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"We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals."

-- Immanuel Kant

News and Opinion

They Tortured Lambs In The West Bank

Israeli settlers were filmed torturing lambs which belonged to Palestinians in the West Bank.

Gouged their eyes out. Smashed them with cinder blocks. Beat them to death in front of their mothers.

Lambs.

It’s not the most evil thing the Israelis have done. Not by a long shot. Hell, all of human civilization subjects animals to cruel abuses every minute of every day through the horrors of factory farming.

But this particular incident shines a special sort of light into exactly what’s going on behind Israeli eyes over there in that sadistic society.

https://x.com/haaretzcom/status/1984980799792271535?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%...

Think about the hatred and savagery you’d need to summon up within yourself to gouge the eyes out of a living baby sheep. Think about the kind of person you’d have to become to do something like that to an innocent creature.

Those lambs didn’t know they were Palestinian. They didn’t know anything about Hamas or October 7 or the Nazi Holocaust, or any of the other reasons Israelis generally cite for their abuses of human beings.

They were just sitting there, doing absolutely nothing that could possibly be construed as harmful by even the most talented hasbarist.

And those settlers went in there and inflicted completely gratuitous suffering upon them.

This, to me anyway, just says so much about the level of vitriolic hatred by which the state of Israel is sustained. It’s baked in to the way the whole state is set up.

https://x.com/Kahlissee/status/1823978690708976096?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7...

Israel cannot be sustained without nonstop violence. The violence cannot be sustained without hatred. The hatred cannot be sustained without systematic indoctrination.

That indoctrination teaches Jewish Israelis from birth that the victims of their genocidal state are all inhuman monsters who would rape and murder them all if Israel ceased its apartheid abuses, militarism, and incessant violence. It teaches them that killing off their empathy and compassion is essential for their survival, because only the Jews who are willing to do whatever it takes to survive are going to make it.

Just in case their childhood indoctrination isn’t enough to sway them, Israelis are also made to serve in the military where they spend two years killing off any remaining sense of human decency within themselves as they inflict acts of unfathomable cruelty upon Palestinians as part of their duty to the state.

They are trained to believe they must have cold hearts and hard hands, because that is what’s necessary to do what must be done.

Those settlers who tortured those lambs believed they were doing what needed to be done. They believe they need to terrorize the Palestinians and make life so nightmarish for them that they go somewhere else, which will allow for more Jewish settlement on Palestinian territory.

"Quadcopters were emitting baby sounds, playing sounds of screaming women."

Palestinians in Gaza say Israel has been using small quadcopter drones, equipped with loudspeakers, to lure them out of their homes and then shoot them. #GazaCrimes pic.twitter.com/W4VytzyvdA

— Al Jazeera Investigations (@AJIunit) December 2, 2024

Those tortured lambs were the product of everything that Israel is as a state. Which could of course be said about every victim of Israeli sadism over the last eight decades, human and non-human alike.

This is Israel. This is Zionism. This is what it looks like when Zionists get everything they want. You’re looking at it. This is it.

Israel can’t keep going like this. Humanity can’t keep going like this. We need better systems. Better ideologies. Better motivators driving our behavior.

All our systems which drive cruelty and abusiveness around the world need to go the way of the dinosaur. Zionism. Capitalism. Imperialism. All our competition-based systems which pit us against other people, other ethnicities, other countries, and our own biosphere.

We need to move into collaboration-based systems which advance justice, equality, and well-being for all of earth’s creatures. Because what we’ve been doing clearly isn’t working.

CNBC Warns About Upcoming CIVIL WAR Against Oligarchs!

Torture in Israeli prisons rose sharply during war, says freed Palestinian author

A celebrated Palestinian author who was freed last month after more than 32 years in Israeli prisons has said the use of torture increased dramatically during his last two years of captivity as Israel came to treat its jails as another front in the Gaza war. Nasser Abu Srour, whose prison memoir has been translated into seven languages and is tipped to win a major international literary prize this month, was among more than 150 Palestinians serving life sentences who were freed as part of the US-brokered Gaza ceasefire and then immediately exiled to Egypt, where most remain in limbo.

Abu Srour, 56, recounted a sharp increase in the use of beatings and the deprivation of food and warmth after the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023. “The prison guards uniform changed, with a tag on the chest written on it the word ‘fighters’, or ‘warriors’, and they started acting like they were in a war and this was another front, and they started beating, torturing, killing like warriors,” he said.

A UN commission listed 75 deaths of Palestinians in Israeli custody between 7 October 2023 and 31 August 2025. The Israeli prison service has repeatedly denied the use of torture in its jails.

