Wings of war by Sabine Fischer

A drone attack near Khartoum’s international airport has once again underlined a grim reality of modern conflict; war no longer needs an army. It doesn’t need soldiers in boots or tanks rolling through the streets. All it needs now is a small, buzzing machine in the sky, guided by someone who might be thousands of miles away or just across the street.

The strike came just as Sudan prepared to resume domestic flights for the first time since the war erupted in 2023. It should have been a moment of fragile hope, a symbolic step toward normalcy. Instead, it was another reminder that in the age of drones, no place is safe, no event sacred, and no peace durable. The attack near the airport wasn’t just a military action, it was a message. And drones, in their eerie silence and precision, have become the most fluent messengers of modern chaos.

Drones have democratized destruction. Once, war was the privilege or curse of nation-states with the budgets and technology to wage it. Today, it’s an open market. From government forces to rebels, from militias to mercenaries, everyone has access to these airborne weapons. They can be assembled from off-the-shelf components, bought online, or crafted from parts that used to belong to a child’s toy. The line between soldier and civilian, between battlefield and neighborhood, has blurred beyond recognition.

What makes drones so terrifying isn’t just their reach, it’s their accessibility. The world used to fear nuclear proliferation; now it should fear drone proliferation. These devices are the Kalashnikovs of the sky, cheap, adaptable, and devastatingly effective. You no longer need an army to make a statement or a missile silo to send fear rippling across borders. You only need a signal, a target, and the will to act.

Sudan’s tragedy fits neatly into this larger story. A nation already fractured by internal wars, political decay, and foreign interference now finds itself caught in a new kind of battlefield, one where the enemy may not even be visible. The skies above Khartoum have become a mirror reflecting the global trend: the rise of remote war, fought by invisible hands. It’s warfare stripped of accountability, morality, and human presence.

There was a time when the image of war was a soldier’s face, dusty, weary, human. Now it’s a blinking red light on a machine that doesn’t bleed or hesitate. Drones have made killing efficient, detached, and transactional. The operator might sip coffee while watching a target explode thousands of miles away. A drone doesn’t feel the heat of the blast, the weight of the casualties, or the screams that follow. It just records the strike, files the footage, and returns to base.

And yet, the moral implications remain. Who owns the sky? Who decides what’s justified when the machine, not the man, delivers the blow? The attack near Khartoum’s airport wasn’t just an assault on a location; it was an assault on the notion of control itself. In today’s conflicts, there is no single villain or hero, no neat division between the legitimate and the rogue. Everyone claims a cause; everyone claims a right. The drone, impartial and efficient, doesn’t care who’s right.

From Ukraine to Yemen, Gaza to Sudan, drones have become the universal currency of conflict. Governments use them to project power without risking lives; rebels use them to level the field against superior forces; terrorists use them to sow fear and instability. It’s a perfect storm of convenience and terror. The sky, once a symbol of freedom and possibility, has become a ceiling of fear.

What’s most chilling is how ordinary this has become. A drone strike barely makes headlines now unless it kills in large numbers or hits a symbolic target. The normalization of remote warfare has numbed us to its consequences. We no longer ask who’s flying them, who’s funding them, or who’s dying beneath them. The attack near Khartoum will fade into the background of global noise, just another event in a world where machines wage wars on behalf of invisible masters.

Yet we should be asking: what happens when everyone has drones? When border disputes, political grievances, or even personal vendettas can be settled from a laptop and a garage? The future of war isn’t distant, it’s miniature, airborne, and already here. The global arms race no longer depends on who builds the biggest bomb but on who builds the smartest, smallest, and most adaptable drone.

There’s a dark irony in how these machines were first hailed as tools of precision and safety. Drones were supposed to minimize casualties, target only the guilty, and spare civilians. But precision has its limits when morality doesn’t keep pace with technology. A drone can distinguish a vehicle from a building, but it can’t tell justice from revenge. It follows coordinates, not conscience.

For Sudan, this attack is another wound in an already bleeding nation. But for the rest of us, it’s a warning, a reminder that war is evolving faster than our ethics, our diplomacy, and our imagination. When the sound of drones becomes the soundtrack of daily life, humanity risks losing not just its peace but its empathy.

The world needs a new conversation about warfare, one that includes not just generals and politicians but ethicists, technologists, and civilians. We must decide what kind of sky we want above us: one that protects or one that spies, one that heals or one that kills. Because once the air becomes a battlefield, there’s nowhere left to hide.

