China Is Back on the Radar of European Pension Funds, Endowments
cross-posted from: lemmy.zip/post/50141482
archive.is/X6Whi
European pension funds, endowments and other large pools of long-term money are once again exploring private equity investments in ChinaNow, Chinese markets are booming on increased optimism over technology breakthroughs and the economy, as well as a shift out of the US.
In the race to attract the world’s smartest minds, China is gaining on the US | CNN
A Princeton nuclear physicist. A mechanical engineer who helped NASA explore manufacturing in space. A US National Institutes of Health neurobiologist. Celebrated mathematicians. And over half a dozen AI experts. The list of research talent leaving the US to work in China is glittering – and growing.
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Munich drone sightings force airport to cancel flights in latest Europe disruption
Drone sightings over Munich airport on Thursday evening forced air traffic control to suspend operations, leading to the cancellation of 17 flights and disrupting travel for nearly 3,000 passengers in the German city.Another 15 arriving flights were diverted to Stuttgart, Nuremberg, Vienna and Frankfurt, the airport said in a statement, marking the latest drone disruption to European aviation after sightings temporarily shut airports in Denmark and Norway last week.
Munich airport reopens after halting flights because of drone sightings
Travel disrupted for thousands on eve of national holiday in latest drone incident to hit European aviationDeborah Cole (The Guardian)
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Germany updates: AfD tops poll with highest support ever
Germany updates: AfD tops poll with highest support ever
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has topped a nationwide opinion poll. Meanwhile, Kenyan athletes won both the men's and women's races at the Berlin Marathon. DW has the latest from Germany.John Silk (Deutsche Welle)
You realize you literally just linked a page that verifies everything I said wrong with the Danish system, right? And I didn't call Danish left wing parties far right, I called the immigration policy far-right.
Take your sealioning elsewhere.
There's only 1 party in the United States that has political power and it's the party of the ruling class.
Democrat vs. republican only exists to give us the illusion of choice, and it works every time.
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Wesley Bell Used $35,000 in Campaign Cash to Buy His Friend’s Dodge Durango
Last week, Cori Bush announced she would be challenging Bell in a rematch. The election will be held Tuesday, August 4, 2026. During the last race, AIPAC – the American Israel Public Affairs Committee – funneled more than $3 million directly to Bell’s campaign, and spent nearly $9 million on a super PAC supporting him. Bell unseated Bush by around 7,000 votes.
Bell previously ran into political problems over a taxpayer-funded 2016 Chevy Tahoe he drove as St. Louis County prosecutor, racking up enough unpaid parking tickets that it made the local news in 2019. In October 2022, Farmer put a personal 2020 Durango up for sale on Facebook.
In September 2022, Bell used public money to order two new vehicles for himself and for Farmer. For himself, he bought a Ford Expedition Limited for $69,964 and for Farmer an Expedition XLT – unlike Bell’s, no leather seats – for $60,494, according to news reports at the time.
To find room in the budget, Bell had requested additional funds to hire new attorneys, and was given $700,000 in American Rescue Plan Act money for the purpose, local media reported. After hiring about half the attorneys he said he would, he shifted money from another fund for employees and used it to buy the vehicles.
Wesley Bell Used $35,000 in Campaign Cash to Buy His Friend’s Dodge Durango
The congressman from St. Louis put some of AIPAC's money to an unusual use. He now faces a rematch with Cori Bush.Ryan Grim (Drop Site News)
Wesley Bell Used $35,000 in Campaign Cash to Buy His Friend’s Dodge Durango
Last week, Cori Bush announced she would be challenging Bell in a rematch. The election will be held Tuesday, August 4, 2026. During the last race, AIPAC – the American Israel Public Affairs Committee – funneled more than $3 million directly to Bell’s campaign, and spent nearly $9 million on a super PAC supporting him. Bell unseated Bush by around 7,000 votes.
Bell previously ran into political problems over a taxpayer-funded 2016 Chevy Tahoe he drove as St. Louis County prosecutor, racking up enough unpaid parking tickets that it made the local news in 2019. In October 2022, Farmer put a personal 2020 Durango up for sale on Facebook.
In September 2022, Bell used public money to order two new vehicles for himself and for Farmer. For himself, he bought a Ford Expedition Limited for $69,964 and for Farmer an Expedition XLT – unlike Bell’s, no leather seats – for $60,494, according to news reports at the time.
To find room in the budget, Bell had requested additional funds to hire new attorneys, and was given $700,000 in American Rescue Plan Act money for the purpose, local media reported. After hiring about half the attorneys he said he would, he shifted money from another fund for employees and used it to buy the vehicles.
Wesley Bell Used $35,000 in Campaign Cash to Buy His Friend’s Dodge Durango
The congressman from St. Louis put some of AIPAC's money to an unusual use. He now faces a rematch with Cori Bush.Ryan Grim (Drop Site News)
At Saudi Comedy Fest, American Free Speech Becomes the Punchline
“Right now in America, they say that if you talk about Charlie Kirk, that you’ll get canceled,” the comedian Dave Chappelle quipped on Saturday at the Riyadh Comedy Festival, the first event of its kind in Saudi Arabia. “I don’t know if that’s true, but I’m gonna find out.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/world/middleeast/saudi-comedy-festival-riyadh-free-speech.html
What's the factor when you're planning to self-hosted a instance?
