Quote of the Month
"There are the mud-flowers of dialect And the immortelles of perfect pitch And that moment when the bird sings very close To the music of what happens." - Seamus Heaney, "Song," 5-8
What I’m Reading:
1. How progressives apologize for atrocities
Why you should read it: In Quillette, NYU professor Susie Linfield chronicles the “return of the progressive atrocity” in the form of widespread apologias for the October 7 massacre in Israel among self-proclaimed progressives.
“In recent years, the Left’s embrace of terror seemed to have ebbed; you won’t find many defenders of al-Qaeda, ISIS, the Taliban, or Boko Haram. The notable exception has been groups devoted to the destruction of Israel: Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah, all of which still garner enthusiasm and deluded admiration. One might have thought that an orgy of sadistic murder, of the kind that Hamas committed on October 7th, would have inspired serious moral and political self-interrogation. As the past four weeks have illustrated, however, the exact opposite is the case… It is likely that many of these groups—especially those composed of privileged students who promiscuously toss about words like ‘genocide,’ “settler-colonialism,’ and ‘fascism’—have scant (if any) knowledge of Middle East politics or history, and couldn’t tell you the difference between the river and the sea. Many are simply advertising their ‘anticolonial’ credentials, though I imagine that the usually stern Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran must be smiling in amazement as he sees just how many protestors in the West echo his thoughts and subscribe to his plans—openly articulated—to destroy the ‘Zionist entity,’ even if they don’t quite know that they’re doing so.”
“To equate such pro-Hamas groups and activists with being ‘pro-Palestinian’ should be a misnomer, just as it would be to call violent settlers in the West Bank ‘pro-Israel.’ Yet the clear and often overtly expressed implication—of the demonstrators, the articles, the cascade of statements and open letters—is that the October 7th attacks and the Palestinian national project are synonymous. If not, why do so many demonstrators lustily echo the Hamas program? (At my own university, much to my shame: ‘We don’t want no two states, we want all of it.’) Even among those who would never actually align themselves with a terror group, there is cursory—and sometimes zero—condemnation of the killers, which is replaced by censure of Zionism as a presumptively racist-imperialist project and by hasty pivots to the so-called ‘root cause’ of Hamas’s violence… The determination of many on the Western Left to either ignore this program or refuse to believe it—despite Hamas’s consistent candor about its aims and means—is a sign of intellectual Orientalism: Palestinians are viewed only as helpless, reactive victims rather than people who generate ideas and actions for which they can be held accountable. But of course they do create political worldviews and programs, and Hamas has been especially voluble of late in explaining its future plans. Just last week, Hamas leader Ghazi Hamad affirmed that his organization planned many more October 7th-type attacks until it ‘annihilates’ Israel; a week later, Hamas spokesman Taher El-Nounou told the New York Times, ‘I hope that the state of war with Israel will become permanent on all the borders.’ This makes calls for a ‘mutual ceasefire,’ in [Rep. Rashida] Tlaib’s words, nonsensical.”
Why it matters: “The Western Left’s response to October 7th will, I believe, be viewed as a moment of moral corruption on a par with the defense of Stalin’s purges, Czechoslovakia’s antisemitic show trials of 1952, the Soviet invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, and Poland’s antisemitic expulsions of 1968, along with the denial of the Khmer Rouge genocide (see under: Chomsky, Noam) and the adulation of China’s vicious Cultural Revolution… Its moral rot may have suddenly become clear, but an ethical collapse takes time to develop. October 7th reveals the long-simmering theoretical confusions, and the moral void, that dominates many of today’s ‘progressive’ movements. A Left that is fixated on ‘decolonization’ mistakes a death cult for a liberation movement and is unable to recognize a bloodbath, even one that was filmed, and publicized worldwide, by the killers themselves. A Left that, rightly, demands absolute condemnation of white-nationalist supremacy refuses to disassociate itself from Islamist supremacy. A Left that divides the world between racists and antiracists and is obsessed with ‘people who look like me’ can’t understand that the clash of two national movements has nothing to do with color or race… And so, as always, the eternally vexing Jewish Question emerges, though many on the Left seem to think it’s been answered. A Left that has spent years, and spilled mountains of ink, tediously insisting that anti-Zionism cannot morph into antisemitism is unable to discern, much less clearly denounce, a militia of avowed Jew-killers. A Left that sees systemic racism in every nook and cranny—and in every (white) heart—can’t recognize the systemic antisemitism that results in mass murder.”
