I love John Pilger. All my homies love John Pilger. This rules. 
ty saved me a click 
Good ole' first past the post. The Bloc can get half as many votes but twice as many seats because they have regional (rather than diffuse, national) support 
The NDP doesn't have enough national support for the media to feel compelled to attack them as viciously as the yanks did to Bernie, but if it came to that they certainly would.
Can somebody give me a TL;DW
I don't mean to be the 
guy but that would pretty much guarantee a Conservative majority at this point if an election were called.
Pretty amazing that the NDP haven't been able to pick up one single percentage point of national support during this whole time. They've hovered at 16-18% basically forever, with the singular exception of the 2011 election.
90% of the F series trucks I've seen have only ever hauled groceries.
BTW here is the article (found it in view-source):
spoiler
The West's tightening sanctions are driving Russia nearly up against the wall — but Moscow keeps finding ways to keep the country's economy going.Russia's trade partners, too, are looking for ways to continue doing business with the country via alternative systems to rival the Western-led, US dollar-dominated global financial order.Discussions about de-dollarization have been gaining traction in recent years as Western-led sanctions against Russia related to its invasion of Ukraine are making other countries wary of the potential consequences of crossing Washington.There's been some success, with trade between Russia and China, as well as Russia and India, chugging along until recently. Now, even Chinese banks — buckling under the pressure of tightening US sanctions — are pushing back on processing transactions for Russian companies.But Russia and its partners have been looking at other ways to do business outside the Western-led order, in part because technology is making it easier to process payments and get around the US-dollar-dominated global financial order.As Brookings researchers Sam Boocker and David Wessel explained in an August post, "innovations in payment technology could reduce the dollar's role in the global economy."To be sure, king dollar is entrenched in the world's financial system, so it's unlikely to be dethroned, most experts say. However, new platforms are coming up that could chip away at its dominance.These are some of the alternative trading and payment systems that are trying to crack the US-led trade and payments order:Russia prepared for even more sanctions years ago, following trade restrictions after it annexed Crimea in 2014."There are risks in using the global financial networks," Elvira Nabiullina, governor of Russia's central bank, told CNBC in 2018. "Therefore, since back in 2014, we have been developing our own systems."Some Russian banks were banned from the SWIFT messaging system for banking transactions following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Moscow has been touting its homegrown ruble-based payment system — the System for Transfer of Financial Messages, or SPFS — that was set up in 2014.At the end of 2023, users of SPFS included 556 organizations from 20 countries. Of these, 159 — about a quarter of total participants — were foreign and their use of the messaging system more than doubled from 2022, according to Russia's central bank, per Interfax.In July, Russia and Iran — another heavily-sanctioned country — finalized details to connect the banking systems of the two countries, Iran's Mehr news agency reported.This means that Russia's Mir payment system would work with Iran's Shetab banking system, allowing for both pariah states to trade more smoothly.China's Cross-Border Interbank Payment System, or CIPS, is an alternative system that processes payments in Chinese yuan.Launched in 2015, CIPS has about 2,000 participants as of July, compared to 11,000 for SWIFT.CIPS "has been growing rapidly in recent years," the Brookings researchers wrote.In 2023, CIPS processed over 6.6 million transactions, totaling 123 trillion Chinese yuan, or $17.3 trillion — up nearly 30% by value from a year ago, according to China's central bank.India — now a key trading part of Russia — also has its own system.The country's Unified Payments Interface, or UPI, was developed in 2016 and is used extensively in India today, even among everyday consumers.The payment system has gotten so big that it's not just limited to India. The National Payments Corporation of India, which runs the platform, has partnered with financial institutions in other countries, including France, the United Arab Emirates, and Singapore.If the UPI's footprint expands to more countries, it could be a way to bypass the SWIFT banking system, wrote Evan Freidin, an international relations analyst, for the Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank."It is significant that UPI can also be used to bypass the SWIFT banking system, enabling payments with sanctioned countries such as Russia, thereby weakening US financial hegemony," Freidin wrote in July.Countries are also increasingly looking to build central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs. These