Bidets are in fact a legal building requirement in Italy and they have been so for nearly 50 years now. Article 7 of a Ministerial Decree issued on July 5th, 1975 states that “in each house, at least one bathroom must have the following fixtures: a toilet, a bidet, a bathtub or shower, and a sink” - Italy
Early Zionists syncretised many aspects of European fascism, white supremacy, colonialism and messianic Evangelism and had a long and sordid history of cooperating with anti-Semites, imperialists and fascists in order to promote exclusivist and expansionist agendas. In fact, throughout the past century, anti-Semites and Zionists have worked towards the mutual interest of concentrating Jews in Israel; the former as a means of scapegoating and expelling an unwanted population, and the latter to combat the “demographic threat” posed by native Palestinians. Further, both anti-Semites and Zionists construct Jews as a biological race, which needs to be segregated as part of a utopia of global apartheid. - Al Jazeera
Marshall Plan May Not Have Been Key to Europe’s Reconstruction
The EU needs a common strategy in response to Chinese interventionism and US protectionism, the economic and business ministers of France, Germany and Italy said after meeting to discuss European industrial policy in Meudon, near Paris, on Monday. “What strikes me is that everybody in the world has an economic strategy, except for Europe,” French finance minister Bruno Le Maire told his counterparts as he opened the third such trilateral meeting since 2023. - Europe “Show(s) Its Teeth”
Shares in defense companies jumped after Russia’s attack on Ukraine. They did again after the Israel-Hamas conflict started. Now another surge driven by Europe’s mission to boost military spending is raising questions over whether they’ve gone too far, too fast. ..The seven biggest European publicly traded makers of military hardware — including Rheinmetall AG, BAE Systems Plc and Saab AB — sank on Tuesday as investors lost their nerve around record share prices. Even with the pullback, they’ve added a combined $30 billion or so to their stock market value in 2024. - Yahoo
“Here's the analogy I like to use,” said Jeffrey Martini, an associate director of RAND Arroyo Center's Strategy, Doctrine, and Resources Program. “Let's say you're living in Napoleon's France, in the early 19th century, and you say, 'Hey, I wonder what's going to affect the future security environment in Europe.' You'd look back at what had driven previous conflicts, and nationalism would not even be on your radar. “But nationalism defined the security environment in Europe for the next two centuries. I don't know that climate change is going to be the next nationalism, but it's possible. And we need to grapple with that, because if we reach a break point and start to see more and more implications from it, we're going to look back and ask, 'Why didn't we think that through?' - RAND
If China’s clean-tech investments have become a perceived problem for the US and European Union over the past year, it’s as much to do with the way that the political establishment and major domestic companies in those markets have quietly soured on the energy transition over the same period. - Yellen Junks 200 Years of Economics to Block China Clean Tech
(T)o make life worth living, a human being should act as more than a human animal following its needs and interests, a full commitment to a Cause is needed. What distinguishes such commitment from religious fundamentalism is that it is fully aware of its subjective character, which is why it always functions against the background of a possible loss of belief enacted, among other cases, in Christ’s “Father, why have you forsaken me?”. What remains for a Christian in such cases? - Zizek Substack
Olga Onuch, presents the reader with an analysis of how Russians and Ukrainians view each other, the relations between the two countries, and the ongoing conlict. Her research suggests that Ukrainians and Russians do not generally view each other in a hostile manner: each side believes there should be friendly relations between the two countries; however, she notes that each side views the current relations between the two in a different way. - Ukraine and Russia: People, Politics, Propaganda and Perspectives.
The Exchange Rate On Palestinian Life: "The latest incident has also affected Joe Biden in a way earlier ones did not," Edward Luce wrote at the Financial Times. "Put simply, Andrés is a Washington celebrity." The queasy-making part of Luce's speculation is that he might be right: Because this horror is connected to José Andrés, a chef and humanitarian revered in D.C., it sprang a specific subset of American politician into action. “He was one of the pioneers of high-quality restaurants in an early 1990s Washington that had a well-deserved reputation for dowdy food," Luce went on. "Andrés’s Jaleo introduced Spanish-style tapas food to America’s capital. In 2016, his restaurant, Minibar, was one of Washington’s first batch to merit a two-star Michelin award. Among others, Nancy Pelosi, the former US Speaker, has nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize.” - Famous Chef (last week’s bombing of the World Central Kitchen workers)
Has Hamas Won? - Haaretz
Has Russia Already Won the War in Ukraine? - National Interest
Has China Already Won? - YouTube
When Did Philosophy “Lose Its Way?”
In September 2023, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan boasted that the Middle East “is quieter today than it has been in two decades.” One week later, unprecedented violence in Gaza and Israel shattered the status quo and shocked the world. - Youtube Philosphy
The slaughter in Gaza has disinclined some foreign officials and groups to listen to U.S. officials about other issues. Annelle Sheline, a State Department human-rights officer who recently resigned over Gaza, told The Washington Post that some activist groups in North Africa simply stopped meeting with her and her colleagues. “Trying to advocate for human rights just became impossible” while the U.S. aids Israel, she said. It’s a dynamic that sounds awfully reminiscent of what happened outside Europe when U.S. diplomats fanned out globally to rally support for Ukraine two years ago. They encountered “a very clear negative reaction to the American propensity for defining the global order and forcing countries to take sides,” as Fiona Hill, a Brookings Institution scholar, observed in a speech last year. - NYT