news

David Lynch, Visionary Director of ‘Twin Peaks’ and ‘Blue Velvet,’ Dies at 78.

In January 2025, Lynch evacuated his Los Angeles home due to the Southern California wildfires; Deadline Hollywood reported that these events preceded a terminal decline in his health, and on January 16, 2025, Lynch's family announced that he had died at the age of 78.

Director-writer David Lynch, who radicalized American film with with a dark, surrealistic artistic vision in films like “Blue Velvet” and “Mulholland Drive” and network television with “Twin Peaks,” has died. He was 78.

Lynch revealed in 2024 that he had been diagnosed with emphysema after a lifetime of smoking, and would likely not be able to leave his house to direct any longer. His family announced his death in a Facebook post, writing, “There’s a big hole in the world now that he’s no longer with us. But, as he would say, ‘Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole.'”

The “Twin Peaks” TV show and films such as “Blue Velvet,” “Lost Highway” and “Mulholland Drive” melded elements of horror, film noir, the whodunit and classical European surrealism. Lynch wove tales, not unlike those of his Spanish predecessor Luis Bunuel, which proceeded with their own impenetrable logic.

A four-time Oscar nominee, Lynch received an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement in 2020. After years spent as a painter and a maker of short animated and live action films, Lynch burst onto the scene with his 1977 feature debut “Eraserhead,” a horrific, black-humored work that became a disturbing fixture on the midnight movie circuit. His outré and uncompromising style quickly won the attention of the Hollywood and international movie-making establishment.

He was hired by Mel Brooks’ production company to write and direct “The Elephant Man,” a deeply affecting drama about a horrifically deformed sideshow freak in Victorian England who became a national celebrity. The feature captured eight Academy Award nominations, including Lynch’s first for best director.

What's stopping TikTok from moving their URL to tiktok.cn and giving instructions on sideloading the app? Even a non-jailbroken US iPhone can have apps sideloaded.

As far as I've seen, the ban bill just says that app stores and web hosts can't do business with them.

Edit: they could even move the URL and release an update to the app now before it's banned. Anyone who already had the app installed would still be able to access it.

The Greenland Crisis Continues: Danish Regime Scrambles to Reassure Business Leaders After Trump Call

Denmark’s Social Democrat-led government finds itself in crisis mode following U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s demand to buy Greenland, accompanied by threats of economic warfare and even military action. This unprecedented situation marks the most serious threat to Denmark’s territorial integrity since World War II, thrusting one of Washington’s most loyal vassals into the unfamiliar position of being the target of American imperialist ambitions.

Yesterday Danish leader Mette Frederiksen had a 45 minutes long phone call with Trump, asserting that Greenland is not for sale and any future change in its status must be decided by the Greenlanders themselves. In statements to the press Frederiksen avoided confirming if Trump fully grasped her message, she only acknowledged his "very strong" interest in Greenland. Trump, however, did not back down from his threats of putting punitive tariffs on Danish goods, placing Denmark in a precarious position given its economic reliance on U.S. trade, with the U.S. being Denmark's largest export market, ahead of Germany.

In response, Frederiksen held a meeting with business leaders to inform them and help them prepare for potential tariffs. Minister of Business Morten Bødskov sought to project calm, stating that the government was "taking it easy". Criticism arose from the pro-democracy Red-Green opposition for excluding unions from these discussions, arguing that workers will suffer most from any economic fallout.

Despite Trump’s continued threats, Frederiksen extended an invitation for him to visit Denmark during their phone call, underscoring the regime’s steadfast Atlanticist loyalty. No concrete plans for a visit have been made. Since the end of WWII, Denmark has been a an extremely loyal vassal to the U.S., even among western European countries. Trump’s previous attempt to buy Greenland in 2019 was dismissed by Frederiksen as "absurd," led to him to throw a tantrum and labeling her "nasty." Now, Frederiksen walks a tightrope, trying to square the circle of rejecting of Trump’s outrageous and offensive demands while continuing Danish subservience to U.S. interests.

As Denmark’s political elite continues to recite the atlanticist mantra of the U.S. being "our most important ally," their desperation becomes increasingly apparent. With allies like these, Denmark may find that enemies are hardly necessary.

Argentina’s Health Ministry announces 1,400 layoffs

The latest round of dismissals came as a surprise for most of the already-reduced workforce. ‘It’s a bloodbath.’

Argentina’s Health Ministry announced in a press release on Wednesday that it would not renew the contracts of 1,400 workers. The ministry cited a “reorganization of its competencies and the reorientation of health policies.” The ministry’s communiqué described the layoffs as “a resource optimization” that would affect national hospitals. The decision resulted from “the identification of hiring irregularities during the previous administration, duplicate roles, and non-compliance with tasks,” the communiqué added, saying they had already fired 30% of the ministry’s “political positions.”

President Javier Milei celebrated the layoffs on X with his usual catchphrase: “Afuera.”

“We keep going with the chainsaw. The End,” he wrote.

These are not the first cuts Milei’s administration has made in the health sector. Medical doctors nationwide held protests throughout 2024, saying their salaries were virtually frozen, and the government stopped giving some medications for free to retirees. In 2024, the Milei administration fired 120 workers from the Posadas National Hospital. In its 2025 budget proposal, the government put forward a minimal increase for the country’s national program combatting HIV, STIs, Hepatitis, and Tuberculosis, which Act Up Argentina condemned as equalling a 76% cut when considering inflation.

