Karma Tashi

Buddhist, Democrat, #NCIS mourner.
#BlackLivesMatter
Guard the ballot. Have voted for Kamala Harris at every opportunity.
Most content is in replies.

[Karma Tashi @KTynot]

If, as Buddhists believe, we are not really separate, then one’s own mind is not actually a private place. What is in our minds creates and influences the world we all think we occupy.

[Sama Hoole @SamaHoole]

A cow builds fats that exist in no other food. Not chicken, not pork, not one plant.

It happens in the rumen, a vat of bacteria fermenting grass. They make a family of fats nothing else on your plate carries.

CLA is the famous one. In beef, lamb, and butter. In no chicken, and no vegetable.

Vaccenic acid rides with it. A ruminant fat your own body turns into more CLA.

Trans-palmitoleic acid is next. Ruminant-only, and study after study ties it to lower diabetes risk.

Yes, a trans fat. The kind a cow makes is a different beast from the industrial stuff pressed out of seed oil.

Then the branched-chain fats. Built into the rumen bacteria themselves, then passed up into the meat and the milk.

And C15:0, an odd-chain fat so ruminant that scientists now argue it might be essential.

Every one is born in the gut of a grazing animal. Nowhere else on earth.

Chicken can't give them to you. Neither can pork, or the cleanest salad ever tossed.

The cow, the sheep, the goat. They are the only door to a whole class of fats your body runs on.

Lose the ruminant, and you lose them for good.

[Brian Allen @allenanalysis]

Colorado Just Moved To End Its Same-Sex Marriage Ban.

Democrats passed legislation repealing the ban.

Nearly every Republican voted against it.

[Scott Nover @ScottNover]

New: The Washington Post reconstructed journalist Amal Khalil’s final hours in Lebanon found that Israel’s military denied rescuers access to her during a key period when she was still alive.

w/ @suzanHaidamous, @mmkelly22, and @MohamdEch

https://t.co/ar48t6g4ei

[Historic Vids @historyinmemes]

The actual size of Hawaii in comparison to the continental United States.

Most people picture Hawaii as a small group of islands in the middle of the Pacific, but its true geographic span is far greater than that familiar image suggests.

From the Big Island in the southeast to Kure Atoll in the northwest, the Hawaiian archipelago stretches about 1,500 miles. If overlaid on the continental United States, it would reach from Southern California all the way toward the central Great Plains.

This length comes from more than just the eight main islands. Hawaii also includes the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands—a long chain of small islands, reefs, shoals, and atolls that extend deep into the Pacific Ocean. Many of these locations are remote, uninhabited, and ecologically significant. Midway Atoll, for instance, lies closer to Asia than to mainland America and played an important strategic role during World War II.

Because maps typically compress Hawaii into a small inset beside Alaska, its true scale is often underestimated.

Hawaii is the only U.S. state composed entirely of islands and remains one of the most isolated population centers on Earth, with California—the nearest state—located roughly 2,400 miles away.

[Gandalv @Microinteracti1]

Europe Wins Again. Obviously.

Armenia went to the polls yesterday. And the results are exactly what you’d expect if you’d been paying attention for the past five years, rather than wallowing in Kremlin nostalgia like a damp sock.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan declared victory on Monday, with his Civil Contract Party leading with 52.5% of the vote.  Armenia, a landlocked country the size of Belgium that Russia has spent decades treating as a vassal state, has looked at its options and made a decision that required roughly the same level of intellectual effort as choosing between a Michelin-starred restaurant and a skip fire.

They chose Europe.

This election was less a routine vote than a referendum on Pashinyan’s post-2020 course reducing dependence on Russia and moving toward an explicit European orientation. And Russia, naturally, did everything in its power to stop it. According to Reuters, citing Western intelligence officials, the election faced heavy Russian covert interference, including disinformation campaigns and a plan to transport Russian Armenians into Armenia to sway the vote. One analyst collective described it as one of the largest state-backed disinformation campaigns in modern European history. And Armenia still told them to get lost.