I am interested of self-hosting my own instance but one the issue I have is:
- Price for renting server and buying domain name. Mainly, I have low income.
- Unsure if it be single-user instance or if I want multiple people on my instance.
- If my instance is for multiple users, if I be the best fit for moderation as well, pitching it to non Fedizen (whatever you call people that use the Fediverse) as well as the theme of the instance as it would effect my Fedi software of choice (eg. Friendica, Mastodon/Glitch)
I just worried that I try just do it immediately without planning things out or have whatever things in mind which might otherwise help me know what's the best choice and not be upset that I wasted my time and money on something that didn't work out for me.
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I didn't give it nearly as much thought before I started.
In terms of price, you can set a very low price for a single-user instance. Hetzner and Netcup, for example, offer very affordable VPS (these are providers I know of, but there are certainly others).
I don't see open registration as a problem either. I've had it for years, and when I get waves of spam, which is very rare, I switch to moderated mode, otherwise it remains open.
I would host software according to your preferences. I should have kept Friendica running and turned off Mastodon, but that ship has sailed for me.
For a single-user instant, it might be interesting to connect to a relay; it is important that it is moderated. Fedimins offers such a service.
Russia is helping China to prepare for a potential invasion of Taiwan, defense institute says
Russia is helping China to prepare for a potential invasion of Taiwan, defense institute says
LONDON (AP) — Russia is selling military equipment and technology to China that could help Beijing prepare an airborne invasion of Taiwan, according to an analysis of leaked Russian documents by a U.K.-based defense and security forum.EMMA BURROWS, Associated Press (The Hill)
I honestly doubt that russia would be trusted to supply anything for the chinese military outside of raw materials.
Also, whats a high altitude parachute? is it just one that deploys higher up? Wouldint that make the troops and stuff easier to hit?
On top of that, if russia had all this...why couldnt they take Kyiv?
After watching Is Russia Already at War With NATO?
I think it is more likely that trump is trying to goad NATO into responding more seriously to russia, and then once they do trump can condem the action and support russia against NATO.
Now russia can pull out of Ukraine without admitting defeat
Thank you for pointing-out that he could be doing that particular machiavellianism: I'd not thought of any such game.
I've been telling people for years that Trump's going to ditch NATO & back his original backer, Putin, against NATO.
lee.senate.gov/2025/6/lee-intr…
& "The Kremlin Papers" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kremlin_… show who's investment Trump is ( apparently The Guardian has now disappeared all such content? from DuckDuckGo, it has, anyways.. how spectacularly depressing to see propagandism go THAT deep, eradicating journalism even-more, since Guardian changed ownership ).
He's playing a negative-sum game, same as Putin, same as mass-shooters: the intent is that NOone matter, after he's gone: he gets to be "the last word", & gets to be the "king" which presides over the destruction of the world's potential.
Zero-sum games are competitive-narcissism, but negative-sum games are competitive-nihilism-and-narcissism.. different motivation entirely.
_ /\ _
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Israel set up GHF to ‘weaponize’ aid distribution in Gaza: Whistleblower
Israel set up GHF to ‘weaponize’ aid distribution in Gaza: Whistleblower
A US Army veteran and former contractor for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) says Israel established the US-backed aid scheme to “weaponize” food distribution in the Gaza Strip amid a genocidal war.PressTV
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Starvation is a war crime. So why is it so rarely prosecuted?
Starvation is a war crime. So why is it so rarely prosecuted?
From Bengal to Gaza, hunger is often used as a weapon of war but almost never punished.Kalika Mehta (Al Jazeera)
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Iran must move its capital from Tehran, says president as water crisis worsens
Iran must move its capital from Tehran, says president as water crisis worsens
Masoud Pezeshkian says subsidence is also ‘a disaster’ in city of 10 million, which consumes quarter of Iran’s waterPatrick Wintour (The Guardian)
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Two arrested as 'African tribe' evicted after raid on group's camp in Scottish wood
Two arrested as 'African tribe' evicted after raid on group's camp in Scottish wood
Sky's Scotland correspondent Connor Gillies reported on claims that Kaura Taylor, 21, from Texas, was lured and coerced into moving to the forest, 4,000 miles away from home.Sky News
French court to try Chinese captain of suspected Russian ‘shadow fleet’ tanker
cross-posted from: lemmy.kde.social/post/4574561
A French court is to try the Chinese captain of a tanker from Russia's "shadow fleet" early next year after it was intercepted off France, prosecutors said Thursday, in a move seen as a message to Moscow over its efforts to skirt Western oil sanctions.The French navy on Saturday stopped the Boracay, a vessel claiming to be flagged in Benin and blacklisted by the European Union for being part of Russia's sanction-busting "shadow fleet" of ageing oil tankers, according to the public prosecutor's office in the northwestern city of Brest.