Some workers had been notified of the impending layoffs: on Tuesday, 130 employees at the Baldomero Sommer National Hospital, located in the Buenos Aires province, got the news. “The notices are coming in right now. It’s a bloodbath,” Leonardo Fernández Camacho, the union’s representative of the Laura Bonaparte Mental Health Hospital, told the Herald on Wednesday evening. Fernández Camacho said there were “more than 100 layoffs and counting.”

I would almost say there are virtually not enough people to open the hospital tomorrow,” he added.

Last year, the government announced it would partially shut down the Bonaparte Hospital, the only national government-owned public hospital dedicated to addictions, but backtracked on it after widespread protests.

A source from the ATE state workers union told the Herald that other affected areas include the Malbrán Institute—an award-winning microbiological research center—the ANMAT—the government agency that monitors the efficacy, safety, and quality of drugs, food, and medical device — and the ministry’s central headquarters. The ATE source also confirmed to the Herald that they will hold an assembly on Thursday and then speak with Health Minister Mario Lugones.

And they celebrate shit like this, not only they don't give a single fuck about the people they're sending straight into poverty -- they celebrate it, they have the courage to show how proud and happy they are about it. I swear to God, if it's even out there, that this will not be forgotten nor forgiven. One day they will finally find out that their actions have consequences, that they can't escape them.

The social fabric is being torn apart, I see a lot of poverty and misery just about everywhere now. Entire families struggling to secure some food and a shelter, and I'm not even talking about a proper house. Material conditions are worsening, society as we know it is being destroyed slowly but surely... all in the name of Capital.

It can't go on like this, it's impossible, it's against nature itself. Despite the shit times, the setbacks, the defeats and the deaths, we will have the final word.

today's nakedcapitalism roundup on the gaza ceasefire is worth a look. the triumphalism of unsurprising given how desperate any normal person is to see even a pause in the israeli genocide, but celebration seems quite premature given modern history and the incentives of various parties to fuck things up or look the other way while people fuck things up.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/01/gaza-ceasefire-deal-still-not-approved-by-knesset-and-why-should-the-world-trust-israel-to-comply-if-so.html

Marco Rubio says the U.S. may put Cuba back on the list of countries that sponsor terrorism Removal of the Caribbean country from the list was announced in the last days of Joe Biden's Democratic administration.

“I have no doubt that (Cuba) meets all the requirements to be considered a state sponsor of terrorism,” Marco Rubio said on Wednesday before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee for his confirmation hearing as secretary of state.

The statement was made just one day after President Joe Biden announced the removal of Cuba from the list of “State Sponsors of Terrorism”. “Nothing that the Biden administration has agreed to in the last 12 to 18 hours is binding on the next administration, which begins on Monday,” he said.

TikTok Plans Total Closure in the U.S. if Prohibition Does Not Stop - Telesur English

ben gone-vir more like (now sounds like anti-viral and net benefit for humanity, needs some workshopping)

mr jihadi trumpo, pls bomb tel aviv

Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes denies Bolsonaro's request to travel to the US for Trump's inauguration

According to the decision, Bolsonaro did not present a formal invitation to the inauguration of the new American president - scheduled for this Monday (20). The former president had his passport seized in a PF operation investigating an alleged coup attempt.

“There was, therefore, no compliance with the decision of January 11, 2025 [which called for the invitation to be presented], since no evidentiary document was attached to the case file that demonstrated the existence of an invitation made by the US president-elect to the applicant Jair Messias Bolsonaro, as alleged by the defense,” argued Moraes.

The decision reinforces that since the passport was withheld there has been no change that would justify suspending the measure. It also states that Bolsonaro continues to give indications that he may try to flee the country.

“The scenario that justified the imposition of a ban on leaving the country, with the surrender of passports, continues to indicate the possibility of an attempt by the indicted Jair Messias Bolsonaro to evade the application of criminal law, in the same way that he has been advocating fleeing the country and asylum abroad for the various convicts who have been sentenced by the plenary of the Federal Supreme Court in cases related to this investigation and related to the 'attempted coup d'état and violent abolition of the democratic rule of law',” the document says.

Moraes also mentions that, shortly after the indictment, Bolsonaro considered, in an interview with a newspaper, fleeing and seeking political asylum in another country to avoid possible accountability in Brazil. “The support for the illicit evasion from national territory of defendants definitively convicted by the Supreme Court plenary in cases related to the present investigation, and the defense of clandestine residence abroad, especially in Argentina, to avoid the application of the law and final judicial decisions, are constantly being corroborated by Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, who, according to the defense itself, would have intermediated the invitations for the trip requested by the indicted Jair Messias Bolsonaro to the USA,” says another excerpt.

In an interview with The New York Times, Bolsonaro says he is no longer taking Viagra since Trump's so-called “invitation”. “I’m feeling like a kid again with Trump’s invite. I’m fired up. I’m not even taking Viagra anymore,” the former Brazilian president said in an interview on Tuesday, employing his trademark sophomoric humor. “Trump’s gesture is something to be proud of, right? Who’s Trump? The most important guy in the world.”

A couple months ago I hosted the mega thread and the intro was about the Giant mine in northern Canada, an abandoned mine with big arsenic contamination issues. Here's a story about a Canadian mining company doing the same thing in Namibia. The Chinese company Sinomine owns it now - I hope they do better.

https://archive.is/vHbur