deathmtn

One of the hallmarks of Western liberalism is an assumption, in hindsight, of virtuous resistance as the only polite expectation of people on the receiving end of colonialism. While the terrible thing is happening - while the land is still being stolen and the natives still being killed-any form of opposition is terroristic and must be crushed for the sake of civilization. But decades, centuries later, when enough of the land has been stolen and enough of the natives killed, it is safe enough to venerate resistance in hindsight. I tell stories for a living, and there's a thick thread of narrative by well-meaning white Westerners that exalts the native populations in so many parts of the world for standing up to the occupiers, makes of their narrative a neat reflexive arc in which it was always understood, by the colonized and (this part implied) the descendants of the colonizer, that what happened was wrong.

It was late, my father was done work for the night. Because he was technically part of the tourism industry, and the Egyptian economy has for a very long time depended on tourism to ward off complete collapse, he was afforded special dispensation to be out during curfew hours. The soldiers on the corner did not know this. Young, bored, tasked with what authoritarian regimes have ordered young, bored soldiers to do since time immemorial-stand there projecting the violent underpinning of political power—they also didn't care. One of them stopped my father.

Your papers, he said.

My father pulled out his paperwork. Without reading it, the soldier tore it in half and threw it on the floor.

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By chance, my father's boss, who happened to be friends with one of the soldiers, was leaving the hotel a short while later and stumbled onto the scene. This is likely the only reason my father got out unscathed that night, avoided being dragged to some outpost of Egypt's labyrinthine secret prison system, being made into an absence. It was that night, I think, that my father decided he had no choice but to leave the only home hed ever known.

Foreign workers amount to around 88% of the population, the largest of which comprise South Asians, with those from India alone estimated to be around 700,000.[2]

I've sat through a wildly uncomfortable book tour interview once after I joked that I write all my nove. in Arabic and then run them through Google Translate, and the interviewer believed me. I have on countless occasions been made to stand in for and speak on behalf of every Muslim, every Arab, every Brown person on earth, by people who are not monsters, not even actively malicious, but simply have no other point of reference to consult.

Before long, Fetterman began repeating himself, shouting and questioning why “everybody is mad at me,” “why does everyone hate me, what did I ever do” and slamming his hands on a desk, according to one person who was briefed on what occurred.

As the meeting deteriorated, a staff member moved to end it and ushered the visitors into the hallway, where she broke down crying.

Login credentials belonging to an employee at both the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Department of Government Efficiency have appeared in multiple public leaks from info-stealer malware, a strong indication that devices belonging to him have been hacked in recent years.

Kyle Schutt is a 30-something-year-old software engineer who, according to Dropsite News, gained access in February to a “core financial management system” belonging to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. As an employee of DOGE, Schutt accessed FEMA’s proprietary software for managing both disaster and non-disaster funding grants. Under his role at CISA, he likely is privy to sensitive information regarding the security of civilian federal government networks and critical infrastructure throughout the US.

When citizens must think twice about criticizing or opposing the government because they could credibly face government retribution, they no longer live in a full democracy.

By that measure, America has crossed the line into competitive authoritarianism. The Trump administration’s weaponization of government agencies and flurry of punitive actions against critics has raised the cost of opposition for a wide range of Americans.

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Remarkably, these attacks against opponents and the media have occurred with even greater speed and force than equivalent actions taken by elected autocrats in Hungary, India, Turkey or Venezuela during their first years in office.

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The acquiescence of our most prominent civic leaders sends a profoundly demoralizing message to society. It tells Americans that democracy is not worth defending — or that resistance is futile. If America’s most privileged individuals and organizations are unwilling or unable to defend democracy, what are ordinary citizens supposed to do?

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So far, the most energetic opposition has come not from civic leaders but from everyday citizens, showing up at Congressional town hall meetings or participating in Hands Off rallies across the country. Our leaders must follow their example. A collective defense of democracy is most likely to succeed when prominent, well-funded individuals and organizations — those who are best able to absorb blows from the government — get in the game.
There are signs of an awakening. Harvard has refused to acquiesce to administration demands that would undermine academic freedom, Microsoft dropped a law firm that settled with the administration and hired one that defied it, and a new law firm based in Washington, D.C., announced plans to represent those wrongfully targeted by the government. When the most influential members of civil society fight back, it provides political cover for others. It also galvanizes ordinary citizens to join the fight.

Multiple myeloma is a blood cancer that ravages bone, leaving distinctive holes in its wake.

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Most patients today live much longer, in large part due to a drug with a horrific past.

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But Revlimid is also, I soon learned, extraordinarily expensive, costing nearly $1,000 for each daily pill.

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Even with my experience, the cost of Revlimid stood out. When I started taking the drug, I’d look at the smooth, cylindrical capsule in my hand and consider the fact I was about to swallow something that costs about the same as a new iPhone. A month’s supply, which arrives in an ordinary, orange-tinged plastic bottle, is the same price as a new Nissan Versa.

I wanted to know how this drug came to cost so much — and why the price keeps going up.

At 39 per cent, Donald Trump has the lowest approval rating after 100 days in office of any US president since the second world war. There are two types of people in the world. There are those who will regard that terrible number as the story, and those who won’t be able to believe that it is so high. The second group have a better handle on things.

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Even if the turn in sentiment against Trump were as decisive as billed, the message would be — what? Trample the constitution, but don’t dare get the economics wrong? And in this there is liberal solace to be found, is there?

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The real lesson of the polls is one we shouldn’t need. A very large minority of voters, more than a third, are more or less unreachable. This isn’t an electoral problem for the Democrats, who can win without them, but it is a constitutional one for the US. It is hard to know how a republic is to survive such a large caucus who are loyal to their partisan team — to one man, in fact — over any rule, principle or institution of state.

The JSDoc for _____ indicates it returns Promise, but the method actually returns a boolean. Please update the JSDoc to accurately reflect the return type as Promise.

Germany's conservative leader has unexpectedly fallen short of a majority in a parliament vote to become chancellor.

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The Bundestag will now have another 14 days to choose either Merz or another candidate as chancellor with more than half its members.

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Germany's handover of government is carefully choreographed. On the eve of Tuesday's vote, outgoing chancellor Olaf Scholz was treated to a traditional Grand Tattoo by an armed forces orchestra.

The original concept of this call was played on the snare drum and was known as "tap-too", with the same rule applying. Later on, the name was applied to more elaborate military performances, known as military tattoos.

Yet Musk has damaged himself and shows no signs of stopping now. What has driven the boycotts of Tesla in Europe and partly in the US is not Doge but the insanitary company that Musk keeps on his X platform. The London spoof advertising campaign that called Tesla a “Swasticar” — “from zero to 1939 in three seconds” — came in reaction to his far-right boosterism, not to his war on bureaucracy. Unless he can temper his id, Tesla’s brand will stay contaminated.

On a Nature news article reporting that NIH planned to suspend subawards for foreign collaborations:

“No, that’s false. There’s going to be a policy on tracking subawards. The NIH and the government should be able to see where the money’s going.”

“I’m really uncomfortable with this conversation, because you’re like, actually spreading rumors that you don’t know anything about. … Nature also is spreading rumors. Halt foreign collaborations, that’s not true.”

“We’re working on the policy, Jocelyn. You shouldn’t be reporting rumors. I know there’s leaks all over here, but the leaks don’t actually reflect what’s happening. Don’t write about rumors. It actually makes the things that you and I care about worse. Like it spreads panic.”

Later that day, NIH released a policy that halted future subawards to foreign scientists and said they will need to apply directly for money under a system still in development.