The Khartoum drone strike may be just one event among many, but its message echoes globally: the wings of war have changed. They hum instead of roar, they watch instead of march, and they strike with a silence that speaks volumes. And as long as that remains true, peace, no matter where it tries to land, will always be within a drone’s reach.

Sarkozy’s warning to power globally by Edoardo Moretti

The arrest and jailing of Nicolas Sarkozy, a man who once strode through the grand halls of French power as president of the Republic, should reverberate far beyond Paris. His five-year sentence for conspiring to fund his 2007 campaign via money linked to Muammar Gaddafi’s Libyan regime is not just the downfall of one leader. It is a striking reminder that no one, not even those at power’s apex, may assume invulnerability. And perhaps most importantly, it ought to send shivers down the spines of political dynasties everywhere, especially in the United States, where family names like Donald Trump’s loom large.

The French court’s decision didn’t hinge on proof that the Libyan funds directly bought votes. What mattered was the judge’s finding that Sarkozy had permitted his entourage to solicit illicit financing from abroad, pure corruption of democratic process. For a former head of state to be forced behind bars is rare. It signals the audacity of the judiciary when matched with public will. It tells would-be power-brokers and political clans: your pedestal doesn’t guarantee perpetual immunity.

In this sense, the case has universal lessons. When the circle of power becomes insular, lubricated by dark money and external influence, the system bends. The elite rely on impunity. The moment the shield cracks, the myth of “above the law” crumbles. Families of dynastic politicians, whose fortunes, branding and campaigns entangle public office and private gain, should take note.

In the United States, the “Trump clan” has long operated with the assumption that name recognition plus electoral success yields a near-invincible brand. But Sarkozy’s saga reminds us there is always a risk when campaign coffers rely on shady sources, when the public role is conflated with private enrichment, when loyalties run in family lines rather than lines of accountability. If a Europe-savvy ex-president can be hauled off to prison for scheming with a foreign autocrat, the American stage is not immune just because the media ecosystem is louder. The logic of law is persistent.

And make no mistake: this is more than personal reckoning. It’s institutional. Democracy doesn’t survive on charisma alone. It survives on transparency, accountability, and the unglamorous fact that power must answer. By incarcerating a former leader, France has affirmed that even in the gilded echelons of government, the ledger must balance.

For the U.S., where political families hold sway through networks, legacy-branding, and media amplification, the message is stark: guard the separation between campaign finance and clandestine foreign interests. Guard your institutions from the overreach of one name. Because precedent matters, once one titan is felled, the others are in line.

The Trump family, with its sprawling enterprises, global entanglements, and multi-generational ambition, may well regard this case as relevant. If one political brand becomes synonymous with oversight-evading privilege, then society’s response may shift. Already, investigations at state and federal levels remind us that reality, unlike campaign posters, refuses to be filtered by family loyalty.

But the lesson applies globally. Across continents, when ex-leaders and their entourages engage in self-service, the score is kept. Aligning with foreign dictators, skirting campaign laws, relying on personal networks instead of public mandate, these are the cracks that let the rigging in.

Sarkozy’s fall is also a portrait of what happens when charisma succumbs to old-fashioned corruption. The man who welcomed Gaddafi to Paris, who declared a rejuvenated France, is now walking into a cell at La Santé Prison. It’s a dramatic reversal, but also a reminder: the stronger the image of invincibility, the harder the fall.

What does this mean moving forward? For political families: diversify your legacy away from unaccountable power. Build institutions that limit your own reach. For voters: hold your political brands to the same standards you would apply to any other business. For democracies: ensure the law is sovereign, not the name above it.

And for the United States, the moment is ripe. As the Trump name looms large, the eyes of history are watching. Will they heed the warning from Paris that no dynasty is guaranteed? Will American political culture resist the drift toward feudal-style power blocs, or sleepwalk into the same complacency that allowed foreign cash and opaque deals to flow in Europe?

In the end, Sarkozy’s imprisonment is not merely personal justice. It’s a cautionary tale. It affirms that when a former head of state is made answerable, the pedestal is not permanent. And for any political family relying on fame, fortune and legacy, this is the alarm bell.

Because whether in France or America, the republic is bigger than the dynasty. And rule of law is weightier than the crown of name recognition. If the motto of modern politics is “brand first, system second,” let this be the moment when the system reminds us it still counts.

