Desmond VanderSmit

Software Developer. Lawn Bowler.

[Desmond VanderSmit @phunkydude]

I look at Gyokeres throwing his hands up whenever his team mates don't put it on his foot and I think to myself what a cheek. Never have seen a player run so much with so little purpose. Come on Arsenal! Raya can do it!

[Desmond VanderSmit @phunkydude]

Arsenal!

[Desmond VanderSmit @phunkydude]

What a weekend of #epl games, wow! Some amazing goals & even better saves. Pity it didn't go #Arsenal's way. April was always going to be a tester. Not the end.

[Desmond VanderSmit @phunkydude]

#Arsenal Is Arteta capable of getting Arsenal over the line? Gyokeres does not have the pace, presence or accuracy for a top flight premier league team. Why keep him on for most of the game? It must be demoralising for the other players, to look up and have nobody in the box.

[Desmond VanderSmit @phunkydude]

https://t.co/2IR0ieX1iD

[Desmond VanderSmit @phunkydude]

https://t.co/YN5HGhRCwn

[Edward Snowden @Snowden]

EU apparatchiks aim to sneak a terrifying mass surveillance measure into law despite UNIVERSAL public opposition (no thinking person wants this) by INVENTING A NEW WORD for it—"upload moderation"—and hoping no one learns what it means until it's too late. Stop them, Europe!

[Caitlin Johnstone @caitoz]

This is 100% what would have happened and it's not even debatable.

[The Presidency 🇿🇦 @PresidencyZA]

SOUTH AFRICA APPROACHES THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE UNDER THE GENOCIDE CONVENTION WITH RESPECT TO ACTS COMMITTED BY ISRAEL IN THE CONTEXT OF ITS ATTACKS ON GAZA

South Africa is gravely concerned with the plight of civilians caught in the present Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip due to the indiscriminate use of force and forcible removal of inhabitants.

Furthermore, there are ongoing reports of international crimes, such as crimes against humanity and war crimes, being committed as well as reports that acts meeting the threshold of genocide or related crimes as defined in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, have been and may still be committed in the context of the ongoing massacres in Gaza.

[Caitlin Johnstone @caitoz]

Israel Says It's Anti-Semitic To Invoke The Genocide Convention Over Gaza

Reading by Tim Foley.

[RT @RT_com]

‘People who believe in God celebrate Christmas to be closer to God but only in Ukraine they celebrate it to be closer to Europe,’ Russian Foreign Minister spokesperson Maria Zakharova said commenting on Ukraine’s change of dates for Christmas celebration

[Not Jerome Powell @alifarhat79]

The Pentagon: We’re unable to track $3.8 trillion dollars of military spending.

The U.S. Treasury: We’re unable to track $5 trillion dollars of pandemic spending.

The Navy: We’re unable to track where a $30 million F-35 fighter jet went.

The IRS: You owe us $3.37 pay it right now or you’re going to jail.

[Censored Men @CensoredMen]

🇵🇸🇮🇱 Rabbi Elhannan Beck on Palestine - Israel.

“The Palestinians don’t hate Jews.

They hate occupiers.”

[Ina-MariaShikongo @IMariashikongo]

This case was a set up from the start and just shows to what lengths others would go to just incriminate those that stand in their ways!

[Caitlin Johnstone @caitoz]

People Are Dying For Inches In Ukraine, The “World’s Largest Arms Fair”

There’s a heartbreaking graphic going around right now showing the almost microscopic changes that have occurred to the frontline of the war in Ukraine this year despite nonstop death and destruction of unfathomable horror the entire time.

The graphic comes from a New York Times article titled “Who’s Gaining Ground in Ukraine? This Year, No One.”, which eventually gets around to acknowledging that Russia has actually gained more ground than Ukraine in 2023 despite Kyiv’s much-hyped counteroffensive which began in June.

“When both sides’ gains are added up, Russia now controls nearly 200 square miles more territory in Ukraine compared with the start of the year,” the Times reports.

As Left I on the News noted on Twitter, this contradicts the titular claim in another New York Times article published last week under the headline “Ukraine Has Gained Ground. But It Has Much Further To Go.”

