@ostrakizon.bsky.social
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Al Bacio, Andrea! (“a chef’s kiss”). I missed this release at the time. Thank you!
3/n 🧵
Here's a zoom in to remember: Phobos over Olympus
Full-size (130MP) image & details: flic.kr/p/2rggHKy
Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/Andrea Luck CC BY 🧪🔭
Here's a zoom in to remember: Phobos over Olympus
Full-size (130MP) image & details: flic.kr/p/2rggHKy
Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/Andrea Luck CC BY 🧪🔭
November 30, 2025 at 6:02 PM
Al Bacio, Andrea! (“a chef’s kiss”). I missed this release at the time. Thank you!
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“In days after Alaska, a European intel agency distributed a hard-copy report in an envelope to some of the continent’s most senior national security officials, who were shocked by the contents: Inside were details of the commercial and economic plans the Trump admin had been pursuing with Russia.”
Make Money Not War: Trump’s Real Plan for Peace in Ukraine
The Kremlin pitched the White House on peace through business. To Europe’s dismay, the president and his envoy are on board.
www.wsj.com
November 29, 2025 at 5:44 AM
“In days after Alaska, a European intel agency distributed a hard-copy report in an envelope to some of the continent’s most senior national security officials, who were shocked by the contents: Inside were details of the commercial and economic plans the Trump admin had been pursuing with Russia.”
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You can devise solutions for individual incentives, for corruption, for power balancing, but if it is the People themselves who are corrupt...you can't fix that.
The only solution I see is for the People to relearn the virtue of not touching the stove by virtue of stove-touching.
The only solution I see is for the People to relearn the virtue of not touching the stove by virtue of stove-touching.
November 30, 2025 at 3:33 PM
You can devise solutions for individual incentives, for corruption, for power balancing, but if it is the People themselves who are corrupt...you can't fix that.
The only solution I see is for the People to relearn the virtue of not touching the stove by virtue of stove-touching.
The only solution I see is for the People to relearn the virtue of not touching the stove by virtue of stove-touching.
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The core problem is that in a state, something has to be sovereign - in a democracy, it is the people - and you can design and tinker as much as you like but there is no way to design around a loss of virtue in that sovereign entity.
If the people keep elected maniacs, no guardrails can hold.
If the people keep elected maniacs, no guardrails can hold.
one of the things dr schake and i were both wrestling with in this conversation--i think not really conclusively--is how you maintain the norm of civilian supremacy when the civilians are issuing objectively illegal, murderous orders
Neon Liberalism #54: Join Samantha and guest Kori Schake, author of "The State and the Soldier," as they discuss the history of civil-military relations in America—and how that relationship is being pushed to the breaking point. www.liberalcurrents.com/neon-liberal...
November 30, 2025 at 3:31 PM
The core problem is that in a state, something has to be sovereign - in a democracy, it is the people - and you can design and tinker as much as you like but there is no way to design around a loss of virtue in that sovereign entity.
If the people keep elected maniacs, no guardrails can hold.
If the people keep elected maniacs, no guardrails can hold.
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If you think that the 2012 Olympics were the high water mark for the UK, then you were too wealthy to notice the prior 4 years of decline.
November 30, 2025 at 1:55 PM
If you think that the 2012 Olympics were the high water mark for the UK, then you were too wealthy to notice the prior 4 years of decline.
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Ofc, we didn't actually invade Finland. We "assisted" the new "legitimate government" who "asked" for help after tiny Finland aggressively attacked USSR just as our army was peacefully massed on their previous border in attack formation.
Again. Imagine that happening today
Again. Imagine that happening today
November 30, 2025 at 1:36 PM
Ofc, we didn't actually invade Finland. We "assisted" the new "legitimate government" who "asked" for help after tiny Finland aggressively attacked USSR just as our army was peacefully massed on their previous border in attack formation.
Again. Imagine that happening today
Again. Imagine that happening today
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OTD in 1939 USSR began to liberate Finland from themselves in the Winter War. It followed denials, a false flag, a bullshit excuse, us deliberately targeting civilians while we took massive casualties we lied about.
Imagine that happening today...
Imagine that happening today...
November 30, 2025 at 1:36 PM
OTD in 1939 USSR began to liberate Finland from themselves in the Winter War. It followed denials, a false flag, a bullshit excuse, us deliberately targeting civilians while we took massive casualties we lied about.
