“When I was growing up in Chicago, a local AM radio station had a disc jockey named Larry Lujack. The introduction to his show called him ‘a legend in his own mind.’ This keeps coming to mind with Trump’s boasting about things, big and small. The difference is that Lujack was being sarcastic. If we can get past Trump’s boasting about ending wars that didn’t exist, or he had no involvement with, we have the story of the Trump boom. As Trump tells it, the US economy is the envy of the world. He heard it from no less of an authority than the king of Saudi Arabia himself. As Trump tells it, we have $17 trillion coming into the country. No one other than Trump seems to have any idea what he is talking about. That would be four full years’ worth of non-residential investment for reality fans.” (10/20/25)
“Turkish Cypriots have handed the pro-European leftwing leader Tufan Erhürman a resounding victory in a presidential poll likely to inject renewed vigour into the deadlocked peace process on Cyprus. Erhürman, 55, who campaigned on reviving stalled UN-brokered talks to reunify the island, defeated the incumbent nationalist, Ersin Tatar, by nearly 27 percentage points – a landslide win that surprised even his most ardent supporters. Tatar, whose five-year tenure had been dominated by the rallying cry of ‘a two-state solution’ to the Cyprus problem, picked up 35.8% of the vote against 62.8% for his opponent. In contrast to the moderate Erhürman, the hard-right nationalist had been openly backed by Ankara.” (10/19/25)
“In not quite one year since the ceasefire deal in Lebanon, Israel has broken the ceasefire 4,600 times. It has killed hundreds of people, including infants, demolished tens of thousands of homes and annexed five areas of Lebanon. It was supposed to withdraw completely. This situation is being replicated in detail in Gaza. In particular, the ceasefire in Lebanon is ‘guaranteed’ by the USA and France and overseen by an international committee referred to as ‘the Mechanism.’ The ‘Mechanism’ is chaired by the USA. Accordingly the guarantors have refused to acknowledge a single breach of the ceasefire because the US-controlled ‘Mechanism’ calls them counter-terrorist operations aimed at disarming Hezbollah.” (10/20/25)
“Our industrial nation utilized compulsory government schools to train generations of docile, hardworking, obedient, tax-paying employees. Industrialist John D. Rockefeller said, ‘I don’t want a nation of thinkers. I want a nation of workers.’ The emergence of capitalists as the most influential segment of society enabled them to remake man into a herd animal — a docile, obedient, tamed worker. They are training us to be bored out of our minds.” (10/20/25)
“Nigerian police fired teargas on Monday and occupied major roads in the capital Abuja to stop demonstrations called to protest the continued detention of separatist leader Nnamdi Kanu, who is on trial facing terrorism charges. Kanu, who holds British citizenship, leads the banned Indigenous People of Biafra Movement (IPOB) that advocates for the secession of southeastern Nigeria, where the majority belong to the Igbo ethnic group. In central Abuja, armed police patrolled with water cannon and armoured trucks, and fired volleys of teargas where protesters tried to gather. In other parts of the city, police were supported by armed soldiers in a show of force.” (10/20/25)
“When my eldest son was four years old, he climbed on top of a batting cage at a park in New Jersey. Several bystanders noticed and began to freak out. I called my son down and told him: ‘I’m fine with what you are doing, but you’re making other people nervous.’ I said this because he was a capable climber and because I judged the various risks acceptable. Yet, the fear of others was at play and could have resulted in government child services intervention. Though my experience ended peacefully, the Meitiv family had multiple run-ins with child protective services for allowing their 10-year-old and 6-year-old to walk to a playground unaccompanied by an adult. Their clashes with safetyism and law enforcement helped launch the ‘Free Range’ parenting movement.” (10/20/25)
“Sinking warships with ‘kamikaze’-like strikes, attacking critical infrastructure, and ‘swarming’ together to overwhelm enemy defenses, Ukraine’s Magura drone boats have had success countering Russian naval forces in the Black Sea — despite its Navy’s markedly limited resources. These autonomous maritime vessels are having a moment, and the Pentagon and weapons industry alike want in on it. Flush with cash from venture capitalists and, increasingly, the DoD, which has awarded hundreds of millions in contracts to this end, defense-tech start-ups, including Saronic, BlackSea, and Blue Water Autonomy, have been building a new generation of myriad autonomous and semi-autonomous maritime vessels.” (10/20/25)
“Amazon Web Services, a leader in the cloud infrastructure market, reported a major outage on Monday, taking down numerous big-name websites. AWS cited an ‘operational issue’ affecting ‘multiple services’ and said it was ‘working on multiple parallel paths to accelerate recovery,’ in an update at 2:01 a.m. PDT. Nearly 70 of its own services are affected. Shortly afterward, AWS said it was seeing ‘significant signs of recovery.'” (10/20/25)
