launched the operation after receiving reports that drug traffickers were recruiting children for their gang.

    Two passengers on a metro train were hit by bullets but survived.

    Police in the Brazilian city confirmed the death of one of their officers, Inspector Andre Leonardo de Mello Frias. A statement on Facebook said "he honoured the profession he loved and will be missed".

    Police Chief Ronaldo Oliveira told Reuters news agency that Thursday's raid was "the largest number of deaths in a police operation in Rio".

    According to local news, the gang targeted in this raid engages in drug trafficking, mugging, murders and kidnappings.

    Television images showed suspects trying to escape across rooftops as police entered the favela.

    Meanwhile, residents of Jacarezinho have shared accounts of what they witnessed on social media [....]



    Call me stupid, but i always heard you kill a cop,you're fucked - they will find you, you're going away a very long time (as the lucky variant). In America, or anywhere, not just Italy. Who gave these people the idea it's no longer a big deal?


    celeb art historian Brit summing it all up if you don't want to read all that:

     


    this guy, an activist about saving traditional Brit cultural heritage, is having fun doing a narrative about what The Woke wrought in the British elections (along the lines of Carville's Wokeness is a problem and we all know it) and it is, of course too simplistic and not really the truth to make this about statues or even patriotism. But there is something there, as people of any nation, much less a once powerful one, aren't going to vote for those who believe they should be constantly reminded about how evil they have been in the past and what a worthless nasty racist country they have been, how they must repent and be humble and lose all pride and patriotism, and start over from year zero. It just is not a good selling technique. And the meme does seem to go hand in hand with lots of Brexiteering:

    I could do these all day... #LocalElections2021 #LocalElections @plymouthcc @UKLabour
    How it started How it's going pic.twitter.com/57qqLnxeU3

    — Save Our Statues - Robert Poll (@_SaveOurStatues) May 7, 2021

    I would definitely say there's some fuel for the fire there in that catering to Wokeness can hurt left of center political parties.



    Newly declassified information shows analysts discovered members of Taliban-linked network had been working closely with operatives from a notorious unit of the G.R.U., the Russian military intelligence service, known for assassination operations. https://t.co/BupmsccqBN

    — Adam Goldman (@adamgoldmanNYT) May 7, 2021

     


    Elon & Pete save Mars?

    https://youtu.be/FuaDWyCnJxs

    1st SNL to Livestream globally - some worldly significance?

    Kind of cold open:

    https://youtu.be/fCF8I_X1qKI

    But in the end seems he was as evil as they said he was

    https://youtu.be/qaKZi6p6sxg

    Meanwhile Huffpost's TV critic - who seems to have decided "TV = females + people of color" sometime back, is not amused. Guess Miley being 1st Mom on Mars for Mother's Day wasn't enough.

    https://www.salon.com/2021/05/08/elon-musk-snl-saturday-night-live-host/




    this struck me as very impressive reporting, it served as a real catch-me up for me on what life is like there right now


    Palestinian Red Crescent says over 175 Palestinians have been injured in violent clashes with Israel Police at the Al-Aqsa compound

    — Anna Ahronheim (@AAhronheim) May 10, 2021

    “Al Aqsa is now a battlefield” https://t.co/V4AlQFugEf

    — Mohamad Bazzi (@BazziNYU) May 10, 2021



    And Bibi wins! Again!


    part of the equation:


    Wherein Jacobin magazine doesn't get NYC demographics:

     

    Andrew Yang: not good! pic.twitter.com/3meofh9F7Z

    — Jacobin (@jacobinmag) May 11, 2021

     

    edit to add: not just Yang but both current frontrunners:

     

    Two of the leading candidates for mayor of NYC have expressed sympathy and solidarity with #Israel. Neither of them have expressed similar sentiments for the #Palestinians who are facing home expulsions, have been attacked in their place of worship or killed by Israeli forces. pic.twitter.com/PZtZyioHjj

    — Ayman Mohyeldin (@AymanM) May 11, 2021

    Anti-Israel lefties have this hashtag trending on Twitter right now: #YangSupportsGenocide




     

     


    United Nations team concludes war crimes committed by ISIS in Iraq in 2014:





    "Not an eviction"


    very interesting: nobility, hospitality, and chivalry very significant symbols in our Arab heritage and culture

    I suspect sort of more like: significant symbols of the culture of our tribal warlords dealing with T.E. Lawrence and supposedly being a "river to my people" when you're really clueless about your people and that kinda stuff. Real early 20th century.