Putin had already warned Armenia it would face economic consequences for drifting westward, and introduced restrictions on Armenian agricultural exports in the weeks before the vote.  Threats, propaganda, economic blackmail. The full Russian toolkit. Result: irrelevant.

Now, Trump, Tucker Carlson and JD Vance would like you to believe that Russia represents some superior civilisational model. A proud, white, Christian fortress holding the line against the Muslim hordes supposedly swamping Europe. It is a compelling narrative, in the same way that flat earth theory is compelling if you ignore every single fact available to you.

Here is one such fact: between 10 and 15 percent of Russia’s own population is Muslim. Tatars, Bashkirs, Chechens, Ingush, Dagestanis. Millions of them. Russia is, by its own demographic reality, a multi-ethnic, multi-faith state with a larger Muslim population than most of Western Europe. But you’re not supposed to know that. It complicates the story.

Meanwhile, the Muslim share of the EU population sits at around 5 percent. But the Tucker Carlsons of the world need you frightened, so the numbers get quietly shuffled off stage.

So Armenia joins the queue. Behind Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, and every Eastern European country that isn’t currently run by a Slovak who seems to have wandered in from a Moscow focus group. The pattern is not subtle. Every country that has actually experienced Russian influence in practice is sprinting in the opposite direction. The only nation currently moving toward Russia’s orbit is the United States, which managed to elect a man whose foreign policy instincts were apparently shaped by a property developer’s admiration for strongmen with good buildings.

The world watches America and hopes it finds its way back. Most people think it will. Eventually. The damage, however, is already considerable, and democracy, like a soufflé, does not always survive rough handling.

Armenia made its choice. The right one. Obviously.

Gandalv / @Microinteracti1

[Dalai Lama @DalaiLama]

Medical Bulletin — New Delhi, 8 June 2026 — His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s personal physicians—Dr. Tsetan D. Sadutshang, Dr. Tamdin Tsewang, Dr. Tsering Lhadon, and Dr. Tenzin Tsundue—together with Mr. Tenzin N. Taklha, Secretary to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, provided a brief update on His Holiness’s condition following his successful left knee replacement surgery earlier today at Apollo Hospital, New Delhi.

In June 2024, His Holiness underwent a successful right knee replacement surgery at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City and made an excellent recovery.

Following today’s procedure, His Holiness returned to his hospital room in stable condition. His recovery is progressing well, and he remains in good spirits.

The medical, nursing, and administrative teams at Apollo Hospital have been providing exceptional care, support, and attention. We are deeply grateful for their professionalism, dedication, and kindness.

[Ken Bensinger @kenbensinger]

THIS IS EXTREMELY SIMPLE: MORE THAN 60% OF REGISTERED VOTERS IN LOS ANGELES ARE DEMOCRATS. LESS THAN 15% ARE REPUBLICANS.

STOP BEING SHOCKED THAT LA VOTERS PREFER DEMOCRATS AND STOP SPREADING CONSPIRACY THEORIES TO EXPLAIN SIMPLE ELECTORAL MATH.

[Scott Dworkin @funder]

🚨 Republicans are mad we're doing this and try to say we're overreacting. Keep it up.

Click here to urge your members of Congress to represent YOU for a change—and stop Trump's ILLEGAL dismantling of the US Forest Service: https://t.co/V9HjOIeFGQ

[Mikey Intifada @MicSchirtzer]

hi so we've actually reached you don't need to know the numbers of the deaths camps stage of the US holocaust

[Jew in a Canoe ✡️🇨🇦 memoir now available! @WillieHandler]

by Jonathan Fisher, MD, FACC

I am a Jewish physician, and I have never written about that here. I am going to, because of a surgeon I have never met. Emmanuel Moss, chief of cardiac surgery at Montreal’s Jewish General Hospital, is leaving for Atlanta in September.He is one of the few surgeons in Canada routinely performing robotic mitral valve and coronary bypass procedures. People close to him say the deciding factor was not Quebec’s strained healthcare system, which had been strained for years, but a growing sense that he was no longer safe in the city as a Jew.

