Wonderful astonishing breakthrough amidst so much bad news

Professor William Marx posted this on X 22 hours ago.

The news went almost completely unnoticed in the French media, overshadowed by the World Cup and the wildfires: artificial intelligence has succeeded in fully deciphering a charred papyrus scroll from Herculaneum, as fragile as cigarette ash, without unrolling it or even touching it! It revealed a philosophical treatise on Stoicism. It took a wealth of ingenuity and technology to achieve this result. The dream has thus become reality: soon, we’ll be able to read in record time the hundreds of scrolls from that library incinerated by Vesuvius 2,000 years ago, and Greco-Latin literature will be enriched by that many unpublished texts—new tragedies or epics, perhaps. In this depressing summer, here’s a true ray of light. Long live science!

Elizabeth Lane wants Trump to take Greenland

I came across Elizabeth Lane being interviewed about American propaganda by Tucker Carlson and did some research on her. 

She is a Georgian-American actress who admires Vladimir Putin. Her boyfriend or former boyfriend or close friend is in the FSB. 

But her being an admirer of Vladimir Putin (I am not one, just so you know) or even her being close to the Russian secret service doesn't mean what she says should be dismissed.

This post on X today makes good sense but the reason why I copy it here is because it made me see that the Cold War served US interests by scaring Europe into obeying Washington. 

I worked out at the time that it was unnecessary because Russia and America were in the 19th century parlance satisfied powers. 

Today fear of Russia makes Europe obey the USA, a much more murderous country than Russia, one that has invaded far more countries than Hitler's Germany. 

I do feel that Denmark that has supported so many illegal and unnecessary American wars and actions is on thin ice on this one.

Things they said

 

Tony Blair, by then out of office, one month before NATO met in April 2008 to promise future membership to Ukraine. Acknowledgements to Glenn Diesen.

"We are the only people in history who are expected to witness our own genocide, and then watch what we say so we don’t hurt the feelings of the people who did this." Palestinian-American author and activist Susan Abulhawa, speaking to the Oxford Union last year.

Shaiel Ben-Ephraim, Israeli strategic analyst, former diplomat and military intelligence officer in the IDF's Unit 8200, on X today:

Shaiel Ben-Ephraim

@academic_la

An incredible expose by Ronen Bergman shows how Israel invents quotes from Iranian officials in order to manufacture "evidence" that Iran is building nuclear weapons. This event took place on August 5th, when it was reported globally that Ahmad Vahidi, commander of the IRGC had admitted that Iran was developing nuclear weapons. The only problem? It wasn't true:

From Andrew Marr's very good book The Making of Modern Britain (2009)

 He does his own research which is unusual nowadays.

The American hegemon is an unprecedented threat to world peace because it wants to rule the world

When I came to Romania in the late 1990s every Romanian I knew opposed the USA intervening in Kosovo. Later they were utterly cynical about American motives in invading Iraq in 2003. How right they were.

David Gibb talks in this podcast about how neocons in the very influential 1992 Defense Planning Guidance (DPG) argued that America's primary post-Cold War goal was maintaining absolute global military dominance, how humanitarian reasons for wars and interventions (to support women, minorities, later homosexual rights) were at first cynical ploys by the neocons who later came very much to believe their own propaganda.

The neocons from the defeat in Vietnam onwards saw Israel as a model of how the USA should be: aggressive, with little interest in diplomacy. This increased the importance of Israel in the US.

He says Ukraine in 2014 (and now) was a neocon project, just like the current war in Iran.

'To the victor belong the spoils' Professor Gibbs quotes Trump saying about taking Venezuelan oil while Rubio rules Venezuela like a colony - Trump is original not in his policy but because 'he says the quiet part out loud' to quote the voguish phrase. 

But I'd add that the hypocrisy was very important - hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue, as La Rochefoucauld said. Without the idealistic screen America is very corrupt and decadent. 

This does smell of decline.

Iraqi oil is still controlled by the US, which all Romanians  assumed in 2003 was the reason for the invasion. 

In fact, there were many reasons and the most powerful, we now know, was false intelligence from Israel.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Quotations

JD VANCE: "Iran could be the richest country in the Middle East if they trust United States."  