French court to try Chinese captain of suspected Russian ‘shadow fleet’ tanker
A French court will try the Chinese captain of a Russian-linked oil tanker early next year after the vessel, part of Moscow’s so-called “shadow fleet,” was intercepted off the French coast, prosecutors said Thursday.FRANCE 24
Note that they'll be tried only for refusing to comply with a police check whatever is the proper word for that. The kind of stuff you get a fine for.
Looks like more a pretext to bring that captain to France and have intelligence service talking with him than a serious crime.
Fediverse Report 136 - This week's fediverse news
- Newsmast takes a new direction with a white-label app for news organisations that also offers fediverse integration
- a paper by @inquiline on targeted harassment on Mastodon
- ActivityPub Fuzzer is a new tool that helps devs with interoperability
- WordPress blog posts now can be quote posted!
Fediverse Report – #136
White-label fediverse apps for news organisations with Newsmast, a paper exploring how harrassment on Mastodon works, and a new tool for easier fediverse interoperability.connectedplaces.online
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Michael Foster describes how news organisations do not gel well with the original approach of either Mastodon servers or the channel.org communities. The finding of Newsmast is that this is too confusing and tech-centric for news organisations to really grasp. Instead, Newsmast is now going in the direction of apps, as “independent news publishers and campaigning organisations love the idea of having an app.”
Fuck, that is depressing. I mean, I really hope that this works for Newsmast but if people running a news organisation can't wrap their head around the fediverse, I'm not sure I'll trust them with news ... I don't know. I can't even understand what's supposed to be complicated.
Stephen Miller takes leading role in strikes on alleged Venezuelan drug boats
Exclusive: Miller’s homeland security council has played a key part in coordinating operations, sources say
Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, has played a leading role in directing US strikes against suspected Venezuelan drug boats, according to three people familiar with the situation. At times, his role has superseded that of Marco Rubio, the secretary of state and national security adviser.
The strikes on the Venezuelan boats allegedly carrying narcotics, which the administration has claimed were necessary because interdiction did not work, have been orchestrated through the homeland security council (HSC), which Miller leads as the homeland security adviser.
Miller empowered the HSC earlier this year to become its own entity in Donald Trump’s second term, a notable departure from previous administrations where it was considered part of the national security council and ultimately reported to the national security adviser.
Man, he looks so much like a slim Mussolini.
Slim Mussolini is my DJ name.
Generation Z is stirring up rebellion across borders, from Morocco to Madagascar
Gen Z, the first generation to have grown up in the internet age, has been at the forefront of anti-government protests in several countries of the Global South. Madagascar and Morocco are the latest countries to be hit by these youth-led movements, which use digital tools to communicate anger at corruption and underfunded social services.
Generation Z is stirring up rebellion across borders, from Morocco to Madagascar
Gen Z, the first generation to have grown up in the internet age, has been at the forefront of anti-government protests in several countries of the Global South.Grégoire SAUVAGE (FRANCE 24)
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A Canadian politician is openly spreading Nazi propaganda
A Canadian politician is openly spreading Nazi propaganda
Do you ever see something that is absolutely horrifying, the implications of which are terrible, and no one else seems to really notice? These two tweets are one of those things for me: Anyone with a basic understanding of politics is aware that Naz…Abe Oudshoorn (Truths and Loves)
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PP so pathetic. Lost the election lost his riding lost his mind. And he’s a career politician. So none of this is excusable.
Pathetic.
No, his claims are not "simply" ignorant, as the article claims:
his claims are INTENTIONALLY ignorant, which is malevolent, is disinformation, & is gaslighting-of-fact.
The difference between the 2 states is signficant.
_ /\ _
Admins: Instnace randomly running extremely slowly? Check for this
During some work with Tess, I'd notice that my test instance was running horribly slow. The CPU was spiking, Postgres was not happy and using pretty much all the available compute.
Investigating, I found the culprit to be some crawler or possibly malicious actor sending a massive number of unscoped requests to /api/v3/comment/list. What I mean by "unscoped" is without limiting it to a post ID. I'm not sure if this is a bug in Lemmy or there's a legit use for just fetching only comments outside of a post, but I digress as that's another discussion.
After disallowing unscoped requests to the comment list endpoint (see mitigation further down), no more issue.
The kicker seemed to be that this bot / jackass was searching by "Old" and was requesting thousands of pages deep.
Requests looked like this: GET /api/v3/comment/list?limit=50&sort=Old&page=16413
Since I shutdown Dubvee officially, I'm not keeping logs as long as I used to, but I saw other page numbers in the access log, but they were all above 10,000. From the logs I have available, the requests seem to be coming from these 3 IP addresses, but I have insufficient data to confirm this is all of them (probably isn't).
