Source: exile in happy valley
by Nicky Reid

“Israel has violated the shit out of this so-called peace deal. The only thing that’s really changed is that Hamas is no longer firing back and that was the real point behind that theatric signing ceremony on the Senai Peninsula. Neither Israel nor Hamas were even present for the shindig at Sharm El-Sheik. The papers were signed by Qatari Emir Sheik Tamin Bin Hamad al Thani and Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan; Hamas'[s] two largest foreign financiers, along with Pharoah Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, who polices Gaza’s western borders. The real deal was for those thugs to agree to pressure Hamas into giving up just so long as Israel allows them to share in the profits of the resort Donald Trump plans to build on the graves of 5% of the Strip’s Population.” (11/23/25)

https://exileinhappyvalley.blogspot.com/2025/11/palestine-doesnt-need-another-oslo.html

Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman

“In controversies on global warming, one issue that keeps coming up is whether it is anthropogenic, whether the world getting warmer is our fault. So far as I can tell, the question is almost entirely irrelevant to the controversy, reflects a confusion between moral and practical arguments. Suppose the cause of global warming is not human action but changes in solar activity or some other external factor. Suppose also that the consequences of global warming will be catastrophic. Finally suppose that there is something we can do to prevent global warming, say raising the albedo of the earth with orbital mirrors, high altitude pollution, or whatever. Isn’t the argument for doing it precisely the same as if we were causing the warming? Hence isn’t ‘whose fault is it’ an irrelevant distraction?” (11/23/25)

https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/two-points-on-climate-change

Source: The Peaceful Revolutionist
by David S D’Amato

“Where primitive societies understood power and thus sought to preempt it and foreclose political domination, our modern societies obsess about and worship power. This bad habit puts our lives and those of our children and grandchildren at risk, and it makes movement in the direction of a free society almost impossible. This is among the many reasons we ought to be deeply disturbed by and uncomfortable with standard political taxonomies such as left vs. right, liberal vs. conservative, etc. These binaries lead to shallow and confused analysis because they do not even attempt to understand the structural realities driving today’s states. These frameworks don’t know how to talk about or understand the relationship between the state and capital or the development of authoritarian power during the modern era.” (11/23/25)

https://dsdamato.substack.com/p/why-dont-we-recognize-class-rule

Source: The Intercept
by Seth Stern

“Federal prosecutors have filed a new indictment in response to a July 4 noise demonstration outside the Prairieland ICE detention facility in Alvarado, Texas, during which a police officer was shot. There are numerous problems with the indictment, but perhaps the most glaring is its inclusion of charges against a Dallas artist who wasn’t even at the protest. Daniel ‘Des’ Sanchez is accused of transporting a box that contained ‘Antifa materials’ after the incident, supposedly to conceal evidence against his wife, Maricela Rueda, who was there. But the boxed materials aren’t Molotov cocktails, pipe bombs, or whatever MAGA officials claim ‘Antifa’ uses to wage its imaginary war on America. As prosecutors laid out in the July criminal complaint that led to the indictment, they were zines and pamphlets. Some contain controversial ideas — one was titled ‘Insurrectionary Anarchy’ — but they’re fully constitutionally protected free speech.” (11/23/25)

https://theintercept.com/2025/11/23/prairieland-ice-antifa-zines-criminalize-protest-journalism/

Source: Washington Post
by Megan McArdle

“[S]olving problems is hard, and in politics, it often involves taking on well-organized constituencies that will wave away the smoke and insist that everything is just fine. So institutions often choose to disregard the underlying issues and simply whack the alarm with a hammer until it stops beeping. There has been a lot of that going on recently, most notably in education. Instead of rectifying disparities in preparation and achievement, people decided it would be simpler to adjust the measurements.” (11/23/25)

https://archive.is/WvjRf