As a young man, Abu Srour took part in the first intifada, the Palestinian uprising between 1987 and 1993, when he was charged as an accomplice in the death of an Israeli Shin Bet security police officer who had been trying to press Abu Srour’s cousin into becoming a collaborator. On the basis of a confession he made under torture, Abu Srour was sentenced in 1993 to life in prison without parole. During decades marked by extended periods of solitary confinement, he gained a bachelor’s degree and then a master’s in political science and began to publish poetry and other writings that were smuggled out of prison.

His prison memoir, The Tale of a Wall: Reflections on Hope and Freedom, was mostly dictated in phone conversations with a relative over more than two years. It has been translated from Arabic for publication in seven languages and is a finalist for the Arab literature prize awarded each year by the Institute of the Arab World in Paris.

Includes really excellent election analysis at the beginning:

Laith Marouf: Hezbollah Ready for the Biggest Defensive Battle Israel Has Ever Seen

US Seeks UN Approval for an International ‘Enforcement Force’ To Deploy to Gaza

The US has circulated a draft resolution with several UN Security Council members that would establish an international force in Gaza that would have a mandate of at least two years, Axios reported on Monday.

A US official speaking to Axios said that the International Security Force (ISF) would be an “enforcement force and not a peacekeeping force.” The resolution would give the US and other participating countries the authority to govern Gaza and be responsible for security in the Strip through the end of 2027, with the possibility of extending the mission.

The resolution states that the ISF would “stabilize the security environment in Gaza by ensuring the process of demilitarizing the Gaza Strip, including the destruction and prevention of rebuilding of military, terror, and offensive infrastructure, as well as the permanent decommissioning of weapons from non-state armed groups.”

Under the resolution, the ISF will be overseen by the so-called “Board of Peace,” a body that will be chaired by President Trump. ... While Hamas has agreed to cede governance to an independent Palestinian committee, the group and other Palestinian factions have rejected the idea of “foreign guardianship” over Gaza, and the language of the resolution suggests that it will essentially put the Palestinian territory under a foreign occupation.

Col Doug Macgregor: Russia Warns Ukraine: Time to Surrender

George Soros BRAGS About Brainwashing Ukrainians Into War!

Max Blumenthal: Venezuela Invasion - A Predictable Disaster

Venezuela’s Nobel Peace Prize Winner Says US ‘Escalation’ Is Needed To Overthrow Maduro

Maria Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader who recently won the Nobel Peace Prize, said in an interview with Bloomberg that US military “escalation” is the only way to oust Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and confirmed that she is in contact with Trump administration officials.

When asked if she supports the idea of the US bombing Venezuela, Machado said, “I believe the escalation that’s taken place is the only way to force Maduro to understand that it’s time to go.”

She added, “I believe that this escalation is the last opportunity for those that still support Maduro to understand that they need to take all support away from him — and Maduro himself to understand that this is the last chance to truly facilitate a peaceful and orderly transition, which is what we want, which is what we fought for.”

Machado also said that she supported the US bombing campaign against alleged drug-running boats in the region, which the US military has been conducting without providing evidence to back up its claims about what the boats are carrying. The Pentagon has also admitted to Congress that it doesn’t know the identities of the people it has been killing.

Hegseth announces another deadly US strike on alleged drug boat

Defense secretary Pete Hegseth announced yet another deadly strike on a boat accused of ferrying drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, coming the same day an aircraft carrier began heading to the region in a new expansion of military firepower.

The attack Tuesday killed two people aboard the vessel, Hegseth said, bringing the death toll from the Trump administration’s campaign in South American waters up to at least 66 people in at least 16 strikes.

Donald Trump has justified the strikes by insisting the United States is in “armed conflict” with drug cartels and claiming the boats are operated by foreign terror organizations. The administration has not provided evidence or more details. ...

Lawmakers from both parties have pressed the administration for more information on who is being targeted and the legal justification for the strikes.

The latest attack comes as the USS Gerald R Ford aircraft carrier has left the Mediterranean Sea on its way to the Caribbean after Hegseth ordered it to the region more than a week ago. It will join an already robust buildup of American planes, ships and thousands of troops in Latin America.

The only thing sad about Dick Cheney's death is that it did not happen inside an Iraqi prison.

— Alan MacLeod (@AlanRMacLeod) November 4, 2025

Sheinbaum denies reports US will send troops to Mexico: ‘It’s not going to happen’

Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum has flatly denied reports that the United States is planning to send troops into Mexico to confront the country’s powerful cartels, noting that she had repeatedly rejected such offers from Donald Trump. “It’s not going to happen,” Sheinbaum said during her daily morning news conference on Tuesday. “We do not agree with any process of interference or interventionism.”

