#selection

Yet another LeMonde article laments the lack of a credible 'moderate' candidate to challenge what it defines as extreme right and left (Le Pen v Mélenchon) - https://archive.is/20261110043359/https://www.lemonde.fr/en/politics/article/2026/11/10/french-presidential-election-beyond-le-pen-and-melenchon-the-political-landscape-resembles-a-murky-swamp_6776596_5.html#selection-3537.38-3537.58 But it's yet another so-called 'analysis' in terms of personalities and party shenanigans - the narrowly defined 'politics' of mainstream media. The absent questions - the questions the political centre is not allowed to ask - are about the economic interests in play. The 'what if no 'moderate' candidate can light on a winning policy because there aren't any answers inside the status-quo?' question; the 'what if the status-quo has utterly failed, and there are now no non-radical solutions?' question. The political centre, 'moderation', has one idea. one plan, and it's this: 'things are not too bad, radical change is risky, best not to meddle too much with the way things are' - which is fine if things are genuinely not that bad, but fails utterly when they really are bad. I had to laugh at the article's mention of one new candidate's platform - 'a message of unity that is "neither right nor left"' - precisely that which Macron ran on, nearly a decade ago - a decade of, precisely, incoherent and ineffective meddling. The political centre, the bastions of the status-quo, the Establishment, facilitated the coming to power of the fascists in Europe in the 1920s and 30s. Mussolini, Franco, Salazar, Dollfuss, Hitler - none of them were elected to government, all were eased into power by dodgy constitutional manipulations, by royalty, aristocracy, high courts, military top brass, newspapers. Will they never learn ? You can't blame most French people looking to LePen or Mélenchon - but make no mistake, it is the myopia of the moderates that is to blame for the tragedy of equivalence: seeing radical departure from the status-quo for exploitation and oppression as no worse than departure for economic and social justice.

Global emissions are projected to decrease this year, and the Trump administration played a major — if unintentional — role, according to new research A study released Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change projects a 0.4% decrease in global climate-warming emissions for 2026, largely due to the Iran war and its effects on energy markets https://archive.ph/81Hew#selection-1551.0-1561.133 #ClimateChange #UpheavalClimate #ClimateInstability #ClimateReversal #MassAtrocity #pollution #ecology #environment #climate

Let's check in on some good news today! California Rep. Robert Garcia: ‘The days of us not fighting back are over’ - it's time to investigate Trump and company and he's not going to be intimidated by Trump's threats. Millions of us weren't intimidated. https://www.politico.com/news/2026/11/08/garcia-days-of-us-not-fighting-back-are-over-01155486 Governor Shapiro of Pennsylvania plans to raise minimum wage - and thanks to voters like yourself he has a Democratic majority. https://archive.ph/ZgHIP#selection-1369.0-1401.104 It may seem small, but Democrats plan to make the January 6 memorial more prominent wheras Republicans hid their terrorist attack on America. https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2026/11/09/congress/jan-6-plaques-future-01155916 #uspol #democracy #democrats

Opinion: Chris Van Hollen fought when no one else would. Make him Dems’ leader. | Will Bunch | Philadelphia Enquirer The Democratic landslide on Tuesday happened not because of the party elites — as epitomized by Schumer and Jeffries — but in spite of them. First, call Van Hollen’s office and urge him to run for the job. But more importantly, call your own Democratic member of the Senate and tell them that Schumer cannot return as leader...

"Woke was a disaster, and it was a disaster because it was a class movement." Great LeMonde article on the revival of socialism in the US - https://archive.is/20261103033205/https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2026/11/03/disillusioned-by-identity-politics-the-american-left-rediscovers-socialism_6769765_23.html#selection-3881.238-3885.317 Particularly pleased to see it reference Asad Haider's important book 'Mistaken Identity: Race and Class in the Age of Trump', which argued that by focusing on identity politics, the US left was fighting on the right's chosen ground, and helping them hide the most fundamental injustice in American society: economic inequality.

RIP Patrick Stewart. "Patrick Stewart, who overcame a bleak childhood in England’s coal-mining country to find acclaim as a Shakespearean actor before making an unlikely career pivot in middle age that would bring him his greatest fame, playing a noble starship captain on the TV series “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” died on Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 86." https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/29/arts/television/patrick-stewart-dead.html https://archive.ph/y4Egm#selection-8310.0-8310.2 1/n

@mattsheffield@mastodon.social

Quotes from NY Times article about Trump:

• What else is mass deportation than the effort of a lifelong landlord to remove the people he thinks degrade the value of the property?

• To grant the president criminal immunity on top of his power to pardon is to extend the zone of lawlessness to the entire executive branch.

