Interesting comment from the NYT :Competence and sanity generally lie toward the ideological center of politics, but charisma tends to take root at the extremes
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John Aikman
3.9K posts
John Aikman
@jdaikman
President of The F.R.E.S.H Path - addiction-proof your mind, discover new motivation, health and happiness in less than 60 minutes.
Montreal Katılım Ocak 2009
730 Takip Edilen114 Takipçiler
@ScienceFocusonX @CuriosityonX The world needs more people like Brendon Grimshaw.
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A journalist spent $11,000 on a forgotten island nobody wanted.
Everyone thought he was insane.
Brendon Grimshaw walked away from a newsroom career in Yorkshire, signed the papers four minutes before midnight on the last night of his Seychelles holiday, and inherited a dead patch of land called Moyenne.
The place was a wasteland. Coconuts so tangled they couldn't even fall to the ground. No wildlife worth mentioning. Just silence.
So he got to work.
Alongside his friend René Lafortune, Brendon spent the next 39 years planting trees one by one. By hand. No machines. No crew. Just two men and a vision.
16,000 trees later, Moyenne looked nothing like the barren rock he'd bought.
Then came the animals. He reintroduced more than 120 giant Aldabra tortoises, a species teetering on extinction. Around 2,000 new birds found their way back to the island. Today, two-thirds of all the fauna in the Seychelles call Moyenne home.
Word got out. Tourism exploded across the region in the 80s, and developers came knocking.
A Saudi prince reportedly slid $50 million across the table for the island.
Brendon said no.
"I don't want the island to become a favorite vacation spot for the rich," he said. "Better let it be a national park that everyone can enjoy."
In 2008, that's exactly what happened. Moyenne became the smallest national park on Earth.
Lafortune died in 2007. Brendon stayed on the island until his own death in 2012. He's buried there, next to his father, surrounded by every tree he ever planted.
He took a dead island and gave it back to the world.
Source: BBC / Silverback Digest / Story Seychelles
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Damn man, Africa's gonna be launching a charity appeal to feed Hollywood soon.
New York Post@nypost
Demi Moore’s toned arms take center stage on Cannes Film Festival 2026 red carpet trib.al/DYJYRNx
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@AMAZlNGNATURE It’s fascinating to think that Earth is at the very limit of the size where we can leave the atmosphere, acc to physics. Any bigger we’d be stuck on the surface. So many weird coincidences like that.
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K2-18b a potentially habitable planet 124 light-years from earth.
Located in the constellation Leo, the planet is believed to be over 2.5 times larger than Earth, more than 8 times as massive, and possibly covered in vast oceans.
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@AMAZlNGNATURE Not habitable for us. A 150 pound man would weigh 375 pounds. Escape velocity would make leaving the planet by rocket with chem tech impossible.
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The Astounding Discovery That Could Link Eastern and Western Medicine nytimes.com/interactive/20…
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@CuriosityonX Ukranians could probably build a drone to get in there next week for a thousand bucks, and god help the aliens who try to fight back.
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John Aikman retweetledi
Oil Tanker Slips Anonymously Through Strait Of Hormuz By Adding Fake Nose And Mustache buff.ly/FmqvIrT
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Last night’s Grammy Hall Of Fame Gala saw Taylor Hanson singing Nick Drake’s “Pink Moon,” Isabel Marie singing Selena’s “No Me Queda Más,” and Teddy Swims singing Radiohead’s “Airbag” – just kidding, he sang his own “Lose Control” to honor Warner Records.
Stereogum@stereogum
Erykah Badu sings with George Clinton, Janet Jackson calls for peace at 2026 Grammy Hall Of Fame Gala stereogum.com/2498495/erykah…
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@Ekenewhite @sentdefender Iran understands that force has limits, something Trump is now learning at the cost of his presidency.
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According to Fox News, the U.S. conducted airstrikes that targeted a number of empty Iranian very large crude carriers (VLCC) that were attempting to return back to Iran by running the U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
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@ChrisO_wiki Excellent news, so long as they don’t get too nihilistic. I love the Russian ability to combine poetry and obscenity in the same breath.
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Sources:
🔹 t.me/AlexCarrier/15…
🔹 t.me/leib_hussar/32…
🔹 t.me/Primus_GPU/3473
🔹 t.me/RastaPavel/226…
🔹 t.me/RastaPavel/227…
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1/ As Victory Day approaches in Russia, warbloggers are increasingly despondent and predict the fall of the regime in the face of drone attacks and social and economic problems. They perceive a rapid worsening of the situation and a sense that 'things can't go on like this.' ⬇️
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@BBCSteveR Thank you Steve for another excellent report. Let's see how 'Victory Day' unfolds. However, part of me still feels sorry for the huge losses suffered by the former Soviet Union during the Great Patriotic War.
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A scaled-back parade and fears of attack. Our latest report from Moscow on preparations for Victory Day.
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@MosheBenIssac @ProfessorPape Only Trump could order an attack on Iran, and only he will decide to make a deal. I doubt the military ever thought it was a good idea, esp with the George W Iraq blunder still fresh on their minds.
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@jdaikman @ProfessorPape I agree, Trump did not want a long costly war, yet he has not replaced Hegseth who made catastrophic mistakes
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Marco Rubio’s 58-minute White House briefing on Iran was the most revealing statement yet from the Trump administration
Some will argue the briefing was overtaken by Trump’s later pause in Operation Freedom
That misses the point
Rubio revealed the strategic logic now driving the administration — and where escalation pressures could still lead
Here are the 5 most important signals
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@ProfessorPape A long war is the last thing Trump wants. In short order he will lose his republican base, both houses, and any remaining allies. The only friend he'll have left is Putin, currently hiding in a bunker, fearing for his life. My guess is he'll be impeached at the first opportunity.
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My conclusion:
Whatever temporary pauses may occur, the administration no longer sounds like a government thinking about this conflict in limited terms
It sounds like a government preparing the country psychologically for a long war
Full analysis at Substack Professor Robert Pape
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Quebec votes Liberal because they're relatively insulated from the consequences of Liberal rule and don't realize what they're doing.
Toronto votes Liberal despite being smacked harder by the consequences than almost anyone else, but it's fine because they hate themselves.
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@LeclairClaude @rocknrollofall I only ever saw two concerts there - Steel Wheels, which sucked on so many levels, and Voodoo Lounge, which was epic - front row center, dancing the whole time with Mick and Keith kicking ass 20 feet away. One for the books.
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@rocknrollofall Rolling Stones Steel Wheels Tour, Montreal Olympic Stadium. We left early.
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Yes, the biggest impediment to her success is white folk.
End Wokeness@EndWokeness
Aaron Rose Philip blames "whiteness" for a lack of trans + black + disabled models on runways
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@JayinKyiv @FrankLuntz Trump and Putin were on the same side - carve up the world and establish empires. But Trump is a blithering idiot and tanked the plan by mistake when he demanded Greenland and targeted Russian client states for oil. Now neither can consolidate power and help the other.
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Its a shame that the White House chooses to side with Russia instead of working with Ukraine to gather all that invaluable military experience. Europe is going to be the arms capital of the world with US missing the boat, unless things change fast.
Sadly, the Trump family still fantasizes about Russian winning - a total impossibility.
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Russian forces captured 68 square miles of Ukraine last month — and it cost them 4,800 vehicles and more than 36,600 dead and wounded troops.
At the current rates of advance, Russia would capture the rest of Ukraine in the year 2256 at the cost of 101 million casualties.
forbes.com/sites/davidaxe…
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