AZspot

“Trees hold stories: they are witnesses of time and history. Of course, we can read a tree’s age and local climate from its rings, but in recent years we’ve discovered so much more. Deep inside a tree’s trunk is an archive waiting to be found: tales of planetary shifts, cosmic events, and even turning points in human history. And the oldest trees have seen it all.”

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“The idea that Israel’s war in Gaza could produce a generational cleavage on the level of the Vietnam War—something I’ve to be evident for several years now—is still difficult to understand for many centrists, particularly that shrinking pro-Israel wing of the Democratic Party.”

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“Before Trump 2.0 political corruption was generally disguised and implicit: Politicians and political staffers favored corporate interests because of incentives like the revolving door, in which they could expect to move on to well-paid employment as lobbyists. These days, thanks to Trump, political graft is open and direct: much of it is simply cash, crypto and sweetheart cont...

“I tried to log in to Bluesky the other day and was told that, because I live in Texas, I have to verify my age through some process Bluesky does not explain, though it is clear that the process involves some third-party site that might or might not be a reliable custodian of … well, of whatever information it demands. The page also said that if I don’t want to verify my age I c...