    The prisoners in the Quezaltepeque Prison in El Salvador - 


    is far from pretty when you really gin up culture wars:



    the absurdity of tit for tat is more apparent on twitter --


    Jared? Oh Jared...



    Laura Rozen retweeted this one, I don't know this journalist:



    there's almost always a counter someone can find, nothing is as it seems:


    Only 7 years old - great.

    Not that I'm excusing it, but it's like a lifetime in news organization - is this still going in? Are there obvious ways to counter it, etc.?


    (Found retweeted by Seth Abramson)


    Maybe Maduro & Bibi can get a room. Of course let's see the US complain 


    did think it kind of amazing to see both of them doing the very same thing at the same time for the basically the same reasons. Quiet means everything's okay?The dead are extra quiet, why not just get rid of most people?


    tribalism breeding paranoid conspiracy thinking all around:

    Welcome to London - where pro-Jihadists chant for the death of Jews and people wear Saddam Hussein tshirts and celebs and politicians and left wingers march happily alongside and blend their voices in a call to eliminate the worlds only Jewish country... pic.twitter.com/xIKkms2Atl

    — leekern (@leekern13) May 15, 2021

    Don’t forget horned hooked nose Jews spotted by @danieldmoses pic.twitter.com/qXEBOuGh77

    — L_e_x_i_c_o_n (@Lexiconartist83) May 15, 2021


    https://t.co/MvUtOeEofF MISINFORMATION As usual from Zionist Propaganda

    — JH (@JH77_LFC) May 15, 2021

    I do agree with this, but at the same time I do wish Biden/the U.S. didn't have to get involved; unfortunately we help furnish the weapons they are using so we have to:

    There is literally no point to the Gaza-Israel fighting. It happens every so often and always ends with a ceasefire negotiated by foreign powers. Nothing fundamentally changes, just a lot of people die. Biden should use all tools he has to force parties to cease fire.

    — Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) May 15, 2021

    I wish we were neutral. His sentence here is why; there is intractable absurd worship of "location, location, location", for "decades and decades", more like millennia, by Palestinians as well as Zionists:

    This is the Palestinian story for decades and decades. Do you think this makes people more or less likely to want to fight? Israel's strategy of using military means to solve a political crisis is a failure. https://t.co/100mMVNKFe

    — Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) May 15, 2021

    That cannot ever be solved by investing more outsiders backing of the ideology behind both sides believing it. And inside both camps there are already disbelievers who might do the job if there wasn't so much interference:

    Can't believe Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said this https://t.co/NOxonXTRKJ

    — Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) May 15, 2021

    "Divestment"of moral support as well as money is the only thing that can work, until they are sick of tit for tat and eternal grievance/ Giving any other kind of special attention to one side or the other is just feeding a troll. Unfortunately a dirty deed is long done and one side has had extra help in getting far more weaponry than the other.

     


    YES, important:


    this thread too!


