What about Gaza? Does it make sense to make plans about rebuilding the strip in the foreseeable future? The above is a fantasy of Netanjahu’s, AI generated. “A massive free trade zone with rail service to NEOM”, the Saudi Arabian fantasy project in the desert. Netanjahu’s Gaza is not too different from Donald Trump’s shameless and vulgar “vision” of “Trump Gaza”.
It is now clear that Trump was sent a paper by George Washington University Professor Joseph Pelzman of 2024, which outlines the complete destruction of Gaza and rebuilding it from scratch. Was that a cart blanche for Israel to more or less nuke the strip?
At the hight of the carnival season, I noticed that the holy month of Ramadan starts this year, provided moon sighting, on 18 February, that is Ash Wednesday. This seems to be a remarkable coincidence. Both Catholics and Muslims start their seasonal fasting, although in a completely different fashion.
Ash Wednesday is also celebrated by Protestants. It is especially a day of reflection and repentance. There is some voluntary fasting throughout the entire 40 day periods. Especially on Good Friday, that is the day, Christians memorize Jesus’ crucification, no meat is allowed.
I tried to get some information on whether this coincidence has been recorded before, to no avail. In the early 1990s and in 2024 and 2025, there was some overlap of fasting periods, sure. But exact alignment on the same day seems to be extremely rare.
Until a couple of weeks ago, I thought Europe, or at least its Nato and EU members, belonged to the Western Hemisphere, with democracy, shared values, strong transatlantic ties.
First, in the United States’ National Security Strategy of November 2025 it was made crystal clear that we, the Europeans, do not belong to “them”. What authors of the NSS (probably first and foremost White House deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security advisor Stephen Miller) mean with the Western Hemisphere is the American double continent including Greenland (although Greenland was strikingly missing on the above historical map of the American double continent which was used in Pete Hegseth’s new National Defense Strategy, see below).
So, I learned that we, the Europeans, belong to a different sphere of influence, Eurasia, which is currently dominated by Putin’s Russia.
I doubt whether many ordinary people in Germany, even its politicians, have fully understood that transatlantic trust is, from now on, an illusion. Europe is not an ally, it’s at most a vassal. At least an unwelcome competitor economically. Tedious when it comes to this Russian province, Ukraine. As Victoria Nuland, then U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian affairs, put it already in 2014, Fuck the EU!
The Western Hemisphere is mentioned 24 times in the NSS. Greenland is not mentioned.
Germany’s Minister of Defense, Boris Pistorius, commented on derogatory remarks about Nato soldiers in Afghanistan by US president Donald Trump yesterday.
“Our Bundeswehr stood ready when our American allies requested assistance after the Islamist terrorist attack of 2001. “Germany is deeply grateful to the Bundeswehr for this courage and highly professional service. “59 soldiers and three police officers lost their lives in combat, attacks, or accidents. Numerous wounded soldiers still suffer from injuries sustained during this period.”
Apparently, there was no sharp criticism of Donald Trump by Pistorius. As a reserve officer of the Medical Corps of the German Armed Forces, who had not served in Afghanistan but had witnessed the war in Iraq from neighbouring Kuwait, I asked Gemini today,
“After Donald Trump apparently clarified his derogatory remarks about Nato soldiers in Afghanistan, he now seems to paddle back and praises warriors from the UK. Did he also mention in further remarks Danish soldiers who lost their lives, or German soldiers?”
In Greenlandic Inuit tradition, the Tupilaq is a terrifying, magical, avenging monster fabricated by a shaman to destroy a specific enemy. It’s now a popular souvenir for the still few tourists visiting the largest island of the world, carved from walrus ivory or stone.
Historically the Tupilaq was secretly constructed from a mixture of animal and human parts and brought to life through chants.
So, it is a vengeance monster. Its purpose is to seek out and destroy a person who had wronged the maker (revenge) or to protect a tribe from invaders.
Today’s still image of eath.nullschool.net indicates that much of the North American continent has been flooded by arctic air, deep intoTexas and approaching Florida. The current winter storm in the US, bringing heavy snowfall, ice and brutal cold, terribly intensified by windchill. is already considered historical, the strongest in around 30 years. Two hundred million Americans are affected. Thousands of homeless people are in acute danger of freezing to death.
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