MolotovHalfEmpty

I love Columbo. The pacing and calmness of it is so refreshing compared to hyperactive modern detective shows. It's largely devoid of copaganda, with Columbo being the kind of true detective that could basically not exist in reality. The performances are fantastic, with special shout outs to Donald Pleasence's episode, the movie featuring Johnny Cash, and the four episodes starring and directed by the late great Patrick McGoohan.

I'm jealous. Best I can do right now is listen to Columbo remixes like this while I drink my coffee, answer my emails, and look at the fence the storm blew down yesterday and decide whether I can be arsed trying to fix it today while it's still raining.

France has raided the home of and arrested Imane Maarifi, a French nurse who returned from working in Gaza and has been speaking out at protests and the media about the situation there. She's supposedly charged with the crime of making public insults in relation to an Israeli investment and real estate fair being held in Paris this weekend.

Agreed. This is the sensible pragmatist's position.

I've sadly long since ceased to be surprised but still...

Despite it's later formalised royal moniker, the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution), formerly the National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck, is still an independent volunteer force funded by charity. Kropotkin frequently cited it as an exemplar of free agreement and anarchist organisation, and rightly so. Crews who risk their lives or other people who contribute significantly are awarded medals, with almost 2500 given out over the last 200 years, and many more 'Letters of Appriciation'.

So maybe a lifeboat letter / medal?

(Yes, this was mostly just an excuse to talk about lifeboat history)

I was reading about the new coup talk attempt this week, but didn't realise Xiomara had been on TV to denounce it yet. Thanks for the extra up to date context.

Sam Altman (OpenAI), Marc Andreessen (Meta), and Peter Thiel (Palantir) are about to bankrupt the entire country of Honduras.

The entire thread unrolled is worth a read, as is this article about the local resistance to it but the basics are this...

• In 2009 the democratically elected government is overthrown in a violent coup, backed by American business and the Obama administration. Hilary Clinton in particular insisted it couldn't be called a coup in the media and was accused of actively supporting it by groups in Honduras.
• The coup government introduced special enterprise zones known as ZEDEs, a kind of ultra-extreme freeborn where private companies could have their own laws, courts, police, and military with zero oversight or taxation.
• In return for bribes, the oppressive coup government signed proposals and deals for more and more of these until they could potentially cover a massive amount of the country. And cracked down hard on political opponents and people the companies wanted gone - making Honduras the most violent place on the planet at the time.
• These deals clearly weren't legal, so the coup government just started the courts with corrupt judges.
• When the new, elected government got back in during 2021 they naturally passed a law repealling the ZEDEs. The votes were unanimous.
• Now this group of billionaires is suing Honduras for breaking the agreements, despite the fact that these companies were likely supporting the coup, and many of the coup government members have been invited on not just corruption, but murder and drug trafficking charges.
• They want $11bn, more than a third of Honduras' GDP.
• And worst of all, they're probably going to win, bankrupting the country.

As an additional remember when here's coverage of leading environmental activist Berta Cáceres speaking out about Hilary Clinton's coup backing before she was assassinated.