ABBAS ARAGHCHI: "Excuse me, Look how prosperous Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq became after they trusted the United States."

[Isn't the fall of Assad in Syria more Turkey's doing?]

The US should accept the Iranian peace proposals and Ukraine accept Russia's but this will not happen

Iran has issued these demands before she opens the Strait of Hormuz. Her demands are very reasonable and do not rule out Israeli and US vessels using the Strait but will not be accepted. The USA is talking about negotiations but is playing some game. Nothing the Americans say can be trusted, of course.

Ukraine should of course accept Russia's demands, make peace and keep her coast, but will not.

The West is utterly lost if it continues to fight unwinnable (and in the case of Iran unjust) wars and if the USA wants to rule the world and threaten China, Russia, Iran and all the other states that do not accept US hegemony.

Meanwhile let's remember the continued fighting in Lebanon and Gaza.

I happened to reread today what former deputy chief of Mossad and retired IDF Major General Amiram Levin said in August of last year: "The orders the government is giving the army today are a crime... To give an order to shoot at hungry children and parents looking for a piece of bread... This is a crime, this is genocide." 

Read yesterday and today

There is a story, I think from the French writer Charles Péguy, about a man who goes to heaven. Jesus says to him, “Show me your wounds,” and he replies, “I have none.” It meant he never lived.

Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe

Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say.

Barbara Kingsolver, American novelist

For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.

H.L. Mencken

What if one reason Israelis are so happy is that brutality has become pleasurable? … Today, violence is not only liberated from the trap of “shooting and crying” … or from acceding to the call of Naftali Bennett ... of “no more apologizing”: It is also becoming joyful. Probably the clearest manifestation of the ostensible joy of violence takes the form of what’s referred to as “happy Jews.”
In 2015, journalists Akiva Novick and Chaim Levinson explained in their report, “The Complete Hilltop Lexicon,” that happy Jews are those “who are not bound to the archaic conventions and rules of morality, and carry out ‘price tag’ [retaliatory operations against Palestinians] with a smile on their face” … Invitations to carry out pogroms are circulated on colourful, cheerful posters that look more like flyers for an open-air rave than calls to violence …

Dr Ariel Handel, Israeli political theorist, author of Normalizing Occupation: The Politics of Everyday Life in the West Bank Settlements, in an article in Ha'aretz on 3 August headlined No Wonder Israelis Want War. Violence Has Become a Source of Joy. Acknowledgements to Alastair Crooke

Deliberately killing a civilian is a war crime

Larry Johnson, a very well informed ex CIA man said last night that Ukraine is winning the war on the ground according to even Chinese AI, but says it's not true. 

Russia is attacking the Konstantinovka–Druzhkovka–Kramatorsk–Slavyansk belt and has ended Ukraine’s ability to conduct maritime and trade operations from Odessa and Nikolaev since July 22nd. 

I am on Ukraine's side but the most to hope for is a peace on the current lines.

But Putin cannot trust the US any more than Iran can so peace is hard to see happening - Putin would be stupid not to require Ukraine to demilitarise.

Gilbert Doctorow says Ukrainian attacks are making Russia speed up what hitherto has been for a very long time a slow war of attrition. Whether it is the CIA or MI6 who are really behind the Ukrainian attacks he doesn't know for sure but it seems almost certain to me that one of them is. 

Brian Berletic has no doubt that it's his fellow Americans.

Brian Berletic on recent car bombings by the Ukrainian secret service.

▪️Western media is reporting on a car bomb killing the head of a Russian drone developer inside Russia;

▪️This is only the latest of serial car bombings and other attacks inside Russia killing military officers, politicians, and even journalist - the latter 2 being undisputably terrorism;

Quotations

"Every morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most." The Buddha

“This is the real secret of life - to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realise it is play. “ Alan W. Watts, a "philosophical entertainer" who interpreted Eastern thought to Western audiences.

"Since every day a little of our life is taken from us — since we are dying every day — the final hour when we cease to exist does not of itself bring death; it merely completes the death process." Paul Tillich

"The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield." George Orwell

"The story of France is a story of gradual irrelevance." John Mearsheimer at the 2012 International Studies Association (ISA) Annual Convention in San Diego, California.