Imagine that happening today...
Imagine that happening today...
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“Cutting ordinary people out of the judicial system, weakening the scope of jury trials, and leaning even more upon magistrates and judges, will reinforce a more technocratic system and only deepen public mistrust.” My @theobserveruk.bsky.social column: observer.co.uk/news/columni...
Defending trial by jury is crucial in a society where democracy is being eroded | The Observer
observer.co.uk
November 30, 2025 at 12:25 PM
“Cutting ordinary people out of the judicial system, weakening the scope of jury trials, and leaning even more upon magistrates and judges, will reinforce a more technocratic system and only deepen public mistrust.” My @theobserveruk.bsky.social column: observer.co.uk/news/columni...
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Darn it he’s right
It's a diaeresis!
November 29, 2025 at 8:13 PM
Darn it he’s right
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Sarah Kendzior @sarahkendzior.bsky.social said it best in 2020
November 29, 2025 at 6:34 PM
Sarah Kendzior @sarahkendzior.bsky.social said it best in 2020
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They can and do, and not just state actors.
November 29, 2025 at 5:19 PM
They can and do, and not just state actors.
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one reason "great power competition" is a bad description of the emerging order is that an interlinked global kleptocracy does not care about national interests or rivalries
Extraordinary WSJ reporting today that unveils the extent to which Trump, Witkoff, Kushner and US business executives are salivating over business deals with Russia while Putin’s forces kidnap Ukranian children and bomb civilians in their apartments.
🎁 www.wsj.com/world/russia...
🎁 www.wsj.com/world/russia...
November 29, 2025 at 2:42 PM
one reason "great power competition" is a bad description of the emerging order is that an interlinked global kleptocracy does not care about national interests or rivalries
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“Urbem venalem et mature perituram, si emptorem invenerit.”
Want an example of how populism at home leads to strategic corruption from abroad?
Can’t be clearer than this.
The rule of law doesn’t just protect citizens from their own rulers.
It also protects them from foreign corruption and countries like Russia that specialise in it.
Can’t be clearer than this.
The rule of law doesn’t just protect citizens from their own rulers.
It also protects them from foreign corruption and countries like Russia that specialise in it.
Extraordinary WSJ reporting today that unveils the extent to which Trump, Witkoff, Kushner and US business executives are salivating over business deals with Russia while Putin’s forces kidnap Ukranian children and bomb civilians in their apartments.
🎁 www.wsj.com/world/russia...
🎁 www.wsj.com/world/russia...
November 29, 2025 at 1:58 PM
“Urbem venalem et mature perituram, si emptorem invenerit.”
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🏺 Two things have become clear in researching #Matriarcha:
1) direct evidence of how dangerous birth is – skeletons with stuck at-term babies inside them – goes back many millennia
2) humans/hominins have likely been obligate social birthers for about as long as they've been obligate tool users
1) direct evidence of how dangerous birth is – skeletons with stuck at-term babies inside them – goes back many millennia
2) humans/hominins have likely been obligate social birthers for about as long as they've been obligate tool users
Point of order: all human births are “natural.” Medical interventions in fertility are a fundamental part of the deep history of our species. Stop mom-shaming women who want and need medicine for being, um, human. Cheers!
November 27, 2025 at 6:06 PM
🏺 Two things have become clear in researching #Matriarcha:
1) direct evidence of how dangerous birth is – skeletons with stuck at-term babies inside them – goes back many millennia
2) humans/hominins have likely been obligate social birthers for about as long as they've been obligate tool users
1) direct evidence of how dangerous birth is – skeletons with stuck at-term babies inside them – goes back many millennia
2) humans/hominins have likely been obligate social birthers for about as long as they've been obligate tool users
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The Somersets and FitzAlan-Howards have been around for a while.
November 26, 2025 at 10:44 PM
The Somersets and FitzAlan-Howards have been around for a while.
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Curious how this enjoyably peripheral, not to say frivolous, exchange follows a rather serious point made by the LCJ and reported by Joshua Rozenberg.
November 26, 2025 at 10:27 PM
Curious how this enjoyably peripheral, not to say frivolous, exchange follows a rather serious point made by the LCJ and reported by Joshua Rozenberg.