    Anshel Pfeffer אנשיל פפר @AnshelPfeffer · 18h Replying to @AnshelPfeffer I’ve yet to see real evidence Netanyahu somehow engineered these dual crises in Gaza and between Jews and Arabs in Israel but it’s a direct result of his policies. He inherited in 2009 the previous government policy’s of blockading Gaza but in 12 years did nothing to change it.> Anshel Pfeffer אנשיל פפר @AnshelPfeffer · 18h In regard to Jewish-Arab relations Netanyahu did everything to exacerbated generations-old hatreds between communities, not because he’s a racist, but because an us-against-them mindset held his electoral base together. For political reasons, he also degraded the Israeli police> Anshel Pfeffer אנשיל פפר @AnshelPfeffer · 18h The subject of repeated police corruption investigations, Netanyahu has underfunded and politicized the police so it became more a paramilitary security force and much less a public service. The results were clear this week in Jerusalem and Lod and lead directly to this crisis.> Anshel Pfeffer אנשיל פפר @AnshelPfeffer · 18h The heavy-handed over-policing in Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah and Al Aqsa is in stark contrast to the way police neglected Arab neighborhoods and towns in recent years, allowing them to descend in to gang warfare as murder-rates have rocketed, few deaths are properly investigated.> Anshel Pfeffer אנשיל פפר @AnshelPfeffer · 18h One Arab resident of Lod told me this week “how do you expect us to calm down when the police come here only when the victims are Jews. When an Arab murders an Arab, they come the next day, arrest a member of each family and then release them for lack of evidence. That’s all.”> Anshel Pfeffer אנשיל פפר @AnshelPfeffer · 18h The Jewish residents of Lod have no higher regard for the police who weren’t there this week when their homes, property and synagogues were being attacked by mobs. Instead far-right Jewish activists came to Lod, exacerbating tension. The local Jews have mixed feelings about them> Anshel Pfeffer אנשיל פפר @AnshelPfeffer · 18h “I hate everything they represent but [the racist football hooligans and extreme settlers] saved our homes when the police didn’t turn up” is the most depressing sentence I heard this week repeated by Jewish residents of Lod. What do you do when only militias are there for you? > Anshel Pfeffer אנשיל פפר @AnshelPfeffer · 18h The Arab-Jewish conflict began before Netanyahu’s birth and Gaza was blockaded since the Hamas coup there 2 years before he came back to power, but he’s done everything in the last 12 years to entrench the siege mentality on both sides and inflame sectarian hatreds. Bibi’s Legacy



    China's weird Uyghur clampdowns

    (CNN covering a lot today)

    https://edition.cnn.com/2021/05/08/asia/china-xinjiang-ethnic-unity-intl...


    General Honore always seemed like a sensible, very rational type:


    add what he said 

     





    Yglesias thinks


    It was obvious all along that the pivot to Asia would require a blowjob for the Middle East before we go - 
    it's the easiest way to handle jilted lovers. And petty tyrants.


    more (I think I know where he's going with this and I will probably agree):


    At least I know what to expect.
    How y'all holding up?



    Spain sends military to border to protect against Moroccan immigrant flood (literally, as they are swimming in) Adults are sent back immediately but there have been about 1,500 minors who have been sent to an "industrial building.") All sounds familiar...

     

     

     

    #UPDATE Spain stepped up diplomatic pressure on Rabat as its prime minister flew into Ceuta, vowing to "restore order" in the North African enclave after a record 8,000 migrants reached its beaches from Morocco https://t.co/OQjpIhOgMA

    — AFP News Agency (@AFP) May 18, 2021

     


    Guardian video of crisis in Spain with more detail; includes showing military using batons on the migrants and mentions teargas use on the Moroccan side:

     


    We are talking *in Africa* (the Spanish colony of Ceuta near Tangiers), not swimming kilometers to Gibraltar.


    Polygyny is legal in 58 out of nearly 200 sovereign states.

    (a surprise to me that came up this morning, seeing what looked like an Indonesian man with 2 wives)

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_polygamy


    !?!?


    Same thing - left's in disarray, the right's bizarro messages take hold - why exactly is nutcake politics so attractive to so many right now? Is it something to do with phones and Facebook, some nutrutional lack, a misunderstood social development?


    World's largest iceberg just broke off an Antarctic ice shelf https://t.co/WO2mGgb8OB

    — J. W. (@wolfjon4) May 20, 2021

    we are all in this together...some people need to watch the movie "Independence Day" again or something...


    spinning the "clearly, they want socialism" narrative:


    Hey looks like the kids in Australia have their heads screwed on right, have a sense of priorities about what to protest about:


    Interesting reply here from a very smart pro-Israel guy from NJ who also proudly served in the Israeli military long ago:

    Military might only goes so far...


    Israeli-Palestinian media narratives


    Infantilizing Diana?

    mid-thirties woman a "young girl"?

    blaming the press for pushing for an obvious story?

    William's got too much time on his hands.

    https://edition.cnn.com/2021/05/21/uk/royal-news-newsletter-05-21-21-scl...