2. Why criticism of Israel’s military strategy in Gaza don’t make sense
Why you should read it: RAND Corporation director Raphael S. Cohen writes in Foreign Policy that criticisms leveled by Western governments against Israel’s military strategy in Gaza miss the reality that there is no surgical, “more targeted military operation” than the one under way.
“Since Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre of more than 1,200 Israelis, a multitude of voices—from U.S. senators to the Chilean president, from the Norwegian prime minister to United Nations officials—has attempted to strike a similar line: that while Israel has the right to self-defense, its current operation in Gaza is disproportionate. Presumably, this same group would support a more targeted operation, but when pressed to explain what such an operation would look like, they demur, and instead say that one should ask ‘military experts…’ [M]ore important, from Israel’s perspective, is the fact that these limited operations were not successful. Israel has tried to kill Mohammed Deif, the commander of Hamas’s military wing, seven times already, to no avail. The Israeli success rate against Hamas infrastructure has proved similarly limited. Yehia Sinwar, Hamas’s Gaza leader, claimed that Operation Guardian of the Walls only succeeded in damaging a mere 5 percent of Hamas’s tunnel network beneath Gaza in 2021. And one need only look at the Oct. 7 attacks for evidence that Hamas’s military capabilities remained very much intact after all previous, more targeted operations.”
“…once we unpack what Israel’s right to self-defense actually means in practical terms, the differences between so-called targeted operations and what Israeli operations have been to date begin to blur. At a minimum, a right to self-defense should allow Israel to rescue its hostages, prevent Hamas’s ability to launch another Oct. 7-style attack—which it has already promised to do—and kill or capture those responsible for Oct. 7… Finally, let’s turn to the third objective: killing or capturing those responsible for the Oct. 7 attacks. Israel estimates that some 3,000 Hamas and other militants entered Israel during the attack. Some of these militants were killed in the attack, but many escaped back to Gaza. Moreover, if we include in Israel’s right to self-defense the elimination of those who helped plan and organize the attack, the number grows even larger. The U.S. National Counterterrorism Center places Hamas’s total membership—let alone the smaller militant groups—at 20,000 to 25,000 as of September 2022. In practical terms, killing or capturing those responsible for Oct. 7 means either thousands or potentially tens of thousands of airstrikes or raids dispersed throughout the Gaza Strip. Raids conducted on that scale are no longer a limited, targeted operation. It’s a full-blown war.”
Why it matters: “There are still plenty of legitimate criticisms to be made of Israel’s strategic approach to Gaza and to the Palestinian population more broadly. Prior to the Oct. 7 attacks, Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank were rising and fueling a clash. For the last decade and a half, Israel’s approach to Hamas in Gaza has largely been kinetic in nature—the ‘mowing the grass’ strategy—without any concerted effort to improve the underlying poverty, unemployment, and decrepit infrastructure that were fertile ground for the Oct. 7 bloodbath... Even so, the uncomfortable, ongoing truth is that the battlefield geography of Gaza means that any operation in Gaza, however targeted it may be, would turn into what we see unfolding today: a bloody, highly destructive ground operation, with a lot of civilians caught in the crossfire. While Israel can mitigate some of these effects, neither Israel nor any other military can prevent them entirely. In this war, there is no happy medium.”
3. How the October 7 atrocities sounded the death knell of a binational “one-state solution”
Why you should read it: Haaretz columnist Dmitry Shumsky observes that the October 7 massacre has “put an end to the debate in Israel over the suicidal idea of establishing a binational state between the Jordan and the sea.”
“The two-state solution was portrayed as unworkable, despite the fact that it had never been tried in practice. On the other hand, it can certainly be said today that the one-state paradigm has been tested in reality, and the horrific results of this test speak for themselves. The cruel campaign of murder of Israeli civilians by the Palestinian nationalist-Islamic Hamas movement on that Black Saturday, along with Israel’s brutal campaign of retaliation, have served as a kind of precursor to the Israeli-Palestinian ‘coexistence’ that awaits both peoples in a binational state—a taste of binational disaster.”
“It should be recognized that the October 7 mass murder took place inside a political framework that has already created a de facto ‘one state’; indeed, the Hamas attack was made possible to a large degree because of this. Note that although most Israelis see the Gaza Strip as a sort of independent state whose troops crossed the “border” into Israel and attacked the sovereign Jewish state, the truth is that in many essential ways Gaza lies within the sovereign Israeli space… A good amount of academic research has been devoted to the study of the binational and multinational concepts in Zionist political thought. I believe that their civil-political foundation, which calls for absolute equality while constitutionally enshrining the collective national rights of national minorities, is absolutely worthy of application in the relations between Jews and Arabs, but this can only happen in an Israel that belongs to an indeterminate future.”