The reason the map of gains and losses is so heartbreaking is because so much has been given up for so very, very little. At least tens of thousands have died in this war with hundreds of thousands wounded, all for those teeny, tiny little blips on the map. Ukraine is now freckled with more landmines than anywhere else on earth, which experts say will take decades to clear. This giant deathtrap is exacerbated by the cluster munitions that are covering the land with greater and greater frequency, which will go on to detonate and kill civilians (mostly children) for years to come. The mines and artillery fire on the frontline of this war are reportedly creating tens of thousands of amputees, numbers comparable to what was seen in World War I.

And all for what? Essentially nothing. A few inches gained here, a few inches lost there. The meaninglessness of it all is probably one of the reasons why military-aged Ukrainian men have been fleeing and attempting to flee the nation in droves to avoid conscription.

War is the worst thing in the world. The suffering, trauma and loss of mass military violence is too much to comprehend, even for people who are right there experiencing it. And the only thing worse than a war where one side gets completely steamrolled by the other is one in which people keep killing each other and killing each other over tiny gains and losses on the battlefield without an end to the nightmare anywhere on the horizon.

And now we see western officials and media outlets telling us all to prepare for this war to drag on for years, potentially into the 2030s. This nonsensical violence, which even the head of NATO now admits could have been avoided by simply ceasing to amass a western military threat on Russia’s doorstep, is scheduled to drag on as long as possible for no grander reason than the advancement of US strategic interests.

This news from The New York Times comes out at the same time as a Wall Street Journal article titled “The War in Ukraine Is Also a Giant Arms Fair,” subtitled “Arms makers are getting orders for weapons being put to the test on the battlefield.”

“The Panzerhaubitze howitzer is part of an arsenal of weapons being put to the test in Ukraine in what has become the world’s largest arms fair,” writes WSJ’s Alistair MacDonald. “Companies that make the weapons being used in Ukraine have won orders and resurrected production lines. The deployment of billions of dollars worth of equipment in a major land war has also given manufacturers and militaries a unique opportunity to analyze the battlefield performance of weapons, and learn how best to use them.”

This is one of those things that just sounds a bit uncomfortable at first, but if you really sit with the words and deeply contemplate what’s being said here it will show up as so deeply evil it will give you nightmares. The fact that weapons systems are being tested on human bodies to the immense benefit of war profiteers over a completely avoidable and deliberately provoked war is one of the most depraved things you can possibly imagine, and is a clear sign that we are living in a profoundly sick society.

This is so, so ugly, and it’s slated to get even uglier — these freaks haven’t even gotten started on China yet. The sooner this monstrous power structure can be brought to its knees, the better it will be for everyone.

[Desmond VanderSmit @phunkydude]

@QueenEricabeth @ydausab Where were you, in your house?

[zerohedge @zerohedge]

"Yes, They Were Being Bribed": Fired Ukraine Prosecutor Corroborates Biden Corruption https://t.co/bwTDmHdy9D

[The Namibian @TheNamibian]

Qatar Airways, Ethiopian Airways, and also the South African cargo general sales agency and management service provider ATC Aviation have all suspended cargo operations to and from Hosea Kutako International Airport. https://t.co/kJxxjHVvJs

[Dr. Simon @goddek]

🚨BOMBSHELL: @TuckerCarlson asked @RobertKennedyJr about the shadowy biolabs in Ukraine. RFK's jaw-dropping answer, if proven true, could shake the very foundations of trust and demands unparalleled consequences for both Anthony Fauci and Ralph Baric.

RFK: "Anthony Fauci got all the responsibility for bio-weapons development. [...] In 2014, 300 scientists wrote to President Obama and said 'you've gotta shut down Anthony Fauci, because he is going to create a microbe that will cause a global pandemic.' And so Obama signed a moratorium and shut down the 18 worst of Anthony Fauci's experiments, where most of them were taking place in North Carolina by a scientist called Ralph Baric (@Baric_Lab).

Instead of obeying that law, Anthony Fauci shifted lots of his operations offshore. And those operations ended up mostly in Wuhan Lab, which is a military lab [...] and many of them went to Ukraine."

Where is the outcry from the mainstream media? New York Times, Washington Post - anyone?

[Buck Sexton @BuckSexton]

The most dangerous opponents of free speech in America today are mainstream journalists and social media companies, and the irony should be lost on no one