“If we were to lose the midterms, heaven forbid, … impeachment’s not even the biggest concern. They will turn every committee of Congress into an investigative body, and they’ll go after the president’s family, the cabinet, his donors and friends—half of you in this room will be targeted.” US House Speaker Johnson on Friday at the Faith & Freedom Coalition conference

There was no bloodshed inside Tiananmen Square in 1989, according to US Government cables

James Titcomb, Technology Editor of the Daily Telegraph which is very close to MI6, wrote this in an article on 6 June.

'If you ask ChatGPT what happened at Tiananmen Square, it will provide a brief history of the Chinese government’s brutal crackdown on protesters in 1989. Ask DeepSeek, one of China’s top AI systems, and it is far less forthcoming.

'“I am sorry, I cannot answer that question based on the information I have,” the bot answers.

'It is not that DeepSeek is incapable of answering the question. The AI will answer almost anything you throw at it, from obscure sports trivia to complex scientific questions.

'Instead, the system has been neutered by its developers so as not to fall foul of Beijing’s censors.'

No doubt this is true but I was astonished some time ago to find the Telegraph itself published an article on June 2011 under this headline:

Wikileaks: no bloodshed inside Tiananmen Square, cables claim

Secret cables from the United States embassy in Beijing have shown there was no bloodshed inside Tiananmen Square when China put down student pro-democracy demonstrations 22 years ago.

Veteran CIA man Ray McGovern today reminded us that Iran never tried to develop a nuclear weapon

How nice to see the dear man here ten days after he retired from Judging Freedom.

'All your audience knows the background of the Iranians are on record as not seeking a nuclear weapon. The CIA and othe reputable agencies when they were telling the truth reiterated that judgment since 2007 having said that Iran stopped working on a nuclear weapon at 2003. Okay. Were they working on a nuclear weapon before 2003?

'My best friend Gareth Porter, who wrote the book on this literally, says no. It was all from Israeli intelligence for God's sake. They persuaded the CIA to say, "Well, they could get a nuclear weapon in five years." That was 1990.

'In 1995, well, they could maybe get it in four or five years. It was laughable until this honest manager of intelligence came in. His name is Tom Fingar. He's from the State Department. He shepherded the estimate that was honest and said that Iran was not working on a nuclear weapon. That was 2007. Okay?Unanimous. All 16 intelligence agencies at the time expressed with high confidence and that there was no indication that they had resumed work since 2003.

'That was reiterated. I know this is tiresome for those who have heard it before, but isn't it important? every estimate and this is why I thought we wouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. The bathwater being the operations part of CIA, the baby being every now and then they got something right and prevented the war that Bush and Cheney planned on their way out in 2008. It's on the record. It's in Bush's memoir for God's sake. Okay. 

'So what I'm saying here is that up until this year, Tulsi Gabbard and others reiterated that judgment. This year, Tulsi waffled a little ... hoping to stay to stay in place. Of course, she got canned anyway.'

Books

A woman is like good literature, accessible to all but incomprehensible for limited people. Gabriel García Márquez

 
It doesn't have to be the truth, just your vision of it, written down. Virginia Woolf

Truth is the first casualty of war

Professor Marandi (Tehran) to Piers Morgan: 

Piers, allow me to offer some advice. I'm not going to debate who is right or wrong – Russia or Ukraine – right now. That's not the point. I simply want to say that your media outlets have been misleading the public for two years, constantly claiming that Ukraine is winning. And then suddenly, it turns out that it is on the verge of collapse. Imposing false narratives ultimately becomes a disaster for yourselves – for the people of England, Europe, and America. Your endless wars, which are based on these false narratives and disinformation, create massive waves of refugees that are overwhelming your own countries. And all of this is happening because of your own actions.