Syria’s illusions by John Kato

For the first time since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship, Syria is preparing to seat a new parliament. On paper, this sounds like the dawn of a new era, a transitional assembly of 210 members, charged with the weighty task of drafting a new constitution. Two-thirds of these MPs have been “indirectly elected,” we are told, through a process meant to represent local councils and civic groups. The rest, ostensibly, were chosen by the people. It all looks like progress, a fragile democracy taking its first steps after decades of tyranny and war.

But beneath the ceremony and speeches lies an uncomfortable truth: Syria’s new parliament is being built on the same sand as its old regime, different faces, perhaps, but the same architecture of control.

When a political system begins with “indirect elections,” the warning lights should flash immediately. In Syria’s case, these indirect elections mean that most of the parliamentarians were selected not by the people themselves, but by networks of regional delegates, delegates who, in turn, were handpicked by provisional authorities, many with strong ties to armed groups, foreign sponsors, or remnants of the old regime. It’s democracy by relay, not democracy by choice.

The optics are intentional. It offers the world a picture of political rebirth: the photos of smiling delegates, the neat rows of ballots, the headline-friendly promise of a “new Syria.” But this kind of controlled participation is not a pathway to democracy; it’s a smokescreen for the concentration of power. It’s the kind of democracy Iran has perfected, where the parliament debates within the boundaries drawn by the supreme authority, or Afghanistan’s post-Taliban assemblies that could pass laws on everything except what truly mattered.

Syria, it seems, is walking a similar road: elections with predetermined outcomes, voices that echo rather than question, and the illusion of a people choosing their future while being carefully guided toward it.

Assad may be gone, but power in Syria remains fractured and jealously guarded. Warlords, militias, and external patrons, from Moscow to Tehran, Ankara to Washington, all have their fingers in the pie. Each faction wants its piece of the “new” Syria, and this parliament is less a house of the people than a house of brokers.

This is the tragedy of post-conflict nations that emerge from dictatorship. The people who suffered the most rarely end up shaping the future. Instead, those with guns, money, or foreign backing rewrite the rules. The language of “transition” becomes a convenient disguise for continuity.

The architects of Syria’s transition know this. They understand that stability sells better than freedom. They know that Western governments will quietly applaud any semblance of elections as long as it means fewer refugees, fewer bombings, fewer headlines. A parliament, no matter how hollow, provides exactly that kind of comfort.

The parliament’s main mission is to draft a new constitution. But constitutions are only as powerful as those who enforce them. What good is a bill of rights when the judiciary is toothless, or when militias control the streets? What meaning does “freedom of expression” have if journalists still disappear in the night?

A constitution can’t erase the trauma of a nation torn apart, nor can it balance the scales of justice when so many crimes remain unpunished. Yet, this is what Syria’s new parliament claims it will do: create a “foundation for unity.” In truth, it may only formalize division.

If past transitions are any guide, the new constitution will be designed to look modern, perhaps even liberal, while embedding enough loopholes to preserve the influence of the country’s dominant factions. There will be clauses about national sovereignty, unity, and the “protection of moral values.” There will be new titles, perhaps a ceremonial president or a collective council, but the real authority will remain shadowed, unaccountable, and unelected.

Syria’s parliament is not the first to emerge from the rubble of dictatorship wearing the mask of democracy. It won’t be the last. The international community loves the ritual of elections, the inked fingers, the televised counts, the slogans about hope. But rarely does it ask what happens after the cameras leave.

For Syrians, who have endured more than a decade of war, exile, and loss, the promise of democracy should mean something more than symbolic seats in a controlled chamber. It should mean justice for the tortured and displaced. It should mean a real say in how their towns are rebuilt, who governs them, and how the future is shaped. But instead, they are being offered a parliament that looks democratic enough to pacify donors, but not democratic enough to empower citizens.

The danger of such false beginnings is that they kill genuine hope. When people see democracy performed as theater, when they watch yet another elite bargain masquerade as reform, they learn to distrust the very idea of representation. That distrust doesn’t vanish; it festers, waiting for the next strongman who promises order over empty freedom.

Even in absence, Bashar al-Assad’s presence haunts this transition. His ghost lingers not in portraits, but in practices: the secrecy, the centralization, the quiet understanding that real power lives outside the parliament’s walls. His style of governance—top-down, opaque, loyalist—has seeped into the bones of the system. The uniforms may be different, the speeches more polished, but the impulse to control remains the same.

True democracy cannot grow from the habits of dictatorship. It requires a radical break, a willingness to trust the people who were silenced for so long. That trust is nowhere to be found in Syria’s transitional process. Instead, the new order seems built to manage dissent, not invite it.