- 134.19.178.167
- 213.152.162.5
- 134.19.179.211
Log Excerpt
Note that I log the query string as well as the URI. I've run a custom Nginx setup for so long, I actually don't recall if the query string is logged by default or not. If you're not logging the query string, you can still look for the 3 (known) IPs above making requests to /api/v3/comment/list and see if entries similar to these show up.
2025-09-21T14:31:59-04:00 {LB_NAME}: dubvee.org, https, {LB_IP}, 134.19.179.211, - , NL, Amsterdam, North Holland, 52.37590, 4.89750, TLSv1.3, TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384, "GET", "/api/v3/comment/list", "limit=50&sort=Old&page=16413"
2025-09-21T14:32:00-04:00 {LB_NAME}: dubvee.org, https, {LB_IP}, 134.19.179.211, - , NL, Amsterdam, North Holland, 52.37590, 4.89750, TLSv1.3, TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384, "GET", "/api/v3/comment/list", "limit=50&sort=Old&page=16413"
2025-09-21T14:32:01-04:00 {LB_NAME}: dubvee.org, https, {LB_IP}, 134.19.179.211, - , NL, Amsterdam, North Holland, 52.37590, 4.89750, TLSv1.3, TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384, "GET", "/api/v3/comment/list", "limit=50&sort=Old&page=16413"
2025-09-21T14:32:01-04:00 {LB_NAME}: dubvee.org, https, {LB_IP}, 134.19.179.211, - , NL, Amsterdam, North Holland, 52.37590, 4.89750, TLSv1.3, TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384, "GET", "/api/v3/comment/list", "limit=50&sort=Old&page=16413"
2025-09-21T14:32:12-04:00 {LB_NAME}: dubvee.org, https, {LB_IP}, 134.19.179.211, - , NL, Amsterdam, North Holland, 52.37590, 4.89750, TLSv1.3, TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384, "GET", "/api/v3/comment/list", "limit=50&sort=Old&page=16413"
2025-09-21T14:32:13-04:00 {LB_NAME}: dubvee.org, https, {LB_IP}, 134.19.179.211, - , NL, Amsterdam, North Holland, 52.37590, 4.89750, TLSv1.3, TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384, "GET", "/api/v3/comment/list", "limit=50&sort=Old&page=16413"
2025-09-21T14:32:13-04:00 {LB_NAME}: dubvee.org, https, {LB_IP}, 134.19.179.211, - , NL, Amsterdam, North Holland, 52.37590, 4.89750, TLSv1.3, TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384, "GET", "/api/v3/comment/list", "limit=50&sort=Old&page=16413"
2025-09-21T14:32:13-04:00 {LB_NAME}: dubvee.org, https, {LB_IP}, 134.19.179.211, - , NL, Amsterdam, North Holland, 52.37590, 4.89750, TLSv1.3, TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384, "GET", "/api/v3/comment/list", "limit=50&sort=Old&page=16413"Mitigation:
First, I blocked the IPs making these requests, but they would come back from a different one. Finally, I implemented a more robust solution.
My final mitigation was to simply reject requests to /api/v3/comment/list that did not have a post ID in the query parameters. I did this by creating a dedicated location block in Nginx that is an exact match for /api/v3/comment/list and doing the checks there.
I could probably add another check to see if the page number is beyond a reasonable number, but since I'm not sure what, if any, clients utilize this, I'm content just blocking unscoped comment list requests entirely. If you have more info / better suggestion, leave it in the comments.
# Basically an and/or for has post_id or has saved_only
map $has_post_id:$has_saved_only $comment_list_invalid{
"1:0" 1;
"0:1" 1;
"1:1" 1;
default 0;
}
server {
...
location = /api/v3/comment/list {
# You'll need the standard proxy_pass headers such as Host, etc. I load those from an include file.
include conf.d/includes/http/server/location/proxy.conf;
# Create a variable to hold a 0/1 state
set $has_post_id 0;
# If the URL query string contains 'post_id' set the variable to 1
if ($arg_post_id) {
set $has_post_id 1;
}
if ($arg_saved_only) {
set $has_saved_only 1;
}
# If the comment_list_invalid map resolves to 0, "send" a 444 resposne
# 444 is an Nginx-specific return code that immediately closes the connection
# and wastes no further resources on the request
if ($comment_list_invalid = 0) {
return 444;
}
# Otherwise, proxy pass to the API as normal
# (replace this with whatever your upstream name is for the Lemmy API
proxy_pass "http://lemmy-be/";
}
Canada Warns Travelers With X Marker on Passports They May Face Obstacles in US
cross-posted from: ibbit.at/post/70458
The Canadian Department of Global Affairs has updated its travel advice for people planning to travel to the United States, specifically warning people who have the gender marker “X” on their passports that they may face obstacles or restrictions while traveling abroad. The X marker is specifically granted to transgender or nonbinary individuals who do not want to place a “male” or “female”…From Truthout via this RSS feed
Canada Warns Travelers With X Marker on Passports They May Face Obstacles in US
People with an X marker on their passports may “face entry restrictions” in the US, the Canadian government warned.Chris Walker (Truthout)
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States (a state is a government, a nation is a group of people) can do whatever they want with their passport. One of the perks of being sovereign. But there are groups of countries that have mutually agreed what should be on a passport and how/where.
