Day: August 8, 2025

What Are The Odds?

Let’s have a little fun on this Friday….

I thought I would close today with a small question on a larger issue…

Since taken office Donny has made it clear that he wants the Nobel Peace Prize…..one of his MAGA stoolies in Congress has nominated then that brutal warmongering prick BiBi has also jumped on the band wagon….next was Pakistan nominating because of Donny’s help with the India situation and now anew slug has also joined in the nominating process….Cambodia.

Cambodia has joined Pakistan and Israel in nominating Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, crediting the US president with “visionary and innovative diplomacy” that ended border clashes with Thailand.

A letter from Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet on Thursday addressed to the Norwegian Nobel Committee said he wished to nominate Trump “in recognition of his historic contributions in advancing world peace”.

“President Trump’s extraordinary statesmanship – marked by his commitment to resolving conflicts and preventing catastrophic wars through visionary and innovative diplomacy – was most recently demonstrated by his decisive role in brokering an immediate and unconditional ceasefire between Cambodia and Thailand,” Hun Manet’s letter said.

(aje.com)

Contributions for world peace?

Seriously?

Blind obedience to Israel and its brutal destruction of Palestine, unprovoked attack on Iran and threats to go to war over an island….none of that sounds peaceful to me….but that aside….just for fun what are the odds that he will win the coveted Peace Prize?

The nomination has sparked renewed attention on Trump’s chances of winning the prestigious award. According to betting aggregator Oddschecker, Trump’s current odds of securing the prize range from 17/2 (10.5%) to 6/1 (14.3%), placing him as the second favorite among bookmakers. Leading odds makers including Ladbrokes and Coral list him at 6/1, while William Hill offers 11/2 (15.4%) and Sky Bet and Paddy Power give 17/2. Russian political figure Yulia Navalnaya, widow of late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, remains the frontrunner for the prize following her husband’s death in prison last year. Trump’s candidacy reflects the high-profile yet polarizing nature of his international diplomacy. While his influence is undeniable, experts note that the Nobel Committee often weighs broader geopolitical implications and controversies surrounding nominees. Other contenders for the award include United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.

(knewz.com)

Do you have an idea on the odds?

That does it for me today….enjoy your weekend and as always….Be Well and Be Safe….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Losing My Religion

Nope not some tribute to a song by R.E.M.

By ‘religion’ I mean democracy because to some of us democracy is a religion and it needs preserving and helped to thrive…..and it appears to be diminishing almost daily.

For decades there has been a slow destruction of our beloved democracy and since the early 90s that destruction has sped up until we arrive at today and the total disregard of our democracy by some.

The culprits are those oligarchs, the uber-wealthy, that are using their wallets to secure influence and drain the life out of democracy.

It doesn’t take a conspiracy to dismantle democracy — just concentrated wealth and time.

Across the globe, but especially in the United States, the ultra-wealthy have learned to bend democratic institutions not through revolution or coups d’état, but through slow but determined erosion. They don’t storm the halls of power; they sponsor those halls, sue them if they resist, and slowly discredit them if they persist. They present themselves to the public and a pliant media as hardnosed realists and pragmatists — people who know how to get things done – rational actors disillusioned with what they denounce as ‘the inefficiencies of self-rule.’ But what they’re really doing is waging a cold and relentless war on the very machinery of democratic life.

The corrosion starts subtly: A billionaire funds a lawsuit, quietly buys a newspaper, or drops millions into a political race. It initially appears to be wholesome participation (Bezos saving journalism by giving it room to breathe) — civic engagement by successful individuals. But with the benefit of time, the scale and intent reveal something else.

When Peter Thiel bankrolled the lawsuit that bankrupted Gawker Media, he wasn’t just seeking justice for a perceived personal slight. He was sending a clear message: If you cross a billionaire, we will destroy you — and we won’t need to win an argument to do it. You will not be debated; you will be swiftly liquidated.