For now, the world will watch Syria’s new parliament with cautious optimism. There will be handshakes, photo ops, perhaps even aid packages tied to “progress.” But beneath the polite applause, many will know what this really is: an illusion of sovereignty, a performance of democracy designed to reassure the world that Syria is healing.

Yet healing demands honesty. And the truth is, a parliament without genuine power, elected by proxy, cannot rebuild a nation torn apart by tyranny. Syria’s people deserve more than a symbolic chamber, they deserve a voice that matters. Until that day comes, this parliament will remain what it is now: a carefully constructed mirage shimmering over the ruins of a broken land.

#eBook: The Arctic Legions by A. de Herries Smith

 

Menaced on all sides by the death-dealing hoofs of migrating caribou, Conroy of the Mounted and Yeyik, the half-breed killer, face a struggle for mastery.

The monotonous clicking of deer hoofs on the rock valleys of the Barren Lands, and the faint fingers of light touching the granite ridges, told Corporal Conroy that another day had come.

The Mounted Policeman's bronzed face wrinkled with pain as he shifted his body into another position and glanced across the upthrust bowlder that split the waves of migrating caribou.

In Public Domain
First Published 1929
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The Arctic Legions

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Ant-biotics #068 #Cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas

 

Ant-biotics is a type of antimicrobial cartoon strip active against boredom’s bacteria.

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From Élysée palace to La Santé prison by Nadine Moreau

In a moment that will reverberate through the annals of French political history, Nicolas Sarkozy once the charismatic, untouchable leader of the Fifth Republic, now finds himself behind the walls of La Santé prison. His new home, a 9-square-meter cell in the isolation wing. His new reality, a prisoner’s life stripped of privilege, ceremony, and applause. For the next five years, the man who once occupied the Élysée Palace will occupy a narrow cot and a stainless-steel sink.

France has crossed a Rubicon. What was once whispered in corridors of power has become a visible truth, no one, not even a president, is beyond the reach of justice. The symbolism of Sarkozy’s imprisonment extends far beyond one man’s downfall; it is a national reckoning, a confrontation between the old guard of political immunity and the public’s demand for accountability.

For decades, French politics thrived on a paradox, a proud democracy that nonetheless tolerated an aristocracy of power. Presidents and ministers manoeuvred with near-feudal authority, their scandals brushed off as the cost of leadership. The Élysée was a fortress where moral compromise could hide behind the grandeur of office. Now, with Sarkozy’s confinement, that illusion is shattered. The image of a former president being counted among inmates, eating institutional meals, and living under the same rules as common offenders, is more than a personal humiliation; it’s a cultural earthquake.

La Santé prison has hosted its share of infamous residents, gangsters, spies, and political prisoners but never before a French head of state serving time. The irony is almost literary. Sarkozy, the man who once campaigned on restoring law, order, and moral authority to the Republic, is now subject to the very system he once championed. The guards who lock his cell door represent not vengeance, but a simple truth, justice at last is blind.

Yet one must tread carefully before cheering too loudly. This is not a triumphal parade of morality but a sombre reflection on how power corrupts and how systems fail until they are forced to evolve. Sarkozy’s downfall did not emerge overnight. It was cultivated over years of blurred lines, cosy alliances, and the intoxicating arrogance of unchecked influence. The former president, known for his flair, his restlessness, and his unshakable belief in his own exceptionalism, believed perhaps too deeply in his ability to navigate or outsmart the machinery of the law.

His conviction and imprisonment expose something both troubling and hopeful about France. Troubling, because it reveals how long the elite have danced above the flames of public scrutiny, insulated by charisma and connections. Hopeful, because it proves that the Republic, though slow and imperfect, still possesses the courage to confront its own hypocrisy.

For years, the French people have watched scandals unfold like theatre. From illicit campaign funds to luxury gifts, from influence peddling to quiet deals struck in the shadows — each revelation chipped away at faith in institutions. Sarkozy’s case is not an isolated moral failure; it is a mirror held up to an entire political class. The nation’s outrage was not born yesterday. It grew from a collective exhaustion with leaders who spoke of virtue while treating the state as personal property.

The spectacle of a president in prison might provoke discomfort, even pity, among some who recall his energy, his reforms, his undeniable political talent. But pity should not obscure principle. The measure of a democracy is not how it treats its heroes when they rise, but how it holds them accountable when they fall. Sarkozy’s sentence is not the end of France’s democracy, it is its painful renewal.