The EU is a big example, but there is also a common passport for ECOWAS for several West African states and many others.
That said, I think they all list sex/gender, but I'm open to being corrected by someone who actually knows.
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It is obviously based on an outdated concept of gender, but it actually is pretty useful to help match people to passports. If someone identifies as male but is dressed like a woman, it raises red flags. The answer to that might be as simple as "This is a 90s sitcom and I lost a transphobic bet" but it is there. Same with hair color.
Which, funny enough, is an argument for people to actually write down the gender they identify as. But it is also a lot like hair color or facial hair in that it is just too cost and time prohibitive to update a passport every time someone tries a new look. Because... genderfluid people exist.
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Australian says he was improperly arrested in Thailand over his criticism of Malaysia
Australian says he was improperly arrested in Thailand over his criticism of Malaysia
An Australian man arrested in Thailand on a defamation charge he says originated with Malaysia's government claims he is a victim of transnational repression, in which Southeast Asia countries cooperate in seizing dissidents or critics who are not on…GRANT PECK Associated Press (ABC News)
🍹 Log Out @ Roma
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Unisciti al Gruppo telegram!
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Shooting down Russian jets ‘on the table,’ von der Leyen says
Shooting down Russian jets ‘on the table,’ von der Leyen says
The Commission president’s comment follows an assertion by U.S. President Donald Trump that NATO countries should shoot down Russian jets that violate their airspace.Sasha Schroeder (POLITICO)
See Vladimir Soloviev (journalist, presenter on the public funded Rossiya 1 channel), Dmitri Medvedev ( current vice president of the Russian federation security council), Margarita Simonian (public servant at Russia Segodnia).
Do your own research, it should be easy enough.
U.S. State Department greenlights potential sale of $2.4B mobile rocket system to Canada
cross-posted from: sh.itjust.works/post/47146770
Contract not yet negotiated, Congress must grant approval
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IF we actually got them, AND they weren't remotely-sabotaged/deactivated,
THEN we could use them against the aggressor, to multiply our effectiveness in the coming Americas Wars that will be Trump's final "legacy".
_ /\ _
I believe that the game Trump is playing is this:
- Get us to contract to buy weapons from them,
- declare annexation/war against Canada,
- keep the money, bankrupting our ability to buy weapons,
- use the weapons we paid-for against Canada, to gain Trump's "Manifest Destiny" quicker & more-efficiently,
- then Trump gets to be "king of the entire continent" before he dies.
For all who believe this is baseless delusion, have some fact: thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/…
This has been brewing all along, since the days of the colonies warring against each-other, the British-loyal colonies vs the United-States colonies..
When somebody pointed-out here in c/world , the other day, that Trump appears to be hoping that Europe will strike Russia so that he can then openly side with Russia, against Europe, .. damn, I wish I'd seen/understood that machiavellianism..
I don't remember what video he was linking-to ( as I didn't watch it ) that convinced him that this was going-on, but it was an understanding pushed by evidence, not just some narcissist-conspiricism, it seemed to me.
Also, it got the natures/motivations/behaviors in a better-fit than my previous understanding did, so I accept it as operationally-true.
I've been telling people for .. perhaps a decade, now, that Trump will ditch NATO, join Russia ( as the now-disappeared-from-the-internet "Kremlin Papers" journalism identified: his original backer ), & help Russia destroy the hated woke countries, especially the EU.
lee.senate.gov/2025/6/lee-intr…
I hadn't forseen his declaring war against Canada, so as to possess the entire-continent, until recently ( past year or so? ).
It's inevitable, now.
The reason he wants Greenland is so that between Alaska, mainland US, Greenland, & Trump's former-Pentagon/now-Department-Of-War, his airforce & his navy, he can SNUFF Canada's trade, & thereby break Canada's life more-efficiently.
There IS unconscious-strategy going-on, in him.
His SurfaceMind's a chaotic mess, but his unconscious-mind is strategic, & lethal, as Project-2025's successful implimentation proves..
There is ZERO point in pretending that Trump will allow any election to unseat him: Civil War Part2 will happen, when he doesn't permit whichever election it is that he feels fundamentally-threatened by. Maybe 2026 he'll just "deregister" all Democrats, so they can't vote, or maybe he'll just "denaturalize" them, so they don't even have citizenship in any country, anymore, & ICE can deport them all legally.
The US of A's finished as a real country with civil-rights & constitutional-rule-of-law.
The longer the rest of the world pretends otherwise, the farther along the path of self-destruction humankind puts itself, & therefore the smaller the fraction of POSSIBLE survivors of this-century's Great Filter.
It's the species-equivalent to puberty: you can't believe-your-way-past-it, it is an all-consuming-tranformation that eats your unconscious-mind's nature, & FORCES one's life into embodying it.