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EN DIRECT, guerre en Ukraine : le conseiller de la Maison Blanche Steve Witkoff a conseillé la Russie sur la manière de présenter son « plan de paix » à Trump
EN DIRECT, guerre en Ukraine : le conseiller de la Maison Blanche Steve Witkoff a conseillé la Russie sur la manière de présenter son « plan de paix » à Trump
L’émissaire spécial a eu un entretien téléphonique, le 14 octobre, avec Iouri Ouchakov, le conseiller du Kremlin pour la politique étrangère, selon un enregistrement consulté par Bloomberg, qui en produit la transcription. Ensemble, ils ont élaboré un plan pour l’Ukraine et suggéré que Vladimir Poutine en discute directement avec le président américain.
www.lemonde.fr
November 26, 2025 at 12:11 AM
EN DIRECT, guerre en Ukraine : le conseiller de la Maison Blanche Steve Witkoff a conseillé la Russie sur la manière de présenter son « plan de paix » à Trump
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I've done more than my fair share of jury service - 4 cases in total - and am in favour of it as a direct result of that experience. It works. Feels like an important democratic check (not least) on the power of judges - who, through no fault of their own - must inevitably get jaded by experience.
November 25, 2025 at 10:18 PM
I've done more than my fair share of jury service - 4 cases in total - and am in favour of it as a direct result of that experience. It works. Feels like an important democratic check (not least) on the power of judges - who, through no fault of their own - must inevitably get jaded by experience.
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In essence: juries are important for what decisions they prevent others from making.
Juries are not perfect.
Many of the worst miscarriages of justice have followed jury trials.
But the merit of juries is not so much the power they have, but the power they prevent others from having.
They mean a judge cannot just nod-along with prosecution evidence and give a guilty verdict.
Many of the worst miscarriages of justice have followed jury trials.
But the merit of juries is not so much the power they have, but the power they prevent others from having.
They mean a judge cannot just nod-along with prosecution evidence and give a guilty verdict.
November 25, 2025 at 9:52 PM
In essence: juries are important for what decisions they prevent others from making.
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The entire world can clearly see that Putin owns Steve Witkoff and yet Witkoff is the one that Trump wants leading the negotiations on a peace deal. If Putin owns Witkoff, and Trump doesn’t care, that means Putin owns Trump - either directly, by proxy, or by stupidity.
November 25, 2025 at 9:53 PM
The entire world can clearly see that Putin owns Steve Witkoff and yet Witkoff is the one that Trump wants leading the negotiations on a peace deal. If Putin owns Witkoff, and Trump doesn’t care, that means Putin owns Trump - either directly, by proxy, or by stupidity.
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Witkoff advised the Russians on how to pitch their Ukraine plan to Trump www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
November 25, 2025 at 9:51 PM
Witkoff advised the Russians on how to pitch their Ukraine plan to Trump www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
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I think that is a little too much but other systems out there and no one says that betrays justice ? a defendent is still presume innocent and the crown still have to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt
November 25, 2025 at 8:20 PM
I think that is a little too much but other systems out there and no one says that betrays justice ? a defendent is still presume innocent and the crown still have to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt
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Whose side is he on? Whose side are we on? Spoiler alert: We already knew the answers. This just confirms them.
EXCLUSIVE: US presidential envoy Steve Witkoff advised Russia on how to pitch Ukraine plans to Trump, in audio files reviewed by Bloomberg
Witkoff Advised Russia on How to Pitch Ukraine Plan to Trump
US presidential envoy Steve Witkoff, fresh from the triumph of the Gaza peace deal, held a phone call last month with a senior Kremlin official to suggest they work together on a similar plan for Ukraine — and that Vladimir Putin should raise it with Donald Trump.
bloom.bg
November 25, 2025 at 9:27 PM
Whose side is he on? Whose side are we on? Spoiler alert: We already knew the answers. This just confirms them.
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Dutch public broadcaster NOS quits X over disinformation reut.rs/3KpybRU
Dutch public broadcaster NOS quits X over disinformation
Dutch public broadcaster NOS on Tuesday said it had stopped posting on Elon Musk's social media platform X, as it said it did not want to facilitate the spreading of disinformation.
reut.rs
November 25, 2025 at 9:25 PM
Dutch public broadcaster NOS quits X over disinformation reut.rs/3KpybRU
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Rumpole fans are often shocked to learn that it's the source of "She Who Must Be Obeyed."
November 25, 2025 at 8:31 PM
Rumpole fans are often shocked to learn that it's the source of "She Who Must Be Obeyed."