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The Majority Report discussion of a clip of Zbigniew Brzezinski discussing American policy in the Middle East 22 years ago in the run up to the Iraq War.
Just a glimpse of the long running violence and the policy failures leading to the violence of the current moment.
…the Israelies are increasingly becoming like the white supremecist South Africans viewing the Palestinians as a lower form of life, not hesitating to kill a great many of them and justifying this on the grounds that they being the objects of terrorism, which is true, but the reactions are all out of proportion.
What This Jewish Professor At Columbia Wants You To Know - YouTube
For over seven months, a dominant conversation in the U.S. news media has been about alleged and increased antisemitism on American campuses - culminating in the coverage around student encampments… In this interview, AJ+ speaks to Dr. Bruce Robbins, a Jewish professor at Columbia University who supported students protesting Columbia University’s investments in companies and programs that uphold Israeli apartheid and the genocide in Gaza.
The perception of the iPad is stuck in a rut created by the Apple enthusiast community
It’s been clear for months that Israel is carrying out genocide in Palestine. And yet I still see Americans suggest it’s not happening, not genocide. Just two days ago a blogger citing the New York Times to suggest that the problem is confirmation bias and TikTok having undue influence.
Sure, because the New York Times, as the gatekeeper of “All the news that’s fit to print” is to be trusted.
The world would be a more just and peacful place if Americans made an effort to understand their role in the world. I’d suggest starting with texts like Chomsky’s “A Propaganda Model” excerpted from Manufacturing Consent, 1988 by Edward Herman & Noam Chomsky.
“The plan is genocide”: Palestinian ambassador on Israel’s assault #Gaza - YouTube
Senior Palestinian diplomat Husam Zomlot criticizes Western hypocrisy amid Israel’s intensifying attacks on Gaza. “The plan is genocide,” he says.
Army Major and Pentagon Officer Resigns Over US Support of Gaza Genocide | Truthout
Another Biden administration official has resigned over the U.S.’s unconditional support of Israel’s genocide in Gaza — this time a senior officer in the U.S. Army who also served as an intelligence official for the Pentagon.
In a letter posted on LinkedIn on Monday, Harrison Mann wrote that he felt complicit in the “most horrific and heartbreaking images imaginable” being broadcast from Gaza while in his role…
This comment from a thread at MacRumors about Joanna Stern’s iPad Pro review explains a point I’ve been trying to make for awhile:
It can be frustrating to repeatedly highlight that many tech reviewers overlook that their use of a computer is not the only use of computers. Apart from digital artists, who may prefer to use an iPad over a traditional laptop for some of their work, several other mobile professionals use the iPad Pro because, for their specific needs, it provides a superior computing experience.
For instance, if you frequently scan and mark up documents for work, the iPad Pro is a better option than a MacBook Pro. Similarly, if you conduct virtual real estate walkthroughs with clients, the front and rear-facing cameras on the iPad Pro can be useful. If you’re an event producer, the iPad Pros has a better color-accurate screen and powerful audio. Finally, if you’re an architect or contractor working on-site, having a lightweight, powerful computer to conduct integrated location scans with LiDar measurements is a feature only available on the iPad Pro.
The iPad Pro is not a limited laptop; it is a high-performance tablet computer. It’s important to note that the majority of users on these forums, as well as tech journalists, are basic iPad users. Therefore, it is important to recognize that the iPad Pro may not be the ideal device for them. Fortunately, Apple offers the base iPad at a very reasonable price, which is a great alternative for those who don’t need the advanced features of the iPad Pro.
We speak to Thrall about… Israel’s intensified crackdown in the West Bank, how criticism of Israel is conflated with antisemitism, and why debates over the future of a Palestinian state are an “enormous distraction from the reality on the ground” — that is, the Israeli occupation’s “system of domination that is extremely bureaucratic and elaborate, that has lasted for over half a century and is not going anywhere.”
USA & Israel Defy World in Vote To Make Palestine Full UN Member - ZNetwork
143 countries, representing the vast majority of the world, voted at the UN General Assembly to support giving Palestine full membership. They were opposed by the US, Israel, and seven other small states, representing just 5% of the global population.
As the Gaza solidarity encampments disrupt business as usual at U.S. universities, Christian Zionists and many far-Right groups are trying to seize the moment for themselves — harassing and attacking the students participating in them with an eye toward actually, one day, taking the campuses over…
But one other group is adding a distinct flavor of prejudice to the mix: Christian Nationalists.
UN Officials Describe “Absolutely Catastrophic” Conditions in Gaza – Mother Jones
A senior UNICEF official for Gaza, Hamish Young, issued a statement on Saturday warning that “families lack proper sanitation facilities, drinking water and shelter,” and that “people are making improvised toilets by digging holes in the ground around groups of tents” in Al-Mawasi, a so-called humanitarian zone about six miles northeast of Rafah where Palestinians have been ordered to evacuate. He added that virtually no fuel or humanitarian aid had entered the Gaza Strip in five days.
How Zionism became a synonym for violence and oppression | The Guardian
For decades, Joe Biden has proudly declared that he is a Zionist, and he has repeated that claim since Hamas’s 7 October attacks on Israel. But for the student anti-war protests gripping the US, the words “Zionist” and “Zionism” have become a watchword – pejorative and emblematic of the violent state policies driving the war on Gaza…
Student protesters say that their criticisms of Zionism are rooted in the state of Israel’s displacement and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
Canada continues to burn
Canada wildfire: Thousands evacuate in British Columbia, winds push smoke into Alberta | AP News
The blaze, which started Friday, almost doubled in size the following day, reaching about 17 square kilometers (4,200 acres). BC Wildfire Service maps showed the fire burning just a few kilometers (miles) west of Fort Nelson’s city limits.
In 2023, Canada witnessed a record number of wildfires that also caused choking smoke in parts of the U.S. and forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate across British Columbia.
More than 800 faculty and staff at UCLA call for chancellor’s resignation | The Guardian
… following attacks by counter-protesters on pro-Palestinian student demonstrators and a violent police raid of the Gaza solidarity encampment on campus last week.
More than a hundred professors and other teaching staff gathered on Thursday to deliver a letter in support of their students engaged in pro-Palestinian activism, demanding Gene Block immediately step down as chancellor and an academic senate vote of no confidence in him.
Nature’s Oldest Mandolin: The Poetic Science of How Cicadas Sing – The Marginalian
“The use of music,” Richard Powers wrote, “is to remind us how short a time we have a body” — a truth nowhere more bittersweet than in the creature whose body is the oldest unchanged musical instrument on Earth: a tiny mandolin silent for most of its existence, then sonorous with a fleeting symphony of life before the final silence.
An important step forward for the Palestinians.
UNGA votes in favour of expanding Palestine’s rights | Al Jazeera Newsfeed - YouTube
With overwhelming support, Palestine has been granted expanded rights and privileges in its status at the UN. 143 nations voted in favour, with 9 against and 25 abstentions. Although upgraded, the new status does not allow Palestine to vote with the same rights as full member states.
Doc Rock on the May 7th episode of MacBreak Weekly is the first podcaster I’ve heard to clearly call-out the ridiculous iPad hot takes so common these days, especially in regard to the iPad Pro.
“It’s funny when a lot of the conversation around the pro or the not pro is always about productivity. The people don’t talk about what type of productivity you’re doing, right? If you’re doing everything in notion or Evernote or something of that nature, then again, maybe it doesn’t matter, right?
But if your productivity is based around SketchUp or they showed, not Blender, they showed ZBrush, some other things like that, those all count. Those all count and they do actually tax pretty hard. If you’re a logic person and you’re running pretty heavy logic action, which a lot, as an ex DJ, I would tell you, a lot of music people use iPads.
What happens, the general tech person in our circle and the general YouTuber, also my circle, they always talk about it like the way it matches them. People forget about Bechtel, who’s doing civil engineering and their iPads are running really high level tests. People forget about all the restaurants, which is why you want 128 gigabyte model, because all they do is use them for retail.
And they run one app and one app only. “People forget about education, healthcare, occupational therapies, all of the things that you use an iPad for other than you who just use it to watch Netflix. And I get that and knock yourself out player.
But like, don’t be like Apple doesn’t have the knowledge of who they’re selling to when they make these devices. And it cracked me up every time because people always have these weird hot takes. And one of the ones was, why put the M4 in this first?”
Exploring how others use and view the iPad
Buckle in, this is a longer post based on a couple of very interesting iPad-related conversations I’ve had recently. It begins with an email from Justin Harter, who is a graphic designer, teacher and writer. We had an enjoyable exchange largely focused on our workflows for image processing and file management on iPad. I had a look at his blog and knew immediately that I wanted to mention some of his recent iPad posts.
Right off he caught my attention with a post that expresses something I rarely see from fellow tech enthusiasts: A concern for the environment. Why is this so rare? I appreciate that he is writing about it and that his environmental ethics are a part of his decision making in regards to his consumption of technology.
Mehdi Hasan on the Majority Report last week on the media presentation of the student protests as violent:
They get attacked by pro-Israel counter protesters on Sunday and Wednesday night. Jewish professors like David Myers, distinguished history professor at UCLA, Dov Waxman, chair of Israel studies at UCLA, are coming out and saying it’s the counter-protesters, it’s people shouting stuff in Hebrew, right, attacking us viciously.
That happens and the New York Times is “well, we’re not sure who did it”, CNN are like “well, both sides attacked each other.” Are you joking? It’s on camera.
World’s top climate scientists expect global heating to blast past 1.5C target | The Guardian
Hundreds of the world’s leading climate scientists expect global temperatures to rise to at least 2.5C (4.5F) above preindustrial levels this century, blasting past internationally agreed targets and causing catastrophic consequences for humanity and the planet, an exclusive Guardian survey has revealed.
Almost 80% of the respondents, all from the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), foresee at least 2.5C of global heating, while almost half anticipate at least 3C (5.4F). Only 6% thought the internationally agreed 1.5C (2.7F) limit would be met.
Many of the scientists envisage a “semi-dystopian” future, with famines, conflicts and mass migration, driven by heatwaves, wildfires, floods and storms of an intensity and frequency far beyond those that have already struck.
Numerous experts said they had been left feeling hopeless, infuriated and scared by the failure of governments to act despite the clear scientific evidence provided.
“I think we are headed for major societal disruption within the next five years,” said Gretta Pecl, at the University of Tasmania. “ Authorities will be overwhelmed by extreme event after extreme event, food production will be disrupted. I could not feel greater despair over the future.”
Not surprising. We continue to move in the wrong direction.
Record-breaking increase in CO2 levels in world’s atmosphere | The Guardian
The largest ever recorded leap in the amount of carbon dioxide laden in the world’s atmosphere has just occurred, according to researchers who monitor the relentless accumulation of the primary gas that is heating the planet.
The global average concentration of carbon dioxide in March this year was 4.7 parts per million (or ppm) higher than it it was in March last year, which is a record-breaking increase in CO2 levels over a 12-month period.