All world-species who gain world-shattering technology, WITHOUT their unconscious-mind/nature growing-up, break their world's ecology, & then shred themselves in wars as the food-chain, the climate, enforced-migrations, political/ideological rabies, etc, all COMBINE at once..
It is inevitable.
Surviving it isn't inevitable, but is an opportunity, IF earned.
We're .. not earning that, presently, but instead going in a distinctly-different direction.
shrug
Universe couldn't care: species-extinction is every bit as socially "valid" as is species-growing-up, right?
OUR "fate": OUR determination.
_ /\ _
Lee Introduces Withdrawal from NATO
WASHINGTON – As NATO concludes another ineffective summit, U.S. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) introduced the Not A Trusted Organization (NATO) Act today to withdraw the United States from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).Mike Lee US Senator for Utah
Macron urges Europe to 'increase pressure' on Russia's shadow fleet
https://www.euractiv.com/news/macron-urges-europe-to-increase-pressure-on-russias-shadow-fleet/
Two dead in Manchester synagogue attack, with suspect shot dead by police
Manchester synagogue attacker was on bail after rape arrest, police say
Jihad Al-Shamie, 35, had not been charged with the offence before launching a car ramming and stabbing attack on Thursday.BBC News
NOSTR and content moderation
I wrote a rather lenghty to reply to some guy's toot asking about if he should block mostr.pub. I thought it might be appreciated here.
Getting some reports about #mostr accounts that seem to just spew word soup, maybe to spam hashtags and links but after reading through a few profiles, I'm unsure what the deal there is. Am I right in assuming that nostr is by design more or less unmoderateable? Is that reason enough to block the bridge? #FediAdmin
NOSTR is a protocol just like ActivityPub is. Neither protocol in-and-of-itself is moderated but supports the ability to be moderated. ActivityPub does it via instances and sometimes is baked right into the platform. (I recall at one time Lemmy automatically blocked any posts that contained reactionary language unless the admin edited the source code and re-compiled it themselves). Similarly, NOSTR relays chose how to handle the reports much the same way AP servers set their own standards.
If I understand correctly, a report goes to whichever relays mostr.pub is connected to, and it's up to each relay how to handle it. Some tag you as a whinny little bitch, others take that note out immediately, others ignore, and I think some actually have a dude look at its content and make decisions whether to remove the nevent (post) or actually block the npub (user).
Same as if you were using a NOSTR "account" yourself, except you don't have control over which relays your account connects to as natives do, by specifically connecting, or specifically blocking in your client. Instead, I think, it is solely determined by which nostr users connect their client to wss://realy.mostr.pub and which other relays those same users are connected to. I believe a given nostr relay can choose to block any user that connects to a particular other relay.
I don't expect @alexto be making any such blocks from the mostr relay. My understanding is that one of the reasons he's shifted his focus for Soapbox from a Pleroma focused solution to a NOSTR one is one thing that always bothered him about the AP powered 'verse is some random dude can cut off communication between you and your friend unless at least one of the two of you administers your own instance or you create a new account on a different instance.
I'm uncertain if momostr.pink or the other nostr bridge, whose name I can't remember currently, have similar lax policies that mostr.pub does or not. Regardless if you want direct control over anything more than blocking particular users, you are going to have to block any of these bridges.
In my personal experience I've been on NOSTR for over a year now, but Frienidca remains my primary social media. In that time I can say I've seen way more Bitcoin propaganda than even I am interested in, but certainly a lot less fascist, TERF, and racist nonsense than I have in some corners of the AP based 'verse. But bitcoin bois can get awful annoying. In general hosting a mastodon (or other platform) instance can be a dicey legal situation because you have little control on whether someone's [potentially illegal] porn ends up being stored on your hardware . This doesn't significantly change if you choose to connect your server to a nostr bridge or not.
BTW Soapbox, including mostr, doesn't connect to lemmy. I don't know if that was a purposeful design decision or just no one has bothered to make it work. There is at least one lemmy-like NOSTR client, Zapddit if it could connect to lemmy it might make me shift from Friendica to NOSTR as my primary social media.
Two arrested as self-styled ‘African tribe’ evicted from woods
Two arrested as self-styled ‘African tribe’ evicted from woods
The Home Office said an investigation is ongoing.Lucinda Cameron (Evening Standard)
There were three of them, the other one just didnt get arrested (im assuming)
Still not much of a tribe though, is it?
Death toll from Philippine quake rises to 72
Death toll from Philippine quake rises to 72
The Cebu earthquake was the country's deadliest since at least 2013.CNA (Channel NewsAsia)
Another 294 people were injured, the agency said in a report on Thursday. The latest death toll was an increase of three from Wednesday and all fatalities were recorded in the central Visayas region.The Cebu quake was the country's deadliest since at least 2013, when a 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck the neighbouring island of Bohol, killing 222 people.