• There is a word for when the chief executive is outside the law and can use the state against his enemies: tyranny

#Trump #NYTimes

#France Climat : 79 millions d’heures de travail potentielles perdues en France chaque année en raison de l’exposition aux chaleurs Les chercheurs du Lancet Countdown ont estimé, pays par pays, le fardeau sanitaire du réchauffement climatique. Le secteur du bâtiment est le plus touché par les pertes potentielles d’heures de travail et de revenus https://archive.ph/P5vKj#selection-5213.0-5219.216 #ChangementClimatique #BouleversementClimatique #InstabilitéClimatique #InversionClimatique #écologie #environnement #Climat

What's interesting about this LeMonde article on the cancellation of state debt is that the headline proclaims this "has only ever been implemented at times of war or revolution" - but the actual examples given, and the interpretation by economic historians, do not support this slant ! For example: "Repudiating the debt in 1932 did not cause a recession and even laid the foundations for an economic rebound a few years later..." https://archive.is/20261023035040/https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2026/10/23/melenchon-wants-to-erase-france-s-debt-what-are-the-precedents-for-that_6762043_19.html#selection-3839.0-3839.341 More on the background to this debate live in France now: https://archive.is/20261022173825/https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2026/10/22/nicolas-dufrene-the-man-who-suggests-canceling-france-s-european-central-bank-debt_6761680_19.html

#Europe Europe’s hottest summer ever was also its deadliest — by far Researchers estimate that more than 50,000 people died as five heat waves swept the continent — with two-thirds of those deaths attributable to climate change https://grist.org/extreme-heat/europes-hottest-summer-ever-was-also-its-deadliest-by-far/ Europe’s killer heat this summer claims 50,000 lives. Climate change blamed for two-thirds of deaths https://archive.ph/QCIHy#selection-2273.5-2273.107 #ClimateChange #UpheavalClimate #ClimateInstability #ClimateReversal #pollution #ecology #environment #climate

A lot of people talk about tornadoes and hurricanes and wildfires but when you look at these natural perils that impact society, hail produces the most amount of insured loss every single year As the climate warms, Gensini says, thunderstorms will create stronger updrafts that hold hailstones in the air for longer allowing them to grow bigger — and fall harder https://archive.ph/afPzv#selection-495.1-495.193 #ClimateChange #UpheavalClimate #ClimateInstability #ClimateReversal #pollution #ecology #environment #climate

#USA #US UN: Global temperatures set to rise by 2.8 degrees by the end of the century. The United States is driving up greenhouse gas emissions The Environment Panel’s report confirms that, given the measures taken by governments to date, the safety thresholds identified by science remain out of reach. The US has accounted for 70 per cent of the increase in CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels https://archive.ph/Dnfgx#selection-607.0-611.247 #ClimateChange #UpheavalClimate #pollution #ecology #environment #climate

Funnily enough, the conclusion of this LeMonde analysis of the US economy - "if Trump had simply sat in the Oval Office and reaped the benefits of the Biden administration years, the country would be much better off today" - parallels an analysis of Trump's pre-politics business career I read years ago: if Trump had simply sat on the family wealth he inherited he would have made more money than he did by actually trying to do something.

It's Alive! Alive! #typewriter #selection #IBM

See how extreme wildfires are transforming forests As wildfires surge through some of the most treasured landscapes in the nation, two new studies show that supercharged blazes make it harder for forests to recover https://archive.ph/hLvmI#selection-297.0-301.163 #ClimateChange #UpheavalClimate #ClimateInstability #ClimateReversal #MassAtrocity #pollution #ecology #environment #climate

#USA #US The simple truth is, the climate accountability genie is out of the bottle, and the Supreme Court is unlikely to jam it back in. Even if the court sides with Suncor, attribution science will continue to move forward, filling in the gaps between cause and effect in our understanding of how climate works It is only a matter of time before the courts catch up https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/06/opinion/oil-companies-supreme-court.html https://archive.ph/weZuu#selection-4447.0-4447.303 #ClimateChange #UpheavalClimate #pollution #ecology #environment #climate

Why you should repair your phone but replace your dishwasher It can be better for the environment to trash a machine instead of fixing it https://archive.ph/Ub5fU#selection-301.0-305.76 #ClimateChange #UpheavalClimate #ClimateInstability #ClimateReversal #MassAtrocity #pollution #ecology #environment #climate

Climate change is becoming something travelers personally experience rather than something they read about https://archive.ph/S2RzU#selection-4289.1-4289.107 #ClimateChange #UpheavalClimate #ClimateInstability #ClimateReversal #MassAtrocity #pollution #ecology #environment #climate

hm, i thought KDE was trying to make up for platforming the nazi. lots of people today saying "let's give KDE a chance!" nope, they're now doubling down further. this post is a study in the art of nazi apologetics in online discourse - removing the content of the issue and leaving only a description phrased to sound innocent. what happened is that the straight-up nazi was posting, someone identified that this person was a straight-up nazi, the nazi admitted they were that nazi, then KDE banned the person calling out the nazi and kept the nazi the social media person sympathising here with the nazi tries to claim that calling out the nazi is equivalent to real world violence.