Posts by richpuchalsky@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #B4HEX6yijk9tqiKDWi by richpuchalsky@mastodon.social
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Client states are sad that their deal isn't protecting them.This Guardian article is typically horrible, btw. It contains lies that are not flagged as lies, such as "Gulf states had assured Tehran that none of their bases would be used for attacks" when it's been proven that their bases are being used for attacks.https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/14/gulf-strait-of-hormuz-nightmare-anger-frustration-at-us
(DIR) Post #B4HEX91z6ZxSDPrqtM by richpuchalsky@mastodon.social
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But anyways what is a client state supposed to do? They can't do anything in the near term other than try to become the client of a different empire. What other empire is going to bother with them? The Russians can't do it and the Chinese don't want to do it.
(DIR) Post #B4S41utojcJGbg4qzA by richpuchalsky@mastodon.social
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From Al Jazeera: "[Iranian] General Abolfazl Shekarchi said, in a statement published online by Iranian state television, “From now on, based on the information we have about you, even parks, recreational areas and tourist destinations anywhere in the world will no longer be safe for you.”"This seems to me to be just war propaganda. Israel is killing people via missiles; Iran doesn't have the ability to suddenly put an agent anywhere in the world (or a missile for that matter).
(DIR) Post #B4S41v7HvX5LHSNbyy by richpuchalsky@mastodon.social
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I remember seeing someone's post that the Iranians had a widespread internal camera system that they used to repress their own populace that the Israelis had hacked into, which is how they keep finding Iranian officials. I have no idea whether this is true. But it involves a credible mechanism.
(DIR) Post #B4Xg3dfCYWG1mLHxXE by richpuchalsky@mastodon.social
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Ha ha keep going"Critical infrastructure and energy facilities in the region could be “irreversibly destroyed” should Iranian power plants be targeted, Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf posted on X on Sunday."
(DIR) Post #B4XgAb4yYvy1n5f82y by richpuchalsky@mastodon.social
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@karlauerbach @AdrianRiskin There should be no US and no US national anthem
(DIR) Post #B4jIXqmiGnC49qC74i by richpuchalsky@mastodon.social
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How are things going on day 29 (close enough to a month) of the #IranWar Pretty much as I expected* Houthis formally enter the war * Iran still firing missiles, contrary to every doofus Western media claim that they'd be out by now* no one can trust American diplomacy so there is little chance for a cease fire* Israel steadily escalating (today, by bombing power plants and steel factories)* no allies appear for the US other than the UK, the reliable poodle
(DIR) Post #B4jIXsMYP1SP3HyFZw by richpuchalsky@mastodon.social
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How will the rest of the war go?I don't know. I don't think that Iranian missiles will ever be suppressed, and I don't think that US arrogance and Israeli desire for escalation will ever let them give up.I do know that the oil shock involved is our best chance of forcing countries around the world to convert to renewables.
(DIR) Post #B53Kdx0w6jmuHk5ATw by richpuchalsky@mastodon.social
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#ClassicPoetry #NationalPoetryFoolMonth #poetry Today's poem is one of many through which I've tried to confront the history of global warming activism and its failure. Written 2014, it's another two-column poem, although in the second column there is just an R.E.M. song playing:https://rpuchalsky.blogspot.com/2014/06/global-warming-activism-dream.html
(DIR) Post #B53KdxE3JyHOwQDdvU by richpuchalsky@mastodon.social
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This R.E.M. song was, as far as I can tell, inspired by "pollution trading", which was not really a global warming concept since it first involved pollutants that cause acid rain.I've written many times about my poems being crystallized memories. This one was more like an aid to memory. I thought back over the mass of things I'd done and wondered did all these really happen? Which of them came first? The years in the poem are actual years when I did things.
(DIR) Post #B53KdxSaRvuDfV1Fa4 by richpuchalsky@mastodon.social
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As such I'll sometimes look back at the poem as a reference to when I did things in my own life. And check the links, except for the middle part where I worked for an environmental group that came to so much nothing that even the links to what I worked on are gone.The end of the poem is typical move for me: consulting the car radio as an oracle.
(DIR) Post #B53Kdxedj7XyGsesMq by richpuchalsky@mastodon.social
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In keeping with the pop music part of the poem, what I heard was Pharrell Williams "Happy":"2014 What do people actually want to do?I heard on the radio, you're happy"if you feel like a room without a roof"Well yeah! finally a plan we can doHurricanes and floods will do itEveryone can have a room without a roof"Since then I've been partly convinced that one of the reasons that we don't do anything is because people want our civilization to be destroyed.
(DIR) Post #B53KdxsosOtCyrICTA by richpuchalsky@mastodon.social
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So at the end R.E.M. ecstatically asks for the fall, of the re-radiated light, of the civilization, it hardly matters which./fin
(DIR) Post #B5ETAZSpcjR7ArkrYG by richpuchalsky@mastodon.social
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Either US democracy is not functioning, in which case it should end, or it is functioning and this it what it wants, in which case it should end.
(DIR) Post #B5ETAaYBaJJUXlGeXI by richpuchalsky@mastodon.social
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There are a lot of people, including many anarchists, who think that one has to keep positive vibes about the people around you no matter what they are doing. This is just as much an imposition of duty on the individual as anything else. You're allowed to feel whatever you want and you're allowed to perceive reality as you see it.
(DIR) Post #B5ETAbHuqHtQpafAoa by richpuchalsky@mastodon.social
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It's also just not a good analysis of what's going on. The US is like Nazi Germany in the late 30s. Will the people rise up? Historically the people in a society going fascist hardly ever do.What stops fascist states is that they can't stop aggressively attacking other states and then run into one which can stop them, as Trump pretty much just did with Iran and its oil supply crash.
(DIR) Post #B5ETAcCzQ5XxgbMkm8 by richpuchalsky@mastodon.social
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Does that mean that other countries are going to have to declare WW III? No it does not. The oil supply shock is going to kick the pins out from the US order. Not every imperial overreach has to look like every other.But in the US this will look like people voting in the neoliberal party because they are angry about gas prices, not because they are angry that we killed a school full of schoolgirls. Because 2/3rd of US voters already voted for genocide so they don't care.
(DIR) Post #B6WntUiBgIQrCBQiqO by richpuchalsky@mastodon.social
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@xgranade " can't help but see that many of the critics, including many luminaries in the field, seem to have prioritised hatred of LLMs over love for that which they threaten"It's not a good essay, because it assumes that the only art is the art that people can live off of. Do "luminaries" write a lot of shallow criticism? Sure, if "luminary" means that you are one of the extremely small group of people who live off of writing criticism.The rest of us just make art and don't sell it.