The legal system, which in theory protects the weak from the powerful, is in practice yet another arena where wealth sets the rules. Strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPP suits) have become the favorite tool of oligarchs to intimidate journalists, whistleblowers, and activists into silence. The goal isn’t to win in court; it is to bleed critics dry with legal fees and drag them through years of debilitating litigation. In a democracy, speech should be protected; in an oligarchy, it is priced and, in that way, snuffed out.

The media, too, has been captured — not in a dramatic coup, but through purchase after purchase.

Rupert Murdoch’s sprawling empire has normalized the idea that facts are pliable, that narratives are weapons, and that partisanship isn’t a danger but a business model. Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter (now X) is a more recent version of the same impulse: Control the flow of information, and you control what people believe is real. Democracy depends on shared reality, while plutocracy, in sharp contrast, thrives and prospers in the fog.

https://thefulcrum.us/ethics-leadership/billionaire-oligarchy

The destruction is nearing completion….the tenets by which this great nation was founded are being chipped away…..what will you do to preserve the system we love?

Thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

When Will It End?

It being the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

Donny is planning to meet with Putin and Zelenskyy to take up the conflict and a possible way to end it….

President Trump is preparing to meet soon with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the war on Ukraine, administration officials said, picking up on a suggestion made by the Kremlin during the US special envoy’s visit there on Wednesday. Trump is open to including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the talks, the Wall Street Journal reports. Although he praised “great progress” made in Steve Witkoff’s meeting with Putin, Trump acknowledged that a ceasefire would not begin by Friday, the deadline he had imposed.

Trump told European leaders, including Zelensky, in a phone call Wednesday that the meeting could take place next week, per the New York Times. Ukraine and Russia apparently hadn’t officially agreed to the meeting; Trump told reporters later, “There’s a very good prospect that they will.” He didn’t say where a meeting would be held. Trump would be up against suspicion that Putin wants a meeting to drag out peace negotiations to allow attacks on Ukraine to continue and to head off US sanctions on Russia’s energy customers. Hours after the Putin-Witkoff talks, Trump placed another 25% tariff on India, a buyer of Russian oil.

There have been suggestions that Putin would bring up an in-person meeting after making no moves toward peace; Trump has not met with him since retaking office in January. “It seems that Russia is now more committed to a ceasefire,” Zelensky said in his nightly address to the nation. “The pressure on them is working.” Interviewed Wednesday on Fox Business, Secretary of State Marco Rubio sounded like a meeting is not imminent, per the AP. “A lot has to happen before that can occur,” he said. A specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations was skeptical of the idea, per the Washington Post, saying Putin has always wanted to meet without having reached any deal. “A bilateral meeting is always a victory for the Russian side,” Liana Fix said, “a very successful diversion for him from the momentum of pressure that was building up.”

So what are the chances for a solution?

My thought is it will be nothing earth shaking….if anything it could be another Trump ambush.

As the war rages on what do the people of Ukraine want….not what “Z” Man wants?

Gallup released a new poll on Thursday that found 69% of Ukrainians favor a negotiated end to the war with Russia as soon as possible, while just 24% want to keep fighting until “victory,” a near complete reversal of public opinion from when Russia invaded more than three years ago.

When Gallup first asked the question to Ukrainians in 2022, it found 72% wanted to continue fighting and just 22% wanted a negotiated settlement. As the war progressed, the number of Ukrainians who favored a peace deal increased, and it became a majority for the first time when Gallup released a poll in November 2024, finding that 52% wanted negotiations to end the conflict.

While the majority of Ukrainians want to see the war end, the new Gallup poll found that they don’t think it will happen anytime soon. Just one quarter of respondents think it’s likely the fighting will end within 12 months, while 68% believe peace is unlikely.

The poll also found that Ukrainians have a significantly less favorable view of the US since the early days of the war. Just 16% of Ukrainians approve of the performance of US leadership compared with 66% in 2022. But the majority of Ukrainians, 70%, still believe the US needs to play a role in peace talks.

https://news.antiwar.com/2025/08/07/poll-69-of-ukrainians-want-negotiated-end-to-war-as-soon-as-possible/

As usual it is not what the people in Ukraine want but what the US desires and that desire is a continuation.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”