Notices by simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Thursday, 20-Feb-2025 13:35:57 JST 
simsa03
♪ Richard Thompson & Danny Thompson, "The Ghost of You Walks" (live) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNPl5bI4wq0
Another favourite.
!listening -
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Feb-2025 09:23:42 JST
simsa03
Yay! Good to hear. Have a speedy recovery. -
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Feb-2025 02:20:44 JST
simsa03
I do! Fingers crossed. And I spare you all "thoughts and prayers" as they would immediately lead to an anaphylactic shock in you. So I wait and have the owls keep a steady mischievious grin over you until I see you back. -
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Feb-2025 02:08:04 JST
simsa03
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, "Revealed: Trump’s confidential plan to put Ukraine in a stranglehold" https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/02/17/revealed-trump-confidential-plan-ukraine-stranglehold/
«The [draft] agreement covers the “economic value associated with resources of Ukraine”, including “mineral resources, oil and gas resources, ports, other infrastructure (as agreed)”, leaving it unclear what else might be encompassed. [...]
The US will take 50pc of recurring revenues received by Ukraine from extraction of resources, and 50pc of the financial value of “all new licences issued to third parties” for the future monetisation of resources. There will be “a lien on such revenues” in favour of the US. “That clause means ‘pay us first, and then feed your children’,” said one source close to the negotiations.
It states that “for all future licences, the US will have a right of first refusal for the purchase of exportable minerals”. Washington will have sovereign immunity and acquire near total control over most of Ukraine’s commodity and resource economy. The fund “shall have the exclusive right to establish the method, selection criteria, terms, and conditions” of all future licences and projects. And so forth, in this vein. It seems to have been written by private lawyers, not the US departments of state or commerce. [...]
If this draft were accepted, Trump’s demands would amount to a higher share of Ukrainian GDP than reparations imposed on Germany at the Versailles Treaty, later whittled down at the London Conference in 1921, and by the Dawes Plan in 1924. At the same time, he seems willing to let Russia off the hook entirely. [...]
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham suggested at the Munich Security Conference over the weekend that Trump’s demand was a clever ploy to bolster declining popular support for the Ukrainian cause. “He can go to the American people and say, ‘Ukraine is not a burden, it is a benefit,’” he said.
Sen Graham told the Europeans to root hard for the idea because it locks Washington into defending a future settlement. “If we sign this minerals agreement, Putin is screwed, because Trump will defend the deal,” he said.»
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Well, that's how all colonized nations have felt over the centuries. It's via Ukraine that now European countries realise how it is to be treated like a commodity. But what T and his mafia administration doesn't see or doesn't care about is that this effectively ends the NATO alliance, any strategic partnership, and any benevolent trade relations. Nobody in the "Global North" will believe and trust the U.S. for a very long time. The U.S. is a traitor, it so often has been, and now it's us Europeans who are getting screwed. And across the globe one hears the resounding and mocking laughter of the "Global South". -
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Tuesday, 18-Feb-2025 01:23:49 JST
simsa03
In case there is any doubt that this is effectively the end of the NATO alliance. Europe is now on its own vis-à-vis Russia as there will be no Article 5 backup by the U.S.
U.S. Department of Defense, "Hegseth Calls on NATO Allies to Lead Europe's Security, Rules Out Support for Ukraine Membership" https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/4064571/hegseth-calls-on-nato-allies-to-lead-europes-security-rules-out-support-for-ukr/
«As an alternative to granting Ukraine NATO membership, Hegseth said that any security guarantees for Ukraine "must be backed by capable European and non-European troops."
"If these troops are deployed as peacekeepers to Ukraine at any point, they should be deployed as part of a non-NATO mission, and they should not be covered under Article 5 [of the NATO treaty]," Hegseth said, adding that there must also be robust oversight of the line of contact from the international community.
"To be clear, as part of any security guarantee, there will not be U.S. troops deployed to Ukraine," he said.» -
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In conversation from activity permalinksimsa03 started following The Weekend Spy.