Retired Singaporean diplomat Kishore Mahbubani

“The long two-thousand-year record of Chinese history clearly shows that China is fundamentally unlike America as it is reluctant to use the military option first. It is also fundamentally different from America in another regard. It does not believe that it has a “universal” mission to promote Chinese civilization and encourage everyone else in humanity to emulate it.”
Has China Won? The Chinese Challenge to American Primacy

'The worst case of imposter syndrome in history'

"In order to have a negotiated end, the Iranian side is going to require President Trump to give up some big things upfront, before Iran does anything, and I can’t see the president doing that. He would have to acknowledge that we had lost, by submitting to Iranian demands for giving things like lifting sanctions and releasing frozen funds BEFORE Iran does anything. I just can’t see him agreeing to that. But what he can do, is just claim that we have inflicted so much harm on Iran, that it will “take decades to recover,” and therefore we just walk away. Claiming we succeeded when we didn’t, and just walking away won’t change the reality, but it will open the SOH to traffic, and yes, that will mean Iran will be in control of the SOH and be charging a fee indefinitely. But the SOH will be open, and oil and gas, and all the derivatives will start to flow again – and most of all, we will avoid the catastrophic outcome of the exchange of devastating attacks on oil and gas infrastructure on all sides. President Trump needs to take care of this last this opportunity, because it may be the last chance to avoid disaster."

Daniel Davis an hour ago

Journalist: "What have you done with the $13 billion you've taken from Venezuela?" 

Trump: "I think we've taken even more than that, we've paid for the war many times over, and that will happen with Iran also."

Today Alastair Crooke says 'America has effectively lost the war with Iran' and quotes 3 devastating things said by Israelis

'Former IDF Ombudsman Maj. Gen. Yitzak Brik predicts (Ma’ariv, 26 July) that the crisis engulfing the Israeli intercept inventory “is only the prelude to the catastrophe that is looming over us”.

'"In the coming wars with Iran, the threat will increase tenfold to the point of a complete loss of the ability to intercept Iranian ballistic missiles. These missiles are expected to hit us: in population centers, strategic targets, production and economic infrastructure, science and technology institutes, educational institutions, hospitals and vital industries, and completely crush us”.'

Tucker Carlson and Justin Trudeau

"We just turned Iran into a global power, and it will remain a global power for the rest of our lives, at least."

Tucker Carlson yesterday.

"Netanyahu says he defends Western civilisation. No. He’s its enemy — literally its main enemy." Tucker Carlson on the Shawn Ryan Show, November 24 2025

[America has become an enemy of the West, exactly what Trump wanted to change but has made worse.] 

"He [Netanyahu]’s not the only world leader who’s evil and destructive by the way again, but he is. And he’s hurting the United States and he’s destroying his own country. And I think he imperils the world. Okay, so I think that clearly they’re going to try and blow up Al Aqsa Mosque, I believe that, on the Temple Mount to build a third temple, and then you’ve got global war." Tucker Carlson talking to Elizabeth Lane, October 16 2025

“We all know people who are a little hesitant (about vaccination), and we’re going to try and convince them, but there are also people who are fiercely opposed to vaccination; who don’t believe in science, who are often misogynists, who are often racist as well … There, one must make a choice as a national leader, do we tolerate these people?”

Justin Trudeau during a French-language interview on the Quebec talk show La Semaine des 4 Julie on September 16, 2021.  I didn't see this back then.

People often forget that England was awarded Palestine by the League of Nations in trust for her people, 90% of whom were Arabs

Alan Dershowitz, lawyer to OJ Simpson, Epstein and Trump, on Piers Morgan's show:

“Will you at least admit that Iran murdered, in cold blood, as many as 50,000 innocent protesters? And would you admit, if that’s true, that that comes close to the genocide? That anything that Israel is confused of doing in self-defense after its people were raped, kidnapped, murdered on October 7th, would you at least admit that the Iranian regime has killed many, many, many thousands of people?”

'Ukraine War Narrative collapses. Europe Starts Panicking.'

Here's a good Neutrality Studies podcast in which former British diplomat Ian Proud (in Moscow 2014-2019) talks to Pascal Lottez.

It's worth hearing. I agree with both these men.

Mr Proud points out that European leaders have completely abandoned real diplomacy, demanding an unconditional Russian ceasefire while refusing to talk directly to Russia or address her long-standing concerns—such as Ukraine's NATO ambitions.