Monadversteher

You voted, I painted. This wild monke is indigenous to Inblotistan. We got him to pose for painting by offering banan. He was found in a bush rubbing dirt on his fur. He is mostly peaceful, but I wouldn't approach with anything you'd like to keep as he will take. Perhaps you can suggest a name for this fine specimen. Inkblotistani Wild Monke, watercolor painting, 5 x 7

Iran has reportedly set up 'tollbooth' in Strait of Hormuz —— Iran has effectively turned the Strait of Hormuz into a controlled passage system, according to Bloomberg, allowing only ships from “friendly” countries to pass safely while restricting or threatening those tied to the US, Israel, and other hostile states. Under the reported arrangement, ship operators must submit ownership, cargo, flag, crew, and tracking data to an intermediary linked to the IRGC, which then vets the vessel for links to the US, Israel, or other adversaries. If approved, the ship negotiates a toll, reportedly starting at around $1 per barrel for oil tankers, often paid in Chinese yuan or stablecoins, after which it receives a permit code, route instructions, and in some cases is required to sail under the flag, or even registration, of a country that has secured passage deals with Tehran. Once near Hormuz, the vessel reportedly broadcasts its code and is escorted through by Iranian patrol boats along a designated coastal corridor, a process some in the shipping industry have already dubbed the “Iranian tollbooth.”

🚨NEW: A recent Nature profile highlighted a scholar who made a literal river the first author of her academic papers. The profile, titled “Why I made a river my co-author,” explains that Anne Poelina gives first authorship to “a source with deep knowledge about water — the river itself.” Nature actually treats this as a serious challenge to “Western and colonial views of what knowledge is and who holds it.” It gets...more insane. The river now has an ORCID (a unique researcher ID used to track an academic’s work), so its papers and citations can be catalogued like a normal human scholar. One example (among many) is a paper in PLOS Water. In the paper's author note, we are told the “Martuwarra, RiverOfLife” is “a living Ancestor Being,” that this is a “multi-species approach,” and that the river was made the first author because “without Country, without the River… there would not be a paper.” The abstract tells readers that the paper is “led by the sacred ancestral River, Martuwarra, who is given agency as a published author,” and then the human authors explain their authority is gained through “lived experience,” kinship, friendship, and a “deep and enduring relationship.” The paper concludes by rejecting “colonial approaches” to science, makes appeals to “Mother Earth,” and a calls for an ethic of “care, love, and peace” guided by Indigenous wisdom and planetary citizenship. Our science journals have become laughingstocks.

Ben Shapiro’s YouTube career is practically OVER at this point 💀

Trump said we need Greenland because we can’t trust NATO to let us use it in a war. He said we need a battleship 100x more powerful to keep straits open. Europe laughed. Trump was right.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Nou, moi hè!