currencies are similar to cryptocurrencies but are issued and backed by central banks.The Bank for International Settlements, an organization of central banks, is overseeing the trial of a CBDC platform for wholesale cross-border payment.Participants of the project, called mBridge, include China, Hong Kong, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. It's dominated by Beijing, which has already rolled out the digital Chinese yuan.The Brookings researchers wrote that these CBDCs could "upend the dollar's role as a currency 'middleman' by reducing settlement times, making it cheaper and easier to trade non-dollar currencies."The CBDCs integrate messaging and payments, unlike current systems like SWIFT and major US dollar clearing system CHIPS.As doors to transact in fiat money close, Russia is now looking to trade in cryptocurrencies.It's in such a rush to get the system up and running that it plans to start crypto exchange trials as soon as September 1, anonymous sources told Bloomberg in late August.Creating this mode of payment has gotten more pressing because even banks from China are rejecting most transactions with Russian entities.Russian President Vladimir Putin himself said in July that Russia had to "seize the moment" to create a legal framework for digital assets, as they are being increasingly used to settle international payments.If all else fails, there's also the age-old method of barter trade.In August, Reuters reported that Russia and China are planning to revive the practice of barter trade to get around Western sanctions.The deals could involve agriculture and could come as soon as this fall, the news agency reported, citing anonymous trade and payments sources.The two countries are no strangers to barter.It was practiced during the Soviet era and in the years following the bloc's collapse. At the time, China was a key trading partner.In August 2022, the Taliban regime in Afghanistan also discussed barter trade with Russia that could involve trading Russian crude oil products in exchange for raisins, minerals, and medicinal herbs, according to RIA Novosti, a Russian state-owned news agency.Last year, cash-strapped Pakistan authorized the barter trade of specific goods with Russia.In 2019, China traded $150 million worth of palm oil from Malaysia for a range of products and services, including natural resources and defense equipment.
I dunno, there are some recent polls that put Trump way ahead:
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/
Terrible. Just ... a very bad film. I do not recommend it.
Also, fun fact: The creator of the original comic strip's intention was not to make a comic that was funny but that was profitable / marketable
The truth is that the war against Hitler in Europe was fought mainly by the USSR and the Red Army. For most of the war the British and Americans were mere spectators. Following the invasion of the Soviet Union in the Summer of 1941, Moscow repeatedly demanded the opening of a second front against Germany. But Churchill was in no hurry to oblige them. The reason for this was not so much military as political. The policies and tactics of the British and American ruling class in the Second World War were not at all dictated by a love of democracy or hatred of fascism, as the official propaganda wants us to believe, but by class interests. When Hitler invaded the USSR in 1941, the British ruling class calculated that the Soviet Union would be defeated by Germany, but that in the process Germany would be so enfeebled that it would be possible to step in and kill two birds with one stone. It is likely that the strategists in Washington were thinking on more or less similar lines.
But the plans of both the British and US ruling circles were fundamentally flawed. Instead of being defeated by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union fought back and inflicted a decisive defeat on Hitler's armies. The reason for this extraordinary victory can never be admitted by the defenders of capitalism, but it is a self-evident fact. The existence of a nationalised planned economy gave the USSR an enormous advantage in the war. In 1943 alone, the USSR produced 130,000 pieces of artillery, 24,000 tanks and self-propelled guns, 29,900 combat aircraft. The Nazis, with all the huge resources of Europe behind them, also stepped up production, turning out 73,000 pieces of artillery, 10,700 tanks and assault guns and 19,300 combat aircraft. . . These figures speak for themselves. The USSR, by mobilising the immense power of a planned economy, managed to out-produce and outgun the mighty Wehrmacht. That is the secret of its success.
The real turning point of the War was the Soviet counteroffensive in 1942, culminating in the Battle of Stalingrad and later in the even more decisive Battle of Kursk. After a ferocious battle lasting one week, the German resistance collapsed. To the fury of Hitler, who had ordered the Sixth Army to "fight to the death," General Paulus surrendered to the Soviet army. Even Churchill, that rabid anti-Communist, was compelled to admit that the Red Army had "torn the guts out of the German army" at Stalingrad. . .