Malaysia in talks with China for rare earth plant that could reshape the global supply chain
Malaysia in talks with China for rare earth plant that could reshape the global supply chain
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 2 — China and Malaysia are in early talks for a project to process rare earths, with sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional likely to partner with a Chinese...Malay Mail
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Russian manufacturing activity contracts for 4th straight month in September
cross-posted from: lemmy.sdf.org/post/43353333
The S&P Global Russia Manufacturing PMI fell to 48.2 in September 2025 from August’s 3-month high of 48.7, signaling a fourth straight month of contraction.Output declined at the sharpest rate in over three years, while new orders shrank more steeply.
Foreign demand also slumped, posting the largest drop since November 2022 amid weak export markets.
[...]
Purchasing activity shrank again, though more moderately, while supplier performance deteriorated the most in six months due to logistics bottlenecks and shortages.
On inflation, operating costs rose at the fastest pace in four months but remained below the long-run average, and firms raised output prices only fractionally.
[...]
Russia Manufacturing PMI
Manufacturing PMI in Russia decreased to 48.20 points in September from 48.70 points in August of 2025.tradingeconomics.com
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Thai government to allow citizens to partially convert losing lottery tickets to retirement savings
Thai government to allow citizens to partially convert losing lottery tickets to retirement savings
It allows citizens to convert money spent on losing digital lottery tickets into retirement savings. Read more at straitstimes.com.ST
This is called Solving The Wrong Problem(tm).
Getting a more-objective population who "invest" less in rigged-against-them "games" would be more strategic,
.. but what government would intentionally reduce its lottery-profits?
_ /\ _
U.S. to Share Intelligence With Ukraine for Strikes on Russian Energy Sites as Washington Asks NATO Allies to Provide Kyiv with Similar Support
U.S. President Donald Trump has authorized American intelligence agencies to provide Ukraine with targeting data for strikes on Russian energy infrastructure, including oil refineries, pipelines and power plants, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing anonymous American officials.
The order, which directs the Pentagon and intelligence services to supply the information, came shortly before Trump said that he believed Ukraine could win the war and reclaim all of its territory from Russia, the report said.
Trump has voiced increasing frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin as his efforts to mediate an end to the war have flatlined, and the intelligence-sharing is the latest signal that he is now deepening his support for Kyiv.
Washington has also asked NATO allies to provide Kyiv with similar support, according to the sources.
[...]
Thousands of trucks from China build up at Russia–Kazakhstan border amid the Kazakh government's enhanced controls, stricter enforcement of Western sanctions
cross-posted from: lemmy.sdf.org/post/43352741
Archived[...]
Yaroslav Belousov, head of international transport operations at FM Logistic in Russia, attributed the delays to intensified border checks, as both countries step up efforts to identify “dishonest shippers and carriers.” He added that many crossings are overwhelmed, with trucks filling nearby parking lots and lining the shoulders of approach roads.
[...]
[Deputy head of logistics at the transport company SLK Maim] Yemelin said that the delays could indicate a shift in Kazakhstan’s stance on sanctions enforcement. “It’s safe to say this isn’t a temporary glitch, but more likely a new reality — tighter controls and greater compliance with Western sanctions.”
[...]
Thousands of trucks from China build up at Russia–Kazakhstan border amid tighter controls from Almaty
Long lines of trucks carrying goods from China have built up at the Russia–Kazakhstan border as authorities on both sides ramp up inspections, Kommersant reports.Meduza
whiwake
in reply to schizoidman • • •like this
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floofloof
in reply to whiwake • • •like this
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whiwake
in reply to floofloof • • •knowone
in reply to whiwake • • •like this
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Avid Amoeba
in reply to floofloof • • •like this
Get_Off_My_WLAN e NoneOfUrBusiness like this.
atzanteol
in reply to floofloof • • •NoneOfUrBusiness
in reply to atzanteol • • •atzanteol
in reply to NoneOfUrBusiness • • •nondescripthandle
in reply to atzanteol • • •atzanteol
in reply to nondescripthandle • • •sadfitzy
in reply to floofloof • • •You are actually stupid if you think scientists will have more freedom in China than the US.
RenLinwood
in reply to sadfitzy • • •like this
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frustrated
in reply to sadfitzy • • •I suppose it really depends on what freedoms you consider important and how much you weigh things. It is true, in china, you cant be openly critical of the regime. FWIW, that is increasingly true in the US.
However, in china, you are free to not be killed by violence. You are free to get affordable healthcare. You are free to get affordable high quality food. You are free to get affordable housing (outside of Beijing and a few other financial centers). You are free to get an affordable high quality education. I dunno. There are tradeoffs. The US is increasingly offering less and less by way of substantive freedoms and is becoming more and more authoritarian.
Also, have you actually been to china? How much of what you know about china is based in outdated information from 30 years ago or might just be straight up propaganda? I have been in the last 10 years and it blew my mind and changed a lot about how viewed the country.
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NoneOfUrBusiness
in reply to whiwake • • •whiwake
in reply to NoneOfUrBusiness • • •corvalanlara
in reply to whiwake • • •Have you ever read the list of words you can’t use when applying for grants in the US?