    Sasha Johnson: BLM activist may have been shot by mistake

    Detectives investigating whether someone else at south London gathering was intended target

    @ TheGuardian.com, May 24




    More on Sasha Johnson story: the Guardian article sort of implies that at least 4 of the 5 are drug dealers; that they stopped one guy in a car chase, and he squealed and that led to arresting the others on drug charges. And now They were all subsequently arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and remain in custody.


    on Sasha Johnson story from Axios roundup 6 hrs. ago:

    [....] Catch up quick: Johnson, a mother of three, was shot in the head on Sunday and is in critical condition. Police said there is no evidence that the shooting was related to her activism, BBC reports.

    • A friend of Johnson's told the BBC that she believes the event was a result of a disagreement between "rival gangs."





    Islamic War, Mozambique


    summary news on Australia and Murdoch machinations there:


    Aussies face China revenge - for Wuhan, for Belt & Road

    https://edition.cnn.com/videos/business/2021/04/26/australia-china-trade...




    Israelis finally got Bibi's butt out of that seat!!!


    One of those "be careful what you wish for" moments. Still, will be nice to see Bibi hop in the barrel, whatever the cost of admission.


    Bibi is wrathful and threatening:


    ^ Just hit me: that is mimicking Trump? It's the petty tryrant having a temper tantrum thing, even includes the fixation on searching Twitter for support.



    query about Putin:


    saw someone opine--can't find that now--that Anonymous group is long dead and this was probably made mitating them by two bitter guys after a drunk night at the big crypto convention in Miami...



    Anarchist group proudly claims responsibility for incendiary attack on Tesla factory site in Germany:


    If you say "exploit" enough times, it's almost like an argument.

    Waiting for their book of concrete solutions to drop.


    Peru presidential election is over-was a right-wing populist vs. a true socialist-and THE RESULTS ARE, ta-dah, everybody's favorite:

    Fujimori, Castillo neck and neck as Peru presidential polls close https://t.co/tYXgOXWWgv

    — Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) June 7, 2021

     


    Global FBI sting thread



    China's split population


    About that Afghan withdrawal


    that's a dupe of what I posted above BUT FORGET THAT, on topic check out what I later posted last night on your Progressive Realism thread, re: looks like Taliban is winning, Pentagon planning bombing, CIA dunno what to do...

    all very interesting not the least of which because if we do nothing, the interventionist fraction of the GOP will make hay out of that

    edit to add: bet it is a main topic of Biden discussion with allies right now


    Actually we posted at the same time ;-)

    (and no i didn't alter the timestamp cheeky)



    China's lock on Islam

     




    Peru's lefty candidates quite a bit different than ours:


    Andrew Yang, is that you?


    Even though she and her compadres want to abolish them and no one will talk

    Detectives are continuing to appeal for anyone with information to come forward by calling the police on 101 quoting reference 1172/23MAY, or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.


    Update: HK police raid Apple Daily

    5 executives were taken away, including Editor-in-Chief Ryan Law and #NextDigital CEO Cheung Kim-hung.

    Officers were seen accessing journalists' computers, and all employees were barred from returning to their seats to work.#AppleDailyENG pic.twitter.com/45nsFWmCfE

    — Apple Daily HK (@appledaily_hk) June 17, 2021

    edit to add more details:


    Is this not a message about Iran and nukes as well?


    China getting super serious now about HK, they can't even leave:

    BREAKING: Apple Daily chief editorial writer Fung Wai-kong was arrested at the airport for "collusion with foreign power" when attempting to leave Hong Kong, @hkcnews_com has learned. https://t.co/RQUXd0bPm1

    — Alvin Lum (@alvinllum) June 27, 2021

    Update #1: police has confirmed the arrest, and does not preclude more arrests could be made.

    #2: Fung's title should be head of Apple Daily's English section.

    — Alvin Lum (@alvinllum) June 27, 2021

    is going to be like a theocracy like Iran etc, where they are always arresting anybody supposedly trying to bring in "foreign" influence of any kind...


    Being a fan of professional team sports makes people lose their ability to think logically, it's not just a U.S. thing: