Modern society can measure inequality, power and behaviour in extraordinary detail, but struggles to explain despair, loneliness, hope and the human need for meaning.

We live in a culture that has lost its spirit. We know how to measure behaviour, track trends, and analyse systems, yet we no longer know what it means to be human.

Adrian Rosenfeldt

GUS WOULD OBJECT TO THE FOLLOWING ANALYSIS BUT IT IS INTERESTING TO SEE HOW SPIRITUAL DELUSION WORKS AND IS PROMOTED WITH ENLIGHTENED MISUNDERSTANDINGS. SO LET'S GET INTO IT...:

“A 19th Century labour model behind a 21st Century logo”. David Tyler investigates the iPhone and Apple’s planned obsolescence racket.

“Of course it’s expensive,” chant the Apple faithful, polishing the virtual halo, “but it just works.”  Until it doesn’t work, of course, which is not a bug but a design feature as we will see later.

It just works? And others don’t? The Mac mantra may be the most successful four-word con in consumer branding. Certainly, as with all the best cons, the mark repeats it for free. Endlessly. 

What just works, in fact, is the business model,

This edited extract of Getting Murdoched: How Murdoch’s Media Wields Power and Punishment Andrew Dodd and Matthew Ricketson examines Murdoch’s destructive anti-climate change campaign.

The emergence of climate change as a global issue coincided with the creation of Rupert Murdoch’s global media empire. Except for a brief period when his younger son, James, persuaded him of the dangers of global warming and the need to give the ‘planet the benefit of the doubt’, Murdoch was at best sceptical, at worst hostile to the issue.

French investigators have again summoned Telegram co-founder Pavel Durov for questioning as the criminal investigation into the messaging platform nears its second year with no resolution in sight.

Durov spent around six hours being questioned at the Paris Judicial Tribunal on Wednesday, local media reported, citing law enforcement sources. It marked the fourth time the tech entrepreneur has been interrogated as part of the ongoing investigation.

His legal team confirmed the questioning to AFP, saying that “almost two years after the indictment of Pavel Durov, there is still no evidence to establish the validity of the charges.”

“The only change since Durov’s detention in France is that French authorities have started properly drafting requests to Telegram,” the social media platform said in a separate statement.

The belligerent stance of European NATO members risks triggering an all-out war with Russia that could spell the end of the bloc, Dmitry Trenin, the president of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC), wrote in an op-ed for RT.

Trenin argued that the European elites are seeking “Russia’s destruction as a major power” rather than deterrence, as was the case during the Cold War. They are using the Ukraine conflict as a convenient opportunity, he said.

Europe’s bellicose posturing risks direct war with Russia, expert warns
An all-out war would bring an end to NATO, Dmitry Trenin wrote in an op-ed for RT

This is a follow-up from my previous piece. My goal is to explain why the current structure of the US refinery industry has created a dangerous dependence on the import of high sulphur oil aka sour crude. The heart of the matter is the middle distillates from which diesel and jet fuel are produced. This is precisely where the cutoff of Persian Gulf oil threatens to bite the US economy in the ass. 

Part II: The Sour Crude Problem: How Long Can the Salt Caverns Keep Bridging the Gap?

by Larry C. Johnson

The Liberals have ruled out working with One Nation, but they’re taking on a menace of their own making. Andrew Gardiner reports.

Liberal leader Angus Taylor has spurned Pauline Hanson’s call for a united front against Labor, ruling out working with a One Nation party the Liberals belatedly see as an existential threat. 

Angus Taylor takes on the Hanson threat. A day late and a dollar short?

by Andrew Gardiner

Trump has always had poor impulse control but we are moving into a new phase with F-bombs, real bombs and threats to entire civilisations becoming daily occurrences.

“They’re scum…they’re led by sick people and they’re vicious, violent people. There’s something wrong with them. They’re cuckoo. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over.” This is what Trump said after bombing Iran on 8 July and threatening to tear up the MOU.

Eugene Doyle

President Donald Trump has told Vladimir Zelensky that the US is willing to grant Ukraine a license to produce Patriot missile interceptors – one of the few weapons in Kiev’s foreign-sourced arsenal capable of shooting down state-of-the art Russian missiles.

“We’ll give them the right to make Patriots,” Trump said, seated beside Zelensky at the NATO summit in Ankara, Türkiye, on Wednesday. “This way he can’t complain that we’re not giving him enough. I said, ‘Make them yourself,’” Trump added. He called the undertaking complex but voiced hope that Kiev would work it out quickly.

Iran planned to kill US President Donald Trump in a fresh plot unveiled by Israel, several US media outlets report. According to Israeli intelligence, the plan was “specific” and may explain why Trump chose to switch planes when leaving the NATO summit in Turkey earlier this week.

Israel shared intelligence with the United States this week about a new and “specific” plan by Iran to assassinate President Donald Trump, US media reported Thursday.

Among the key men involved in the American Revolution and the following periods, we find an oft-repeated concern that may seem foreign to us today—the threat of standing armies. This was a heritage of British legal thought and history, and it became an underappreciated part of American political thought and experience.

Why were peacetime standing armies viewed as such a threat?

The American Revolution and the Danger of Standing Armies

by Joshua Mawhorter

On the eve of this week’s NATO summit in Ankara, Türkiye, the bloc released a report titled ‘Defense Expenditure of NATO Countries (2014-2025)’.

On the surface, the report shows a staggering increase in the level of defense spending by several NATO members over the course of the previous decade, with Lithuania leading the way with an increase of some 777%.

Scott Ritter: NATO is spending itself into oblivion

If bloc members continue to ramp up their spending, they will eat themselves from the inside, and Russia won’t have to lift a finger

In aggregate, NATO members, in seeking to meet the 2% GDP threshold for defense spending set by the US a decade ago, has seen a $1.364 trillion increase in the money invested in the militaries of the respective members over the past decade.

That’s a lot of money.

In August 1991, newly elected to the United States Congress, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, of Cuban origin, launched a fierce campaign to prevent Cuba from hosting the Pan American Games. She was unsuccessful, and the US delegation even visited Cuba. The following year, she wholeheartedly supported the Torricelli Act, which aimed to cripple the Cuban economy by taking advantage of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

There's a difference between those who pay for a ticket to see the show and those who hire the artist.

Pro-Israel supporters and Cuban-Americans: Marco Rubio and his investors

Hernando Calvo Ospina

Why Australia’s Gen Z is unlike any voting cohort before it and why every institution built for the old Australia is about to find out.

Every generation of Australians before this one was socialised by place. You grew up in a suburb, and that suburb came with an inheritance, a history: a local footy club, an RSL, a pub, a masthead your parents read at the kitchen table that belonged to your state or regional city.

Kosmos Samaras