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The Weekend Spy (weekendspy@mastodon.nz)'s status on Friday, 07-Feb-2025 03:28:05 JST 
The Weekend Spy
Google is so powerful that it "hides" other search systems from us. We just don't know the existence of most of them.
Meanwhile, there are still a huge number of excellent searchers in the world who specialize in books, science, other smart information.Keep a list of these sites for reference:
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Monday, 17-Feb-2025 08:30:16 JST
simsa03
Why should that be? -
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Monday, 17-Feb-2025 02:37:08 JST
simsa03
"Electric, yes. Tesla, never."
—John Miedema https://gnusocial.jp/attachment/40be0f1740fb4ca680aa6e2b027f19ccd9bbe60e63a2db84f5ed10256eede54d/view -
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Sunday, 16-Feb-2025 09:23:37 JST
simsa03
♪ Richard Thompson - "The Day That I Give In" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_5NyHUtD5M
!listening -
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Sunday, 16-Feb-2025 09:19:15 JST
simsa03
Have people still not realised that already years ago Trump, Putin, and Xi formed a triumvirate, an alliance of the wicked, now coming to the fore? Orwellian hemispheres of influence but without the mutual wars he anticipated. -
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Sunday, 16-Feb-2025 09:12:13 JST
simsa03
The end of NATO; the alliance of the U.S. and Russia; Europe being exhausted and incapable to keep Ukraine supported (as its stockpiles are depleted); the prospect of an attack of Russia this summer on the Baltic states (as Trump will ignore Art. 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty) – times are not rough, they are hopeless. -
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Saturday, 15-Feb-2025 20:23:43 JST
simsa03
This made my day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtApqMR3o8k
Musk's little monkeys don't know their COBOL... -
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Simon Flett (rejoineu@mastodon.online)'s status on Friday, 14-Feb-2025 20:54:14 JST 
Simon Flett
How can it be that the US electorate (half of it) looked over at the lived experience of Russian citizens after thirty years of rampant oligarchy, and concluded, "That looks fun - we'll have some of that!" ?
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tinydoctor (tinydoctor@mstdn.social)'s status on Friday, 14-Feb-2025 11:07:07 JST 
tinydoctor
Many people are afraid to feel despair. They fear if they allow themselves to perceive how desperate our situation really is, they must then be perpetually miserable. They forget that it is possible to feel many things at once.
Many people probably also fear that if they allow themselves to perceive how desperate things are, they may be forced to do something about it.
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tinydoctor (tinydoctor@mstdn.social)'s status on Friday, 14-Feb-2025 11:05:30 JST
tinydoctor
People have asked me, “If things are so bad, why don’t you just kill yourself?” The answer is life is really, really good. I am a complex enough being I can hold in my heart the understanding that we are really, really fucked, and at the same time that life is really, really good. I am full of rage, sorrow, joy, love, hate, despair, happiness, satisfaction, dissatisfaction, and a thousand other feelings. We are really fucked. Life is still really good. #talkingtomyselflettingyoulisten
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Friday, 14-Feb-2025 10:21:01 JST
simsa03
Strangely, this could be a reason why Trump is courting Putin:
Guardian staff, "Trump proposes nuclear deal with Russia and China to halve defense budgets" https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/13/trump-nuclear-russia-china -
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Friday, 14-Feb-2025 08:30:21 JST
simsa03
First Trump said that the Gaza-ISIS needs to release *all* hostages until Saturday noon or else "hell will brake lose". Then the Gaza-ISIS agreed to free the three hostages already scheduled for release in the "ceasefire agreements" and walked away from its threat to no longer abide by it.
(By the way, there are journalists who think that the images of the emaciated freed hostages which Israel compared to those of the survivors of the concentration camps made the Gaza-ISIS think twice about the PR impact. Nonsense. The similiartity to the camp survivors is deliberate and intentional, to show Israel and the Jews what the Gaza-ISIS has in mind for them. It rather was the stark contrast to the jubilant well-fed Palestinian criminals freed in exchange that made the Gaza-ISIS think twice because it makes Israel look too good and too humane. Which is what the terrorists cannot accept.)