Inside that small cell, stripped of luxury and rhetoric, Sarkozy becomes something rare: a symbol of consequence. His isolation is not just physical but existential. Power, once his armour, is now irrelevant. The applause of supporters cannot echo through the concrete walls of La Santé. The legal process, however criticized, has drawn a line in the sand that future leaders would do well to respect.

And yet, beyond the schadenfreude and the solemnity, there lies a broader reflection. What does this moment mean for the French psyche? Perhaps it signals a collective fatigue with the mythology of untouchable leaders. Perhaps it marks the birth of a new standard, one where the Republic’s promise of equality before the law ceases to be a slogan and becomes a lived truth.

Still, this awakening carries risks. In celebrating accountability, one must not slide into cynicism or vengeance. Democracy cannot thrive on perpetual distrust alone. The challenge for France now is to demand integrity without losing hope in leadership itself. A nation cannot be governed by suspicion any more than it can by arrogance.

Nicolas Sarkozy’s fall from the Élysée to La Santé is a reminder that political legacy is not measured by power held, but by the manner of its loss. His imprisonment will not erase his influence, but it will redefine it. In years to come, historians may write of him not as the energetic reformer or the tireless campaigner, but as the man whose conviction drew a line between two eras of French politics, one ruled by impunity, and another governed by consequence.

So yes, France is witnessing the end of an age. The marble statues of political immunity are cracking. The corridors of power no longer echo with the same certainty. And somewhere inside a 9-square-meter cell, the silence speaks louder than any campaign speech ever could.

If there is one enduring lesson from this moment, it is this: justice, though delayed, remains the great equalizer. Power may shape nations, but only accountability preserves them. And for the first time in a long while, the Republic looks a little more honest and a little more human.

Dancing on the debt cliff by Marja Heikkinen

The world economy today resembles a high-stakes game of musical chairs but the music is slowing down, the chairs are vanishing, and everyone is too polite to acknowledge the obvious: we’re all teetering on the edge of a debt cliff. Literally every major economy is staggering under the weight of obligations so massive that the numbers themselves feel abstract, almost fictional. Yet, despite the looming danger, the usual suspects, led by the United States and France, continue to spin elaborate pirouettes of fiscal postponement, pronouncing themselves saviours of stability while merely postponing the inevitable.

Consider the United States. Its national debt climbs relentlessly, a living, breathing behemoth that consumes every conversation about economic recovery. Interest payments alone have become an annual monsoon, drenching federal budgets and leaving little room for meaningful policy innovation. And yet, politicians from both sides of the aisle behave as though the problem is a distant storm on the horizon rather than a tidal wave lapping at the very foundations of the economy. They champion debt ceiling debates with all the drama of a theatrical performance, while the underlying reality, the unstoppable accumulation of trillions—is rarely confronted with the seriousness it deserves.

Across the Atlantic, France, long the poster child for disciplined, high-minded fiscal policy, finds itself dancing a delicate waltz on an equally treacherous stage. Public spending, social programs, and debt servicing intersect in a complex choreography that, at its heart, is unsustainable. The European Union collectively shoulders its own structural weaknesses, from aging populations to an increasingly rigid labour market. The veneer of stability is comforting, but it masks the reality: Europe, like the United States, is extending timelines rather than solving problems. Procrastination may feel like prudence in the short term, but it is a dangerous illusion when the entire system is borrowing from tomorrow to pay for today.

Meanwhile, other major economies, Japan, the United Kingdom, China, play their own variations on the same theme. Japan’s famously high public debt continues to soar with little expectation of reversal, while the UK navigates Brexit aftershocks compounded by fiscal deficits that refuse to shrink. China, for all its technological ambition and global trade dominance, quietly contends with a complex web of corporate and municipal debt that could ripple outward in unpredictable ways. The collective picture is stark: the top economies are not just borrowing; they are borrowing to borrow, creating an interdependent network of obligations that could unravel with astonishing speed.

It is tempting to believe that technological advancement, productivity gains, or a fortuitous surge in global trade can avert catastrophe. But history suggests otherwise. We have been here before, debt-fueled booms followed by crashes, bubbles inflating and bursting, crises catalyzed by a single miscalculation or a single domino falling in a precariously stacked line. The world economy is an intricately balanced ecosystem; disturb one corner and the repercussions echo across continents. The shadow of 2008 still lingers, and the structural vulnerabilities today are, if anything, deeper.

