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Cake day: June 14th, 2023

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  • Speaking to Mozambique’s President Daniel Chapo ​in Beijing on Tuesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged support for the continent and its development needs, according to a state media read-out that did not mention Lai’s cancelled visit to Eswatini.

    Lai, in a post on his Facebook page, said China’s “suppressive actions” demonstrate the threat that authoritarian states pose to the international order, ​peace, and stability.

    Couldn’t he just fly commercial?

    I do think it’s curious to hear the Taiwanese President insist their airplanes have an unmitigated right to fly over African airspace, given how many times I’ve heard Taiwanese-aligned press scream bloody murder over China violating Taiwanese airspace.

    Even funnier to post this on Facebook, a website that’s made a mint squelching dissent on behalf of its political sponsors.

    Maybe do what every other country does when they want an African national leader (or Tech Company CEO) to bend their way. Bribe them.

    Or bomb them, if you’re in the US/Israel bloc.



  • During the extreme heatwaves that sweltered large parts of Spain and Greece last summer, local solar farms saw “significant output dips” exactly when air-conditioning demand was peaking.

    “We tracked instances where surface temperatures on panels hit 65°C, leading to a nearly 20 per cent drop in theoretical capacity,” Vergini says.

    Last year, intense heat struck large swathes of Europe – including usually cool Finland, which endured three straight weeks of 30°C temperatures. Further south, Europeans struggled under temperatures exceeding 40°C, pushing dozens of nations into drought.

    Yikes




  • Now would be an amazing time to take a deep dive into the domestic politics of the Philippines and how the prior President’s trial for crimes against humanity is going.

    Duterte, who governed the Philippines from 2016 to 2022, was surrendered to the ICC in March last year over his sweeping anti-narcotics crackdown that Philippine police acknowledged killed more than 6,000 suspects, though rights groups put the true toll as high as 30,000.

    At pre-trial hearings that began in February, Duterte was accused of three counts of crimes against humanity – covering murder and, in one count, attempted murder – as “an indirect co-perpetrator” who had conspired with police to kill drug war victims.

    Prosecutors pointed to the notorious Davao Death Squad – a shadowy group long accused of carrying out extrajudicial killings in Duterte’s southern home city – saying he had “personally selected some of the targets” as mayor and later as president, and had told police whom to take out, with cash rewards as incentives.

    Among the atrocities he was accused of was encouraging officers not to spare even children.

    Oh well, anyway. Try not to think to hard about the parallels between The Philippines and Israel.


  • I saw someone being interviewed who didn’t know who hilter was. Apparently genuine.

    There was a bit that Conan O’Brian used to do back when he had a late-night show. He’d go out and do Man-On-The-Street interviews in… Times Square, I think? Can’t remember if he was LA or NY. But he’d ask some absurdly complex question and get this excellently reasoned and well-thought out answer from randos. And then he’d ask what they did for a living. It was inevitably some NASA engineer or finance professional or other well-educated individual. And they were all just… in the crowd. Because in a city as big as that, of course you’re going to get this extremely mixed bag.

    On the flip side, there’s Sailor Socialism, a podcaster and aspiring actress who baited an interview with an InfoWars reporter, in which she was dressed in a sailor fuku, then went viral talking about how she wanted universal health care and liked Bernie Sanders.

    Interview twenty people and edit the content down to the one or two who make for good entertainment. It’s a tried-and-true strategy.