The hospital he is leaving opened in 1934 with the first official non-discrimination policy of any hospital in Canada. It was founded in response to an era when many Jewish physicians faced discrimination in medical training and hospital appointments. The historical echo is difficult to miss.

When a clinician leaves because of who they are, a health system does not lose a statistic. It loses a specific person who held specific knowledge, relationships, judgment, and expertise developed over decades.

A 2024 survey of Canadian Jewish physicians found that reported antisemitism in hospitals rose from near zero before October 2023 to 39 percent after, and that nearly a third of respondents were considering leaving the country. The association’s chair warned that the consequences could include the loss of hundreds of physicians at a time when the healthcare system can least afford it. That mechanism is not unique to Jews. It is what happens whenever people feel unsafe because of their identity. Experts leave. Communities become poorer in ways that are difficult to measure. Eventually, patients and their families pay the price.

I am writing this as a Jewish physician because this story landed personally. I am writing it as a physician leader because I have spent decades thinking about what allows caring people to do their best work, and what it costs when they cannot. When any clinician feels unsafe because of who they are, something is lost long before they decide to leave.This time, the story touched my own community. That does not make it less relevant to anyone else. It does make it harder for me to stay silent.

[Mykhailo Rohoza @MykhailoRohoza]

Boomerang Effect: Russian Ballistic Missiles Explode During Launches Aimed at Ukraine

Russia’s missile strike campaign is increasingly facing catastrophic technical failures. Recently, there has been a sharp rise in reported cases where Russian ballistic missiles explode immediately after launch or crash on Russian territory before ever reaching the Ukrainian border.

[Echoes of War @EchoesofWarYT]

On June 6, 1944, Martha Gellhorn was sitting in a London briefing room when the news broke: D-Day had begun.

She had already been denied press credentials. The U.S. military had banned all female journalists from the front. Her editor at Collier's had quietly handed her D-Day assignment to someone else.

That someone else was her husband, Ernest Hemingway.

She got in a cab and went to the docks at Southampton anyway.

She talked her way past a military policeman by claiming she wanted to interview nurses aboard a hospital ship. Then she found a bathroom, locked the door, and waited in silence until the HMHS Prague was too far out to sea to turn back.

The Prague was the first Allied hospital ship to reach Normandy. In the dark water off Omaha Beach, Higgins boats ferried shattered men out to the ship. Gellhorn moved among them, helping carry stretchers, holding hands, recording everything. On June 8, she went ashore herself, one of the only civilians to set foot on that beach during the landing operation.

When she got back to England, military police were waiting on the dock. They arrested her, revoked her accreditation, and sent her to a nurses training camp outside London as punishment.

She went AWOL within 48 hours.

She went on to cover the Battle of the Bulge. She was among the first journalists to enter Dachau after liberation. She reported conflicts on six continents over six decades, never once embedded, never once asking permission.

Hemingway flew to Normandy on a press plane. Full military clearance. Official credentials. He watched the landings from the air and filed his dispatch.

He won the Nobel Prize.

You know his name. You probably didn't know hers until just now.

[Karen Kenyatta Russell🍀 @Karen_Russell]

No. Watch. Parties?!

“A hard closure is expected around the entirety of Madison Square Garden. Officials are planning for no watch parties, no vehicle access and no pedestrian travel through the secured area, which sits in a busy part of Midtown Manhattan and is above a major transit hub. CBS New York reported that thousands of fans attended a pair of watch parties for Game 1 on Wednesday night.”

Does that mean none of this?! #robot #fdt https://t.co/WrW4Wt845q

[Bill Madden @maddenifico]

Deeply Disturbing New Revelations from the Trump Assassination Attempt

Nearly two years after Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire at Trump's rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024, fresh FBI records obtained through a Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit expose troubling new details that raise serious questions about what law enforcement knew — and when.