Sheinbaum’s comments come after a report from NBC News citing current and former US officials that the Trump administration has started planning a mission to send US troops and intelligence officers into Mexico.

The report said that although the operation was not imminent and no final decision had been made, the early stages of training had already begun as well as discussions about the scope of the operation. The report also indicated that US troops would operate under the authority of the US intelligence community, and that officers from the CIA would also participate.

But Sheinbaum was insistent that her country had “no information” about such a planned incursion, although she admitted that in phone calls with Trump, the US president had offered to send troops and other support to confront organized crime. “I’ve always said thank you very much, President Trump. But no, Mexico is a free, independent and sovereign country,” Sheinbaum said.

US Senate rejects funding package for 14th time with shutdown in 35th day

The US federal government shutdown was poised to move into record-breaking territory on Tuesday after the Senate rejected for the 14th time a funding package already passed by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

With the shutdown now in its record-equalling 35th day, frantic behind-the-scenes talks were under way to bring the standoff to a close amid expressions of alarm from Democrats and Republicans alike about its disruptive effects on millions of Americans.

The shutdown threatened services such as the federal food stamps program and has seen employees furloughed or working unpaid. It will exceed the 35-day closure that occurred during Donald Trump’s first presidency, in 2018, if it continues past midnight tonight.

Trump, who has hitherto made little effort to end the impasse, reopened the fears over Snap on Tuesday, by threatening to hold the program hostage until Democrats capitulate and vote in favour of the government funding package. ... The president’s latest threat over Snap seemed to be a sign of growing edginess over a shutdown that he has sought to blame on Democrats but which polls indicate a majority of the public believe is the responsibility of the Republicans and his administration. ...

Republican and Democratic senators are quietly negotiating the terms of an emerging deal. With a nod from their leadership, the senators are seeking a way to reopen the government, put the normal federal funding process back on track and devise a resolution to the crisis of expiring health insurance subsidies that are spiking premium costs across the country.

Chris Hedges’ GRAVE WARNING About Israel US Lobby | Useful Idiots

Trump administration warns shutdown could force US airspace closures

The US may close portions of its airspace if the federal government shutdown continues, the transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, has warned. Duffy made the announcement on Tuesday, as the government entered its 35th day of shutdown, tying the record for the longest in history.

The shutdown, which began on 1 October, has since left shortages of up to 3,000 air traffic controllers, according to the administration, in addition to at least 11,000 more receiving zero wages despite working as essential workers over the last two weeks.

Duffy cautioned of “mass chaos” if the government were still shutdown in a week’s time, adding: “You will see mass flight delays. You’ll see mass cancellations, and you may see us close certain parts of the airspace because we just cannot manage it, because we don’t have the air traffic controllers.”

“I’ll tell you, yes, the system is safe and if it wasn’t, we would shut it down,” he added. “We delay flights, we … tell airlines to cancel flights if we don’t have enough controllers to effectively and safely manage our skies. But with the shutdown, it would be dishonest to say that more risk is not injected into the system. There is more risk in the system.

As Republicans and Democrats remain gridlocked, nearly 50% of the US’s 30 busiest airports faced air traffic controller shortages, the Federal Aviation Administration said last Friday. Echoing the FAA on Monday, Duffy told CNBC that there was a shortage of 2,000 to 3,000 air traffic controllers.

Zohran DESTROYS Cuomo In NYC Mayor Election

700K New Yorkers Vow To FLEE CITY as Mamdani Wins

Democrat Abigail Spanberger elected governor of Virginia

Democrat Abigail Spanberger has been elected governor of Virginia, the Associated Press said Tuesday, making the centrist former congresswoman the first female governor of the southern state.

An ex-CIA and federal law enforcement officer who served three terms in the US House of Representatives after flipping a GOP-held district, Spanberger was leading the state’s Republican lieutenant governor Winsome Earle-Sears 55% to 45%, with 35% of the vote counted, according to the AP.

Virginia has grown steadily more Democratic in recent elections, and Spanberger had led Earle-Sears in the polls for most of the race. She will replace Republican governor Glenn Youngkin, who was ineligible for re-election after serving the single consecutive four-year term the state’s constitution allows.

It was the crowning achievement of what Democrats hope will be a good night across the commonwealth. They are also hoping to expand their majority in the house of delegates, which they currently control by just one seat, as Democrats move to redraw congressional maps in their favor.