Far more than the Normandy landings, the battle of Kursk in July 1943 was the most decisive battle of the Second War. The German army lost over 400 tanks in this epic struggle. After this shattering blow, the Russian armies began to push the Germans on a long front back towards the west. This was the greatest military offensive in all of history. It immediately caused the alarm bells to ring in London and Washington. The real reason for the Normandy landings was that if the British and Americans had not immediately opened the second front in France, they would have met the Red Army on the Channel.
In August 1943 Churchill and Roosevelt met in Quebec against the background of a powerful Soviet offensive. The Soviet victories at Stalingrad and Kursk forced the British and Americans to act. The remorseless Soviet advance obliged even Churchill to reconsider his position. Reluctantly, Churchill gave in to the insistent demands of the American President. Even so, the opening of the second front was delayed until the Spring of 1944. All along the conduct of the war by the British and US imperialists was dictated, not by the need to defeat fascism and defend democracy, but by the cynical considerations of great power politics.
Celebrations around the anniversary of D-day [are] designed to perpetuate a myth. The Normandy landings did not end the Second World War in Europe, which was fought and won on the eastern front. To say this is not to belittle the courage of the British and American troops. The soldiers who had to endure the Normandy landings went through hell. According to figures issued by Supreme Headquarters, Allied casualties in the first 15 days of battle totalled 40,549. The British lost 1,842 killed, 8,599 wounded, and 3,131 missing. The Americans lost 3,082 killed, 13,121 wounded, and 7,959 missing. The Canadians lost 363 killed, 1,359 wounded and 1,093 missing. This was bad enough Yet it does not bear comparison with the appalling losses suffered on the eastern front.
All the peoples paid a terrible price for the War. Britain's casualties totalled 370,000, the USA, 300,000. But the Soviet Union lost a staggering 27 millions – about half of all the casualties of the Second World War. According to one estimate, even before the Normandy landings, 90 percent of all young men between the age of 18 and 21 in the Soviet Union had already been killed. These chilling figures accurately express the real situation. They show that the people of the Soviet Union suffered a disproportionate number of casualties, because the main front in Europe was the eastern front
Link (yes he's a Trot but it's still a good take)
So I've been aware of the "Samson Option" for a long while (bringing the temple down on the heads of everyone with nukes if their survival was threatened) but I didn't know they actually loaded up 13 planes armed with nukes as a very obvious threat if they didn't get their military supplied during the Yom Kippur war.
The NATOpedia page is of course not very descriptive of what the intended targets of those nukes would be.
From this 
thread, there are some jaw-dropping comments (some just taken from the Samson Option Wiki page itself):
If Israel is going down, they'll launch nukes at uninvolved countries as a punishment for anyone who either wasn't supportive enough or Muslim since Islam is the 'enemy.' It's a form of nuclear blackmail.
Rosenbaum also opined that in the "aftermath of a second Holocaust", Israel could "bring down the pillars of the world (attack Moscow and European capitals for instance)" as well as the "holy places of Islam." and that the "abandonment of proportionality is the essence" of the Samson Option.
Van Creveld was quoted in David Hirst's The Gun and the Olive Branch (2003) as saying: We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force. Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: 'Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.' I consider it all hopeless at this point. We shall have to try to prevent things from coming to that, if at all possible. Our armed forces, however, are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under.
So what are the odds that the Israelis have been using this threat (or the subtle perception of it) to get what they want all of the time? Because I'm guessing that number is around 100%.
Excellent video, Finkelstein on point as always, and even easily deflected a heckling Zionist question from the audience near the end 
RIP. Pour one out for our comrades just trying to help. Death toll has risen to 7 foreign aid workers.
Rest in power, chefs 
, and the same to the countless thousands of Palestinians murdered in the last 6 months who just wanted to live a normal life.
I'm so fucking gutted.
Lots to unpack here.
“Keir Starmer, this is for Gaza,” he said. “You will pay a high price for the role that you have played in enabling, encouraging and covering for the catastrophe presently going on in occupied Gaza, in the Gaza Strip.”
Because of the implication