Most disturbing: a Butler County Sheriff's deputy exchanged two emails with Crooks prior to the attack. The content of those communications remains completely unknown due to heavy redactions. The deputy told investigators she had no personal interaction with Crooks, did not recognize him after the shooting, and only learned of the connection when contacted by a New York Times reporter.

The fact that the would-be assassin was emailing a local law enforcement officer just before attempting to kill a former — and now current — President, yet this was not flagged or acted upon, is profoundly alarming. It points to either staggering incompetence or a disturbing lack of transparency from federal agencies still withholding critical information.

Additional records reveal other red flags on the scene: a medic who reached the AGR building roof where Crooks was killed reported that a Washington County SWAT officer removed "a gray remote device with numerical push buttons and an antenna" along with a cell phone from his pocket. Explosive ordnance disposal teams were called in. A police canine also alerted on the building below the roof, causing an evacuation while Crooks' body remained in place.

These revelations, forced out nearly two years later through litigation, paint a picture of missed opportunities, communication breakdowns, and continued secrecy. As Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton stated, the American people still deserve full transparency about Crooks' contacts, motives, and how such a massive security failure was allowed to occur.

The idea that the gunman had direct email contact with a sheriff's deputy — and that key details are still being hidden — is not just concerning. It is deeply disturbing.

[Amber Woods @AmberWoods100]

For many survivors, the trauma did not end when they reported the crimes.
It continued through the institutions that were supposed to protect them.

[Fifty Shades of Whey @davenewworld_2]

Regulators in Colorado let oil giants like Chevron, Oxy, and Civitas dodge over $1.3 BILLION in cleanup obligations for nearly 15,000 dead oil and gas sites.

This scandal should be much bigger news.

Corporations extracted the wealth, walked away with the profits, and left behind abandoned wells, open spills, contaminated land, and all kinds of pollution risks near people's homes, schools, rivers, and water wells.

When our land, air, and water are sacrificed for robber barons, we're the ones who are on the hook for cleaning up their mess.

It's a textbook example of privatized profits and socialized harm.

[Give A Shit About Nature @giveashitnature]

Most baby birds people "rescue" didn't need rescuing. Before you scoop one up, figure out which kind you're looking at.

A nestling is a true baby: little or no feathers, skin showing, eyes maybe still shut, and it can't stand, hop, or grip. This one fell too early and does need help. Look up for the nest and gently put it back. The old line about parents rejecting a chick that smells like humans is a myth, since birds barely smell at all. If the nest is gone, call a licensed wildlife rehabber. Photographed left.

A fledgling is older: fully feathered, stubby tail, hopping and flapping around on the ground, able to grip your finger. This is normal. It left the nest on purpose, and its parents are nearby, still feeding it, watching you watch it. Leave it be. Photographed right.

The only time you move a fledgling is out of immediate danger, a road or a cat, and only as far as the nearest bush.

For most baby birds, the kindest thing you can do is nothing.

[Emoluments Clause @Emolclause]

#BREAKING: Ayman: I want to ask you about this story that came out today from both the NYTimes and NBC News [about Israel spying on the U.S.]. What does that tell you coming from a close American ally?

General Hertling: “…nations try and gather intelligence against each other—not only enemies but friends. Israel has ALWAYS looked to gain intelligence about what the United States is doing behind closed doors. We share secrets with each other that we don’t share with other nations…so they would certainly want to know what’s going on…it is a COMMON occurrence, but I’m concerned that it’s probably increasing and the reason why is because sometimes even our allies don’t really understand what we’re doing, because of decisions made by the administration, so they are trying to get an insider’s track on this…”😳

[Epstein File Search @epsteinsearchin]

In February, Jayapal read an Epstein email at a House hearing:

"Where are you? Are you okay? I loved the torture video."

DOJ redacted the name. Congress forced unredaction. The recipient: Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, CEO of a company with financial ties to Trump.