Why it matters: “For now, we must rescind the [current government’s] contemptible nation-state law and rebuild Israel as a true Jewish and democratic state—a civil state, the state of both the Jewish nation and all its religious and national minorities. But for all of this to ever happen, the idea of binational balkanization of Israel-Palestine, which was dealt a heavy blow on October 7, must be finally buried. We must return to the paradigm, the one whose rumored death was premature and unfounded, the paradigm of two states for the two peoples.”
4. Why we should speak ill of the dead—or at least the late Henry Kissinger
Why you should read it: For The Critic, realist international relations scholar Patrick Porter launches a broadside against the recently-deceased former national security advisor and secretary of state Henry Kissinger.
“Henry Kissinger is dead. Let us speak ill of him. He was a man who, having studied and practised power, came to love it. From that failure, bad things flowed. We should not only speak ill — his legacy is a mixed one, so this is not a straightforward Philippic. But some excoriation is due… Kissinger’s career in government and afterwards was full to the brim. Amidst all that detail, one act at least must receive maximal attention. This is the Chennault affair and Kissinger’s knowing part in it. In 1968, in a tightening race for the presidency, the Nixon/Agnew Republican camp sabotaged the Paris peace negotiations over the bloody Vietnam war, by covertly persuading the South Vietnamese regime to stall and boycott the peace talks. Kissinger was President Johnson’s consultant in Paris, but secretly Nixon’s spy. There is now overwhelming evidence that this happened, and that Kissinger was complicit. In a painstaking work, historian Ken Hughes pulled together the FBI transcripts, the notes of Nixon’s campaign chief of staff H.R. Haldeman, memoirs of officials from the Johnson administration, and from Kissinger himself in his own words, on the Nixon tape of 17 June 1971. Later discussing the bombing halt negotiations and his access to Johnson’s instructions to his Ambassador, W. Averell Harriman, Kissinger reminded Nixon ‘You remember, I used to give you information about it at the time.’ We know too from Richard V. Allen, Nixon’s campaign foreign policy advisor, that Kissinger had planted a spy in the peace talks, and that Kissinger would then call from a pay phone and pass on information in German. He ‘offloaded mostly every night what had happened that day in Paris…’ It was an unambiguous case of putting party interests above the national interest, not to mention the welfare of the species. This was not reason of state, with which Kissinger publicly identified, the morality of serving the country even if that involves moral compromise. It was undermining the state, with contempt for all that was at stake in order to achieve office.”
“Kissinger, however, not only respected but loved wielding it. If Kissinger is to be remembered as a member of the realist family and its pursuit of Realpolitik, he embodied its darker form, crude and self-indulgent Machtpolitik. Kissinger’s behaviour suggests so- trying to sabotage a nation’s peace negotiations in order to advance one’s career is the definition of power-loving. His sinister humour suggested so. And his gratuitous remarks suggested so… Kissinger practised power politics as much against his own republic as in the wider world. With his exotic accent and continuous harping on democracy’s frailties in the world of diplomacy, he knowingly trafficked on an American insecurity, the worry that the innocent young nation needs the guidance of the wised-up old world, as if America did not have its own exemplars of effective diplomacy long before Henry turned up. And his underlying impulse was not to tutor the republic. Hans Morgenthau, a civic-minded realist who knew Kissinger well, identified the actual motor: ‘Kissinger has done, during his adult life, very little that was not oriented toward a particular aim in terms of his personal service and particularly his personal power. And he has been eminently successful.’ Full stop.”
Why it matters: “Kissinger is a warning above all about power. Realism, the tradition from Thucydides to Morgenthau that he identified with, encourages an acceptance and respect for power, especially hard power, as the ultima ratio of international life. That respect demands some restraint and some sense of civic purpose, given the world’s tendency towards hostile balancing, and given that power can corrupt its possessor. We cannot opt out of power politics. But that is no alibi to yield to its corruptions.”
5. How advanced nuclear power could meet its nemesis
Why you should read it: The Breakthrough Institute’s Adam Stein and Ted Nordhaus issue a warning that the recent failure of an advanced nuclear power project could prove a harbinger of further difficulties facing advanced nuclear energy—namely, high interest rates and commodity prices as well as regulatory red tape.
