Forward.

31, she/her

[afloweroutofstone]

Trump's complete cut off of foreign aid last year increased armed conflict in Africa, and probably in other parts of the world as well.

"Aiding Peace or Conflict? The Impact of USAID Cuts on Violence," D. Rohner, et. al. Science 392.6799. May 14, 2026:

We tested whether the abrupt shutdown of USAID led to increased conflict in the regions of Africa that had historically received the most support. Using geocoded data on USAID disbursements merged with detailed records of violent events, we applied a difference-in-differences design that compared conflict outcomes in subnational regions 10 months before and after the January 2025 shutdown, and between regions with varying levels of historical USAID exposure (disbursements in 2017 to 2020)... Regions that had received more aid per capita experienced relatively more conflict after the shutdown. In regions at the 75th percentile of exposure to aid from the United States, the withdrawal of USAID was associated with an approximately 6.5% greater probability of any conflict event as compared with that of regions with no aid from the United States. The probability of protests and riots was 10% greater, the number of conflict events increased by 10.6%, battle counts increased by 6.9%, and battle-related fatalities increased by 9.3%. Event-study analysis confirmed no preexisting differences in conflict trends between high- and low-exposure regions before the shutdown. Effects are of similar size, with a 12.3% relative increase in the number of conflict events. The effects also persist over time. Protests and riots responded immediately, whereas the effects on battles intensified over subsequent months. In addition, the effects of the aid withdrawal were substantially mitigated in countries with stronger, more inclusive political institutions... The abrupt withdrawal of USAID led to a significant and sustained increase in conflict across Africa’s most USAID-dependent regions. The findings demonstrate that large-scale, sudden aid cuts can destabilize fragile settings. A core mechanism that can explain this result is that the economic opportunity costs of violence drop faster than the rents over which groups compete. The mitigating role of inclusive institutions highlights the persistent vulnerability of regions with weak governance to humanitarian and economic shocks. These results have implications for the design and timing of changes in international aid.

[argumate]

Tooze posted a quote from Keynes in 1937 I hadn't seen before:

It is our duty to prolong peace, hour by hour, day by day, for as long as we can. We do not know what the future will bring, except that it will be quite different from anything we could predict. I have said in another context that it is a disadvantage of “the long run” that in the long run we are all dead. But I could have said equally well that it is a great advantage of “the short run” that in the short run we are still alive. Life and history are made up of short runs. If we are at peace in the short run, that is something. The best we can do is put off disaster, if only in the hope, which is not necessarily a remote one, that something will turn up. While there is peace, there is peace.

very apt!

[tim-official]

quick update. I've decided to also blockade the strait of Hormuz. so when you talk about the status of the strait please say that it is blockaded by Iran, the USA, and Timothy. Thanks

[ryebreadgf]

1. should we throw a party should we invite bella hadid

2. you people can’t do anything

3. name one hobby you have outside of media consumption

4. I think you guys might be thinking about yourselves too much

[ryebreadgf]

5. hard to remain patient with friends who focus solely on their own crucifixion. Get off The Cross, ladykins... we could use the wood!

6. name one toxin/hormone and its function

[kienava]

[afloweroutofstone]

Word on the street

[jethroq]

[afloweroutofstone]

Something I wrote in 2019 about the history of US-Iranian relations, and the absurdity of suggesting that Iran is the aggressor in this situation:

[busket]

really tired of being governed by a death cult undergoing mass psychosis who thinks its their duty to bring about the apocalypse and im not being hyperbolic

[afloweroutofstone]

20,000 US troops stationed in Manilla during the US’ occupation of the Philippines protesting their imperialist deployment, 15 January 1946

WE SHALL NEVER FORGET WHAT YOU HAVE DONE WORDS ARE CHEAP “GET US HOME”

[mummer]

it’s crazy how when you’re 11 you think wow nationalism is the root of all evil and war is despicable and religion is the opiate of the masses and misogyny is everywhere and climate change is our most dire threat. and you start to grow up and you think well surely it will become more nuanced to me, surely there must be a reason adults arent breaking down wailing in the streets due to the cruelty of this world. and then you become an adult and you think wow nationalism is the root of all evil and war is despicable and religion is the opiate of the masses and misogyny is everywhere and climate change is our most dire threat

[afloweroutofstone]

I empathize with this line of thinking, and I have no beef with the OP of this statement. But I think criticisms like these place a lot of blame on the United Nations that more properly belongs to the US (as well as Russia and, to a far lesser extent, the other three permanent members of the UN Security Council).

Part of the reason that the UN is broken is because the United States keeps it broken in order to prevent the formation of a democratic international system that is outside of its control. We refuse any attempts at reforming the UNSC veto which keeps the UN paralyzed, we owe them like $4 billion in arrears (95% of all of the UN’s overdue payments!), we often play a counterproductive role during treaty negotiations, we systematically defund UN agencies that treat Palestine like a member state, and under Trump 2.0 we’ve been withdrawing from and attacking some of the most core elements of the UN system.

If you are mad at the UN for not doing anything, most of your anger is really at the US (and a few others like Russia and Israel) for constantly undermining its efficacy and legitimacy. Now you can argue that this is a problem which is foundational to the UN, since the US and other great powers were only willing to participate in the first place if they got special privileges, but nonetheless most of the first-order problems with the UN today stem from our government and other powerful governments that have a vested interest in preventing it from functioning at its full capacity. It would be more useful if we let it!