First Trump announced that the U.S. will remould Gaza into a "Riviera" of the Middle East (after expelling the Gazans to various Middle East nations). Jordan then said to take in 2.000 Gazan children and Egypt announced it is working on a plan to reconstruct Gaza without expulsion of its inhabitants.
First Trump told Zelensky he wants Ukraine's rare earth deposits in exchange for military aid past and future and told the European NATO members to raise their defense budgets to 5% GDP. Then he came up with the direct communication with Putin, suggesting a) to meet him in person in Saudi Arabia, b) that Ukraine cannot join NATO and that c) it will have to face serious territorial losses in exchange for peace. Everybody cries: This is the end of NATO and a backstabbing of Ukraine. Well, yes.
Trump always makes bombastic claims, demands, and announcements in order to unrattle the other parties of a bargaining negotiation.
If he wanted to throw Ukraine into the bin, he wouldn't have asked for the rare earth resources (which in part lie in the Donbass trerritories).
What he did was forcing the European NATO states to prepare for a military conflict with Russia while taking the U.S. off the theatre.
What he gave – not offered, but gave – to Putin was what Vlad Vexler – in his otherwise misguided analysis in his video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrWgHuCOMZ8 – aptly called "procedural concessions". But Vexler underestimates the importance and the impact of these "procedural concessions". In particular the telephone call initated by Trump, the suggestion to meet in person in Saudia Arabia but also in Moscow and Washington, they all provided Putin with "face". Not "face saving", but the "face" that is the publicly staged acknowledgement of space, strength, gravitas, respect, and "honour" so common between Mafia bosses. Trump came to Putin, and he acknowledged his "face", thereby reinstating it in the public global sphere. A weakling (!) like Putin is drooling for such pats.
But what Trump also did was to prepare the stage for a grandiose walkback, a slamming of doors, and the full support of Europe and Ukraine against Putin and Russia, should Putin not concede. All while getting the U.S. out of Europe (with or without leaving NATO) and forcing Europeans to buy his military equipment and Ukraine to hand over its material resources.
Obviously, everything can fall apart. But look and observe how Trump works and how he's playing his cards. The war against Russia isn't over yet, Ukraine is not defeated yet, and Europe may still come to its senses that it needs to support Ukraine even more and prepare for a war with Russia in a few years.
But until anybody can explain what Trump may get in return for handing over all the positions that Putin essentially asked for in December 2021 – including a withdrawal of U.S. forces behind the lines of the early 1990s prior to NATO enlargement – these manoeuvres look more like being aimed at the Europeans than substantial concessions to Russia. Again: Why should Trump (of all transactionists) offer Putin all these diamonds for free? What's in it for him? Until anybody can explain *that*, we have no useful explanation of what the Trump administration is now staging with regard to Ukraine. Things are way too much in flux to already call this the end of NATO, the demise of Ukraine, or Russia's victory.
#Ukraine #Russia #Trump #Putin
#talkingtomyselflettingyoulisten -
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Thursday, 13-Feb-2025 11:03:19 JST
simsa03
Seda Motie, Jonas Oesch, Jonas Roth, "Friends, enemies, frenemies: An interactive overview of the key actors in the Middle East" https://nzz.ch/english/interactive-map-the-middle-easts-alliances-and-enmities-ld.1859853
«Who is allied with whom? Who is pursuing what interests? And how do the individual actors relate to each other?»
#sources -
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Thursday, 13-Feb-2025 01:25:55 JST
simsa03
Stephanie Liechtenstein, "Austrian far-right leader's efforts to form a new government collapse" https://www.yahoo.com/news/austrian-far-leaders-efforts-form-135840689.html
Nicolas Camut, "Geert Wilders left stranded as Dutch coalition talks collapse" https://www.politico.eu/article/geert-wilders-stranded-dutch-government-coalition-talk-collapse-netherlands/
After the state elections in Germany in 2024 and the presidential elections in the U.S. I began to doubt. But now I read the news that the extreme right's attempts to form a coalition government in Austria as in the Netherlands both collapsed.
Even with setbacks, these are times of #peakfascism.
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