“There is broad public agreement among many parties that a new generation of nuclear reactors will likely be necessary in order to achieve both U.S. and global decarbonization goals… But if advanced nuclear energy is ever going to deliver on its promise, policy-makers are going to need to make more serious commitments to commercialize them. That will require nuclear advocates, in both the industry and the NGO communities, to have an open and public conversation about the nature and seriousness of the challenges that the technology presently faces and what it will take to overcome them.”
“A nuclear developer can’t simply go and source a pressure vessel or steel cooling tubes or rebar for its containment structure from any vendor around the world who can produce them at the lowest price. The materials used in a nuclear reactor need to be tracked from the mine head to the forge or manufacturer, manufacturers of components need to be certified to stamp components for use in nuclear reactors by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and the manufacturing needs to meet documented quality assurance standards… Some of these standards are clearly justified. A pressure vessel in a nuclear reactor, for instance, needs to be able to withstand higher temperatures and pressures than do pressure vessels used for many other industrial activities, and must receive a separate license to operate. But there is no particular reason that the rebar in a nuclear containment structure should be required to meet higher standards than the rebar in a suspension bridge or hydroelectric dam. Indeed, the consequences of structural failure are likely far higher in the latter two cases than for a nuclear plant, with many prominent examples... The [Nuclear Regulatory Commission] quantitative health standards for latent cancer risk associated with radiological exposure, for instance, are 100 times stricter than EPA standards for air toxin and air pollution exposure. But nuclear’s unique non-technical challenges go well beyond the regulatory arena. In electrical systems, nuclear must compete with both natural gas generation, which pays no cost for its carbon pollution, and solar and wind generation which pays no cost for its intermittency. Multiple studies have consistently concluded that when the full system cost and value of low-carbon electricity are accounted for, nuclear energy has a critical part to play. But in electrical systems that continue to rely substantially on fossil fuels, incremental additions of wind and solar are cheaper than nuclear, because substantial amounts of remaining fossil fuel generation can balance the system.”
Why it matters: “Taken together, these developments suggest that current efforts are unlikely to be sufficient to deliver on the promise of advanced nuclear energy. Nuclear energy remains saddled with an outdated and radically conservative regulatory framework that substantially overstates the public health risks associated with nuclear technology while failing entirely to account for its public health and environmental benefits. It must compete in electricity markets that don’t value its benefits as a source of clean and firm power. Nuclear developers have little ability to control costs or innovate through their supply chains while a supply chain for enriched fuel for advanced reactors no longer exists. Meanwhile, policy support presently available for advanced nuclear commercialization is simply not sufficient for developers to build a real order book with enough regulatory and market certainty for private investors to stay the course over the multiple decades that it currently takes to develop, license, and commercialize a new reactor design and build up supply chains sufficient to scale production and drive down costs… Nuclear advocates and the nuclear industry, in our view, have been far too sanguine about these challenges for far too long: in part because they have feared aggravating a notoriously capricious regulator, in part because they have not wanted to spook investors, and in part because many have not wanted to risk running afoul of congressional Democrats, who have been increasingly willing in recent years to spend public money on nuclear energy but less willing to tackle the party’s long-standing shibboleths around nuclear regulation and safety.”
6. Why Russia’s war against Ukraine will grind on
Why you should read it: Strategy scholar Lawrence Freedman assesses the state of Russia’s war against Ukraine in the The New Statesman and argues that that, contrary to claims made by other analysts, Moscow will not win if it doesn’t lose.
“Is ‘not winning’ tantamount to ‘losing’? This is not just about playing with words. While a true loss, confirmed by a decisive military defeat, would be considered conclusive, a continuing failure to win can create a sense of futility and corrode the commitment necessary to sustain a military intervention. This is how many Western interventions have ended… What would a Russian defeat look like? At the very least it would mean that, having failed to achieve its objectives, Russia was obliged to withdraw its forces from Ukraine. This is the sort of defeat that Ukraine hopes to impose. It is also one that Russia has thus far been able to avoid because of the difficulty of dislodging it from all the territory currently occupied. An alternative form of defeat is rarely considered for Russia although it is often considered for Ukraine – that is the occupation of the capital and the installation of a compliant government. This reflects a fundamental asymmetry in the war: Russia’s objective is to subjugate Ukraine but it is inconceivable that Ukraine could do this to Russia. Ukraine is fighting to end the occupation; Russia is fighting to occupy… The Ukrainian army is not going to march to Moscow and impose surrender terms on the Kremlin. A Ukrainian victory has therefore always depended on Russia deciding that it was not worthwhile continuing with the war and seeking a peaceful way out. This is why all proposed peace deals require Kyiv conceding territory and Russia somehow promising to leave the rump Ukraine alone in the future. Those designing these putative deals never envisage Russian territory being offered to Ukraine as a quid pro quo. They also fail to ask why and how a ‘peace’ that leaves both sides dissatisfied is likely to be stable and not just be an interlude before the next round of fighting.”