[probablyasocialecologist]

U.S. Troops Were Told Iran War Is for “Armageddon,” Return of Jesus

Advocacy group reports commanders giving similar messages at more than 30 installations in every branch of the military

A combat-unit commander told non-commissioned officers at a briefing Monday that the Iran war is part of God’s plan and that Pres. Donald Trump was “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth,” according to a complaint by a non-commissioned officer. From Saturday morning through Monday night, more than 110 similar complaints about commanders in every branch of the military had been logged by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF). The complaints came from more than 40 different units spread across at least 30 military installations, the MRFF told me Monday night. The MRFF is keeping the complainants anonymous to prevent retribution by the Defense Department. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to my request for comment. One complainant identified themselves as a non-commissioned officer (NCO) in a unit currently outside the Iran combat zone but in Ready-Support status, deployable at any time. The NCO said they were Christian and emailed the MRFF on behalf of 15 troops, including at least 11 Christians, one Muslim, and one Jew. (Full email printed below.) The NCO wrote to the MRFF that their commander “urged us to tell our troops that this was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’ and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has enshrined evangelical Christianity at the uppermost levels of the U.S. military, airing monthly prayer meetings throughout the Pentagon. Last year, the Pentagon confirmed to me that Hegseth attends a weekly White House Bible study. It’s led by a preacher who says God commands America to support Israel.

3 March 2026

[afloweroutofstone]

If you’re a soldier and your commanding officer tells you that they are purposefully trying to cause Armageddon, you should ignore all of their orders and desert.

[afloweroutofstone]

Trump's warmongering is so aggressive that he has the pro-NATO Liberal government in Canada talking like they're about to join the Non-Aligned Movement

Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada, 20 January 2026:

For decades, countries like Canada prospered under what we called the "rules-based international order." We joined its institutions, we praised its principles, we benefited from its predictability. And because of that, we could pursue values-based foreign policies under its protection.

We knew the story of the "international rules-based order" was partially false— that the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient, that trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And we knew that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.

This fiction was useful, and American hegemony, in particular, helped provide public goods, open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security and support for frameworks for resolving disputes.

So, we placed the sign in the window. We participated in the rituals, and we largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality.

This bargain no longer works. Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.

Over the past two decades, a series of crises in finance, health, energy and geopolitics have laid bare the risks of extreme global integration. But more recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited.

You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration, when integration becomes the source of your subordination.

The multilateral institutions on which the middle powers have relied – the WTO, the UN, the COP – the architecture, the very architecture of collective problem solving are under threat. And as a result, many countries are drawing the same conclusions that they must develop greater strategic autonomy, in energy, food, critical minerals, in finance and supply chains.

And this impulse is understandable. A country that can't feed itself, fuel itself or defend itself, has few options. When the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself.

But let's be clear eyed about where this leads.

A world of fortresses will be poorer, more fragile and less sustainable. And there is another truth. If great powers abandon even the pretense of rules and values for the unhindered pursuit of their power and interests, the gains from transactionalism will become harder to replicate.

Hegemons cannot continually monetize their relationships. Allies will diversify to hedge against uncertainty...

Collective investments in resilience are cheaper than everyone building their own fortresses. Shared standards reduce fragmentations. Complementarities are positive sum. And the question for middle powers like Canada is not whether to adapt to the new reality – we must. The question is whether we adapt by simply building higher walls, or whether we can do something more ambitious.

[theonion]

[shanehollanderss]

by the way guys, this deployment of ice to minnesota is largest ever. more agents than chicago. we are a much less dense state. we are being inundated.

[yamelcakes]

It is the largest Department of Homeland Security operation in history. And yet Minnesota’s Somali population (this operation’s primary target) is upwards of 90% naturalized American citizens. It’s even more of a manufactured crisis than most DHS operations. Genuinely living in Minnesota now feels like we’re a small country on the brink of invasion.

[afloweroutofstone]

In 2023, I did a survey of military contractors trying to target policymakers with ads on WMATA, Washington DC's public transit system. Since then, WMATA actually changed their rules to make it easier for military contractors to advertise. This has led to an absurd double standard: WMATA recently denied an ad from anti-war group World Beyond War on spurious grounds even while accepting massive numbers of pro-war ads from for-profit contractors.

War porn beats out Venezuela peace messages in DC Metro

As arms contractors blanket WMATA stations with ads, an anti-war group’s message was rejected under rules that favor the military industrial

Under the old rules, military contractor ads were in apparent violation of Guideline 14’s straightforward ban on ads “intended to influence public policy.” But under the new rules, government contractors are now exempt from Guideline 14 via a carveout for advertisers that are “offering goods and/or services to the government.” No such exemption was made for peace groups like World Beyond War, who typically take the opposite position of military contractors in debates over Pentagon policy. WMATA’s new rules gave military contractors other exemptions as well. Guideline 9 — the legally questionable rule that WBW was accused of violating — now explicitly prohibits advertisers from taking a position on any “governmental action or inaction, other than offering goods and/or services to the government” [emphasis added]. In other words, for-profit advertisers with money at stake are now one of the only groups allowed to share their opinions on political issues surrounding military spending and acquisitions. The ACLU seems to regard WMATA’s “internal procedures” with skepticism, requesting a discovery process into [their] “development and meaning.” It’s easy to see why: if upheld, these new rules would effectively legalize for-profit advertising in favor of militarism while banning most non-profit advertising critical of militarism. There is also another reason to be skeptical of the new rules: WMATA does not seriously enforce them. In the year since its “internal procedures” document was released, WMATA has accepted multiple ad campaigns that are in clear violation of Guidelines 9 and 14.

Click through to read more.

[discoursedrome]

in 2026, resolve to spend less time arguing online with strangers about things that neither one of you has any power to change, and more time engraving your opinions on buried tablets so that future archaeologists will overestimate their importance