Podcasts, videos, books and articles of the week 96

Phil has a new talk which will be out today or tomorrow, my fault.

Kanye still sucks and has blood on his hands

Had an argument about data with my son yesterday

Son thinks induction predicts the future, including history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction

I also had to argue with him that a mathematical proof cannot be made by churning through numbers, aka experimentally (unless you can go through all possible instances) and he doesn’t believe me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_proof

Can’t tell the difference between proof and conjecture.

He even pulled out that American soldiers won’t launch a nuke because they wouldn’t.

Kaspersky Konspiracy Towarisz!

My Facebook has been feeding my quite advanced Russian propagit.

Seems like Yahweh (kill em all) instead of El (beardy father figure) has been reappearing in Palestine, yes they’re both in the Jewish and Christain bibles

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God_in_Judaism

Fans of storms gods

The evil nexus

Saudi Arabia, Israel and the risks of peace

With a terrifying 33,000 dead and much of Gaza destroyed, Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has come with an awful human cost. But even at this cost it isn’t achieving the Israelis’ objectives. Israel set out to “crush and destroy Hamas” but in spite of the horrific civilian death toll it has yet to kill the most senior leadership of the group in Gaza,…

Not all doom

I’m not a fan of the Sleepwalkers book but I do like this podcast which is very heavily influenced by that book.

This is a new series on WW1 and maybe Zack has updated his thoughts.

I’m more of a Fisher guy on the causes of WW1.

Welcome history friend, to this exciting new series!

110 years to the day since Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo, and a decade on from our July Crisis Anniversary Project, I believe there has never been a better time to jump back into this world. This is a brand new series, and I have been working on it for some time now.

In this episode, we set some things straight. This is not a remaster, a re-release, or any form of recycling. Oh no, we're here for something far more special. Armed with my new expertise, far too many sources to count, and a renewed passion for this pivotal era, we are ready to bring you the July Crisis like you've never seen it before!

If our July Crisis Anniversary Project was a rigorously scheduled day-by-day account of the last few weeks of peace in 1914, this series is a different beast. Content is our focus this time around - deep dives, fascinating studies, and a more comprehensive analysis of the how and the why behind the descent into war in summer 1914.

Journalists failing

A Journalistic Failure During the Presidential Debate

Fearless reporting, a behind-the-curtains look at how journalism is made — and an unabashed point of view. Welcome to Chills. The presidential debate, despite Biden's unfortunate, uninflected, mealy-mouthed tired-soundin…

Chills, by Lauren Wolfe

Will they be talking about Biden’s age while being lynched by MAGA?

Biden may have made a bad showing but he wasn’t LYING constantly.

Do you want a rested liar or a tired man of integrity as president?

Talking about crooks

A fake bank, Colombian cartels, and money laundering

Too much cash In the 1990s, drug sales in the United States were generating more than $50 billion a year in revenue for Colombian cartels in cash transactions. But as long as all that cash remained in the United States, it was effectively useless for the cartel bosses. They needed to repatriate it to Colombia. For reasons.

Espionage&

No, it wasn’t NATO expansion that caused a new Cold War with Russia and it wasn’t democratizing

Permawar

“Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia. The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or future agreement with him was impossible.” George Orwell, 1984 With each passing day, the drumbeat of a US war with China, Russia, and most of the rest of Asia gets closer and more inevitable.

Global Guerrillas

But have a read, on China I can agree mostly.

Another crooked man with memory issues

Reagan in Motion – Presidents in Films 1.

Ronald Wilson Reagan, 40th President of the United States: his name is synonymous with an entire decade, the 1980s, an actor-turned-politician who’s legacy – for better or worse – is still palpable not just in America but around the world. An American President who has not one but two statues in Budapest for reasons difficult to parse. It is somewhat od…

Newsletter of Things (But Mainly Movies)

What I’m still reading

The Challenger disaster has no villains. There was no pressure to launch. No procedures were ignored, no rules broken.

The narrative you get from most books, and the new one, is bollocks.

In retelling how the decision unfolded through the eyes of the managers and the engineers, Vaughan uncovers an incremental descent into poor judgment, supported by a culture of high-risk technology. She reveals how and why NASA insiders, when repeatedly faced with evidence that something was wrong, normalized the deviance so that it became acceptable to them.

Read how a ‘redundant’ seal wasn’t. And there was no evil, no rules breaking and no pressure.

I’m also reading another excellent Steve Coll book (not Achilles Trap, finished that) but will write about that later.

Our book is still out

Phil has a new book coming out soon

and a final thank you:

Shoutout to our Walking With History tier subscribers Syu and Cjd! Join them and support our work.