“If this analysis is correct then the conclusion is frustrating. It is very difficult for Ukraine to achieve a definitive victory. Ending the war depends on a Russian decision to extract itself from a futile and calamitous war. This requires Putin not only to acknowledge an expensive failure, but also to abandon his war aims. He has given no indication of being prepared to do either… This is why the widespread assumption that a ceasefire could easily be achieved with a bit of imaginative Western diplomacy and some pressure on Kyiv to make the best of a bad job is wrong. If that is what he wanted Putin could have offered a ceasefire any time over the past year, if only to see the sort of pressure to which Zelensky was then subjected by those keen to extract a positive response. If the war stopped now with a ceasefire Putin could claim whatever territory Russia still holds as a major gain, but it would be far short of controlling all the territory hurriedly ‘annexed’ last autumn and which is now officially presented as part of Russia. He would still have to explain what the past year’s fighting was about as Russia has barely added to its holdings and lost some ground. The prize of all this effort would be distressed and depopulated territories, challenging to occupy and defend, and continuing hostility from the rest of Ukraine as it edged towards membership of the EU and Nato. This is why Putin wanted a submissive government in Kyiv in the first place: unless he gets one it is hard to see how he can view any outcome as satisfactory and durable.”
Why it matters: “Perhaps because of the setbacks faced by Russia after the full-scale invasion, the idea of Russia ‘winning’ by fully defeating Ukrainian forces has also been discounted. I tend to agree that this is unlikely, especially if Ukraine continues to benefit from Western support. But Putin, encouraged by a compliant military leadership, may take a different view. He seeks an outcome that looks more like a victory. This is his preference and he would like a win of sorts to come sooner rather than later. If he lacks confidence that things will turn even more to Russia’s advantage by the end of next year then he might at least hope to exploit what many assume to be current advantages in manpower and ordnance that should be in play for the coming months. Should Putin fail to get a quick win then the question becomes one of whether at some point ‘not winning’ really does start to look too much like ‘losing…’ Russia, unlike Ukraine, has a choice. It has the option of withdrawing from the fight. While Putin might hope that time is on his side and that the West will lose interest there is an alternative possibility that support for Ukraine will continue and even strengthen, as ordnance production steps up, and that the Russian people and elite will become progressively more anxious as the war drags on. If so, Putin may see the coming months as a chance to make real gains in the war. Ukraine is tired and depleted, with insufficient ammunition and stressed air defences. This explains the effort and urgency apparent in Russia’s current operations.”
7. When Americans loved Mussolini…
Why you should read it: The Bulwark’s Charlie Sykes takes a stroll back in time to the 1920s when Americans of every political stripe were enamored with Italy’s Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.
“In the early 1920s, Mussolini had his enthusiastic fanboys in business, labor, Hollywood, and the media. After the sanctimony and infirmity of Woodrow Wilson, millions of Americans felt a frisson of excitement from the cut of Il Duce’s jib, or as we might say now, his vibe. Conservatives saw him as a bulwark against bolshevism, and a champion of traditional values… But most of all, his fans admired Mussolini’s style. Whatever they might have thought of ‘fascism,’ they were attracted by his strutting man-of-action persona, his promise of discipline, and even his thrilling embrace of violence.”
“For many Americans, Mussolini was not merely a violent dictator, he was a celebrity, a precursor of a type that would become familiar over the next century… Mussolini was also lauded by both business and (some) labor leaders. After visiting Italy, American unionist Samuel Gompers gushed that fascism was ‘capable of decisive action on a national scale…’ U.S. Steel’s Elbert Gary proclaimed that ‘The entire world needs strong, honest men,’ and that Americans could ‘learn something by the movement which has taken place in Italy.’”
Why it matters: “Donald Trump’s reference to his political enemies as ‘vermin’ has drawn inevitable comparison to a certain Austrian corporal and his Italian fascist mentor. Those resemblances are nothing new, of course, but Trump’s rhetoric lately seems . . . purposeful… This seems like an important cautionary note.”