Zohran Triggers Cuomo, Fox News UNHINGED MELTDOWN

Solar geoengineering in wrong hands could wreak climate havoc, scientists warn

Solar geoengineering could increase the ferocity of North Atlantic hurricanes, cause the Amazon rainforest to die back and cause drought in parts of Africa if deployed above only some parts of the planet by rogue actors, a report has warned. However, if technology to block the sun was used globally and in a coordinated way for a long period – decades or even centuries – there is strong evidence that it would lower the global temperature, the review from the UK’s Royal Society concluded.

The world is failing to halt the climate crisis and the researchers said that in future, a judgment might need to be made between the risks of geoengineering and the those of continued global heating, which is already costing lives and livelihoods. The logistics of a large-scale geoengineering effort would be daunting, the experts said, but the cost would be small relative to climate action – billions of dollars a year against trillions.

The researchers emphasised that geoengineering only masked the symptoms of the climate crisis, and did not tackle the root cause – the burning of fossil fuels. Geoengineering could only complement the cutting of emissions, not replace it, they said. If geoengineering was halted abruptly but emissions had not been reduced, there would be a termination shock of rapidly rising temperatures – 1-2C within a couple of decades – that would have severe effects on people and ecosystems unable to rapidly adapt. “This is not a question of whether [solar geoengineering] is safe, as it is clearly not without risks,” said Prof Keith Shine, at the University of Reading, who led the report. “However, there may come a point where those risks are seen to be less severe than the risks of insufficiently mitigated climate change.” ...

Geoengineering has divided the scientific community. Some researchers argue that research should continue in order to increase the knowledge of the likely effects of using it, in case it was ever judged necessary. Others say that further research would increase the chances of its use as it may increasingly be seen as a fast way to fight the climate crisis. The Royal Society report does not take a position but aims to set out the current state of understanding to better inform debate.

The report considers the two types of geoengineering seen as most likely to be feasible and effective. Using high-altitude aircraft to pump sulphur dioxide (SO2) into the stratosphere would cause reflective particles to form, bouncing a fraction of the sun’s heat back into space. ... The second type of geoengineering considered is marine cloud brightening, where salt particles produced from seawater are thrown up into the lower atmosphere. These particles enable water vapour to nucleate and form clouds, which reflect sunlight.

Galápagos had no native amphibians. Then it was invaded by hundreds of thousands of frogs

Despite abounding with wildlife – centuries-old giant tortoises, swimming iguanas, and the finches that sparked Darwin’s theory of evolution – the Galápagos archipelago off the coast of Ecuador has long been free from amphibians. Until recently, no frogs, toads, newts, or salamanders waddled or hopped on its volcanic islands. In the late 1990s, that changed. Some small tree frogs made their way from mainland Ecuador to the islands, likely as stowaways on cargo ships.

Genetic studies suggest that, over the years, there have been repeated accidental introductions to the archipelago, and the frogs now have a strong foothold on two islands: Isabela and Santa Cruz. The population is growing so fast that scientists have been struggling to keep track, estimating numbers in the hundreds of thousands on each island, across urban and agricultural areas, but also in the protected Galápagos national park. ...

On islands, it is very common for invasive species to thrive, as they have none of their natural predators. The Galápagos counts 1,645 invasive species, many of which are seriously disrupting the safety of its endemic ones. Avian vampire flies are bleeding rare bird hatchlings dry, and the hardy blackberry plant is encroaching on the Scalesia forests.

A 2020 study suggests the invasive frogs are voracious insect eaters, and might be disproportionately consuming rare insects found only on the archipelago, or depleting the food sources of the islands’ rare birds, disrupting the food chain. Since the frogs’ diet is dominated by moths, they could even be affecting pollination on the islands, according to ecologist María del Mar Moretta-Urdiales, who was involved in the study.

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

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Zohran Mamdani and a Small Victory for the People

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Rigging the map? How power in US Congress could shift if both parties win their redistricting fights

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Phil Giraldi : America’s Schoolyard Bully

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A Little Night Music

Long John Baldry - Don't Try To Lay No Boogie-Woogie On The King of Rock & Roll

Long John Baldry - Stormy Monday

Long John Baldry - Another Man Done Gone

John Baldry – Seventh Son

Long John Baldry - It Ain't Easy

Cyril Davies R&B All-Stars with Long John Baldry & The Velvettes - See See Rider

Long John Baldry - Black Girl (In The Pines)

Long John Baldry - Hoochie Coochie Man

Long John Baldry - Goodnight Irene

Long John Baldry & Rod Stewart - Up Above My Head