Notes and Essays -- John Brown

Phil Helsel , NBC News President Biden would veto a  House Republican proposal  that would send aid to Israel but would require cuts to IRS funding and leave out assistance to Ukraine, the Office of Management and Budget said. “The bill fails to meet the urgency of the moment by deepening our divides and severely eroding historic bipartisan support for Israel’s security,” the OMB said in a statement of administration policy. “It inserts partisanship into support for Israel, making our ally a pawn in our politics, at a moment we must stand together,” it said. The proposal by House Republicans includes $14.3 billion for Israel while also rescinding the same amount in IRS funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, a law passed last year.

The Moscow Times , "3 hours ago"   Volodymyr Zelensky's apartment in annexed Crimea. Sergei Malgavko / TASS Russian authorities will spend the earnings from the sale of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s apartment in annexed Crimea on Moscow's war effort in Ukraine, a Russian-installed official   said  Tuesday. Crimea’s Kremlin-backed government   auctioned off  Zelensky’s confiscated apartment for 44.3 million rubles ($481,500) on Monday, with its  buyer  identified  as Moscow resident Olga Lipovetskaya. “We unequivocally determined that the funds from the sale of Zelensky’s apartment will be used for the needs on the front and assistance to the participants of the special military operation [in Ukraine] and their family members,” Vladimir Konstantinov, speaker of Crimea’s parliament, told Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti. The apartment seizure was part of the Crimean authorities’   nationalization  of properties owned by so-called “unfriendly” foreigne

Timothy Garton Ash’s latest book traces what went wrong—and holds some lessons for the continent’s future.  FOREIGN POLICY , OCTOBER 29, 2023, 7:00 AM  By Jan-Werner Müller, a professor of politics at Princeton University. A crumbling, damaged statue of a Soviet soldier in uniform is seen against the brick and metal rubble of a house of culture that was destroyed by rocket fire in Ukraine. A damaged statue stands in front of a cultural center that was destroyed by rocket fire on the outskirts of Avdiivka, Ukraine, on Oct. 26.  KOSTYA LIBEROV / LIBKOS VIA GETTY IMAGES Anyone old enough to have lived through the fall of the Berlin Wall is likely to feel melancholic reading Timothy Garton Ash’s  Homelands: A Personal History of Europe . 1989 was a year of miracles—and not just for Garton Ash, the distinguished British historian and journalist who identifies “Europe” and “freedom” as the causes closest to his heart. Today, as the continent sees the rise of anti-liberal populism and its l

image (not from below cited article) from Excerpt from below cited article: " How do you win a six-front war? I repeat: only with a coalition of people and nations who believe in democratic values and the right of self-determination for all people. Until and unless Israel generates a government that can generate that coalition, it will not have the time, the resources, the Palestinian partner and the legitimacy it needs to take down Hamas in Gaza. It will be fighting mostly alongside the United States as its only true and sustainable ally."  From: Thomas L. Friedman, "Israel: From the Six-Day War to the Six-Front War," The New Work Times , Oct 25, 2023; see also

From Wikipedia , the free encyclopedia William James Sidis Sidis at his  Harvard  graduation (1914) Born April 1, 1898 Manhattan, New York City , U.S. Died July 17, 1944 (aged 46) Boston, Massachusetts , U.S. Other names John W. Shattuck Frank Folupa Parker Greene Jacob Marmor Alma mater Harvard University  ( BA ) Rice Institute Harvard Law School Notable work The Animate and the Inanimate  (1925) The Tribes and the States  ( c.  1935 ) William James Sidis  ( / ˈ s aɪ d ɪ s / ; April 1, 1898 – July 17, 1944) was an American  child prodigy  with exceptional mathematical and linguistic skills. He wrote the book  The Animate and the Inanimate , published in 1925 (written around 1920), in which he speculated about the  origin of life  in the context of  thermodynamics . His father, the psychiatrist  Boris Sidis , raised his son according to certain principles with the desire for his son to be gifted. Sidis became famous first for his precocity and later for his eccentricity and withdrawal