Here’s the list: forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2025…
Imagine not being able to make research just because it focuses in the wrong topics according to the current government, topics like females, the climate crisis, mental health, racism and inequality.
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whiwake
in reply to corvalanlara • • •Nasan
in reply to corvalanlara • • •sadfitzy
in reply to NoneOfUrBusiness • • •NoneOfUrBusiness
in reply to sadfitzy • • •shani66
in reply to whiwake • • •like this
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whiwake
in reply to shani66 • • •sadfitzy
in reply to shani66 • • •Not really.
China doesn't protect freedom of speech. They don't even allow citizens to own their houses.
shani66
in reply to sadfitzy • • •like this
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sadfitzy
in reply to shani66 • • •shani66
in reply to sadfitzy • • •like this
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sadfitzy
in reply to shani66 • • •shani66
in reply to sadfitzy • • •like this
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sadfitzy
in reply to shani66 • • •Ok, one thing at a time.
What, specifically, are you referring to here?
You can be specific about anything else you've mentioned, I was just starting at the beginning.
shani66
in reply to sadfitzy • • •like this
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sadfitzy
in reply to shani66 • • •I'm not trolling.
You should learn how to argue effectively. You've said nothing of substance.
shani66
in reply to sadfitzy • • •like this
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sadfitzy
in reply to shani66 • • •I'm not acting in bad faith by asking you to be specific about a claim you made.
You're the one who is acting in bad faith by calling me a troll for not taking your word at face value.
Grow up.
shani66
in reply to sadfitzy • • •like this
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sadfitzy
in reply to shani66 • • •Really? Then why didn't you say that at the beginning?
Why did you say a bunch of things that amounted to nothing and then pivot to calling me a troll when I didn't take your word at face value?
Funny how much effort your putting into this versus just providing a source for your information. It really shows me why you're getting so upset. You can't provide citations and think I should be stupid enough to "trust you, bro."
You could be telling the truth, but only a moron/child would accept what you say as fact based solely on what you've presented.
I'm going to ignore you now since you're an idiot with no argument.
Go back to school and learn how to cite properly. You're behaving exactly like qanon.
RenLinwood
in reply to sadfitzy • • •shani66
in reply to sadfitzy • • •RenLinwood
in reply to sadfitzy • • •RenLinwood
in reply to sadfitzy • • •like this
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sadfitzy
in reply to RenLinwood • • •RenLinwood
in reply to sadfitzy • • •en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_…
blogs.loc.gov/law/2015/03/chin…
tile.loc.gov/storage-services/…
medium.com/@hrnews1/report-93-…
My point is that chinese citizens being able to own their homes is an easily verifiable fact, and that you're either deliberately lying or too stupid to walk and chew at the same time
Report: 93% of People in China Own Their Own Homes
HR NEWS (Medium)like this
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Ziggurat
in reply to schizoidman • • •like this
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njm1314
in reply to schizoidman • • •jaschen306
in reply to schizoidman • • •sifar
in reply to jaschen306 • • •This is relevant for immigrants who are trying to escape poverty, almost with no future in their own countries either for their personal or professional aspirations. I am not a China fan, but when you look at countries around the world, many of which are very poor and underdeveloped but with lots of brilliant, hard-working people with dreams and potential, they would rather go to a place where they have at least some stability, predicted living and working conditions, and a future, rather than to a place where one doesn't know whether the potential future mayor of New York City, born and brought up in the USA and hence of course a citizen who happens to be the son of a world-famous filmmaker and a well-known academic, will actually be deported or not. I mean that's a real possibility at this point - let that sink in. (I am not even going for more extreme examples)
I wish things were better, and I wish we didn't live in a world where China, yes, China – of all the countries, might become a viable alternative for people from the developing or underdeveloped world compared to the USA.
Hotznplotzn
in reply to sifar • • •sifar
in reply to Hotznplotzn • • •jaschen306
in reply to sifar • • •sifar
in reply to jaschen306 • • •The number of times I have used TikTok in my life is the integer just below 1.
(And now I am getting a sense of what that "other kind" of echo chamber these platforms are becoming as opposed to that kind of echo chamber Twitter etc are)
I mean the damn thing is banned here.
Hotznplotzn
in reply to schizoidman • • •There are always isolated exceptions, but the idea to move from the US to China because the US is becoming more and more autocratic is baseless. China has been a dictatorship for decades, and it doesn't get better because the US getting worse.
The list of researchers and others professionals leaving the US for Canada, Australia, Europe, and other democratic states is much longer. This article doesn't make sense.
As an addition, a report citing a Chinese state-controlled media:
Chinese professionals eye Europe as US visa uncertainty grows
According to the South China Morning Post, recent uncertainty over the U.S. H-1B visa program has led many Chinese professionals to consider leaving the United States for Europe. Confusion followed a U.S. government proposal to introduce a US$100,000 application fee for H-1B visas. Although later clarified to apply only to new visas, the announcement triggered panic among skilled workers and their families.
Chinese professionals eye Europe as US visa uncertainty grows - Scandasia
Alexander Vittrup (Scandasia)