8. Why the Left has a growing anti-Semitism problem
Why you should read it: Also in The Bulwark, writer David Masciotra details the outburst of anti-Semitism on the progressive left that occurred after the October 7 massacre in Israel.
“If a united, robust movement of progressive politics was ever necessary in the United States, it is at this exact moment. An increasingly authoritarian right, under the spell of bizarre conspiracy theories and revolving around the personality cult of Donald Trump, threatens the foundation of American democracy. Yet antisemitism, the most lethal prejudice and most dangerous conspiracy theory in the history of the world, is now thriving on the left. It is a moral outrage in itself, but it could also undermine progressive politics, robbing it of intellectual and ethical credibility in its fight against the nationalist-populist right… As a practical matter, progressive politics is almost always coalition politics, and prejudicial hatreds are anathema to both progress and solidarity. Yet there is, inside the tent, an ancient hatred that I, along with many other liberals, have found impossible to ignore since October 7. After Hamas’s stomach-turning violence and barbarity in Israel, protests broke out across the United States, and social media transformed into a flurry of outrage—not at the harvesters of death in Hamas, but toward the victims.”
“The abandonment of Israel marks a departure from the left’s most inspiring leaders and intellectuals. Martin Luther King Jr. called Israel’s right to exist ‘incontestable,’ praising the country as one of the ‘great outposts of democracy in the world.’ His close ally, Bayard Rustin, who helped to organize the 1963 March on Washington, offered an assessment in 1975 that could just as easily apply to 2023: ‘Since Israel is a democratic state surrounded by essentially undemocratic states which have sworn her destruction, those interested in democracy everywhere must support Israel’s existence…’ Today, [Robert F.] Kennedy and Rustin would risk repudiation in progressive circles.”
Why it matters: “A progressive pro-democracy movement cannot speak with coherence about the need to defend democratic institutions in the United States while encouraging the destruction of the only democracy in the Middle East. A liberal party that defends women’s rights and LGBTQ rights has no common cause with Hamas, a theocratic organization that executes gays and imprisons women who stray from the most rigid interpretations of Islamic code… The contradictions are too obvious and hideous for reasonable people to ignore.”
9. How NASA became America’s secret diplomatic weapon
Why you should read it: Politico national security reporter Matt Berg delves into how NASA has become a force in American diplomacy over the past decade—and especially under current Administrator Bill Nelson.
“Bill Nelson, the head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, regularly welcomes foreign leaders to his office, showing off his collection of spacecraft figurines and sitting them down to press for decadeslong partnerships with Washington… NASA plays an unusual and often overlooked role in America’s global outreach. It’s influential but not explicitly aligned with the Pentagon, State Department or other makers of Washington’s foreign policy. And its ability to push the executive branch’s international objectives through other channels is a formidable tool in diplomacy efforts.”
“Such partnerships are especially important now as China’s space program expands — quickly catching up to Washington’s prowess in space flight — amid increased tensions between the world’s two largest economies. The agency could play a crucial role in determining how the lines are drawn between Washington’s allies and Beijing’s… Nelson has met with more than a dozen heads of state since he took on the role in 2021. In July alone, he flew to South America to meet with the leaders of Brazil, Argentina and Colombia, nations weighing allegiances between the U.S. and China. He convinced them to sign a Washington-backed accord on space exploration rather than one Beijing is pushing.”
Why it matters: “Whoever cements an international coalition to set the ground rules for outer space will be formidable for decades, and perhaps centuries to come. With each new signatory on the [Artemis Accords], Nelson moves one step closer to making sure Washington has the biggest advantage.”
Odds and Ends
How T. Rex evolved that enormous, bone-crushing bite…
How a Stonehenge researcher uncovered the late nineteenth-century photo that became the basis for the cover art of Led Zeppelin’s untitled fourth album…
How Rutt the moose found online fame wandering around in southwestern Minnesota, hundreds of miles away from typical moose stomping grounds on the border with Canada…
How Blue Origin’s lunar lander, developed for NASA’s Artemis Program, will take astronauts back to the surface of the Moon...
Why Japanese KitKats are worth their weight in gold, apparently—and how one shipment got hijacked en route to America…
What I’m Listening To
A cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Little Lies” by the Irish group The Corrs from their forthcoming greatest hits album.
Ministry’s cover of the Bob Dylan song “Lay Lady Lay” from the industrial metal group’s 1996 album Filth Pig.
A live cover of Taylor Swift’s “Wildest Dreams” by speed metal band DragonForce.
Image of the Month