The political response to this looming crisis is almost farcical in its simplicity. Leaders insist that temporary measures, short-term relief packages, and promises of growth will carry us through. They champion debt prorogation, the polite act of pushing deadlines further down the calendar, as if delay were a strategy rather than an admission of impotence. Meanwhile, ordinary citizens sense the tension beneath the polished rhetoric: inflation lingers, real wages stagnate, and social inequalities widen as governments focus on financial legerdemain rather than structural reform.

What makes the situation uniquely perilous is that debt is no longer a local affair. The global economy is interlinked to a degree never seen before. A crisis in one major economy quickly reverberates across continents, sparking liquidity shortages, currency instability, and market panic. The dominoes are already arranged. If the United States falters, Europe will tremble. If France hesitates too long on reform, markets will notice. If China’s municipal debts explode, the consequences are felt worldwide. We are no longer talking about isolated economic missteps; we are staring at a systemic, planetary-scale vulnerability.

Yet, despite the gravity, there is a pervasive culture of denial. The very institutions charged with warning us, stabilizing markets, and providing oversight have become adept at ceremonial reassurance. Reports are published; committees convened, but actual systemic solutions remain elusive. It is easier to argue, postpone, or hope than to confront the brutal arithmetic of debt reduction. This is where déjà vu emerges, not as a faint memory but as a warning echoing from the past. The 2008 financial crisis, the Great Depression before it, the Latin American debt crises of the 1980s they all share a common thread: postponed reckoning eventually becomes violent.

We are dancing on the edge, with one misstep capable of triggering a global stumble. And yet, the performance continues, choreographed by leaders who believe a little more delay, a slightly higher ceiling, or a politically convenient fiscal manoeuvre can keep the music playing indefinitely. But the music will stop. The chair we are racing toward is unstable. And when the world finally confronts the consequences, it will be a brutal reminder that debt, left unchecked, is never merely a paper problem, it is a real, human one, capable of reshaping societies, toppling governments, and rewriting history.

The question is not whether a global economic crisis is coming; it is already here, in slow motion. The only uncertainty is how deep, how sudden, and how destructive the fall will be when the dance finally ends.

The eternal stain on the crown by Jemma Norman

There are stories that history forgets and then there are those that refuse to die. The saga of Virginia Roberts Giuffre and Jeffrey Epstein belongs to the latter. It has long transcended the courtroom, the media frenzy, and the hush of palace corridors. What began as a sordid scandal involving wealth, privilege, and predation has evolved into a moral reckoning, one that now clings, unshakable, to the legacy of Prince Andrew, Duke of York.

Even in death, Virginia’s voice refuses silence. She speaks from the grave through the indelible mark she left on the conscience of the public and her recently published autobiography. Her story is engraved in the collective memory, a young woman caught in the orbit of a billionaire predator, drawn into a web of exploitation and power that ensnared the high and mighty. Her name has become shorthand for a system that failed her and others like her. It’s a haunting truth that echoes louder than any royal denial.

Prince Andrew, for his part, is condemned to live under the shadow of that echo. The man who once carried the easy arrogance of royalty has been reduced to a symbol of disgrace. No carefully worded statement, no settlement, no staged walk to church beside his mother, the late Queen, can wash away what the public already decided: this is his inheritance. Not his titles or his medals, but his infamy. He will live with it, because such stains don’t fade. They deepen with time.

The world watched, transfixed, as the façade of royal immunity cracked. The BBC interview, the now-infamous “I don’t sweat” debacle, wasn’t just a PR disaster; it was a moment of revelation. It exposed a man who had no grasp of the magnitude of what he represented, a man clinging to excuses that sounded absurd even to his own generation. For once, the public saw a prince stripped of pomp and protection, and they didn’t like what they saw.

Epstein may have died in his cell, but his ghost walks free in the corridors of power, a grim reminder of how privilege can shield the guilty while justice limps behind. Giuffre, too, in her own way, remains alive in the narrative, her courage immortalized by the simple act of telling the truth when silence would have been easier. That truth has now become Andrew’s lifelong companion, the shadow that will follow him until his final breath.

History is merciless with men like him. Royal lineage cannot rewrite the record. Public memory is democratic, it doesn’t bend to titles or bloodlines. The British monarchy, an institution built on image, ceremony, and continuity, thrives on the perception of moral superiority. Yet, this scandal sliced through that illusion like a blade. It reminded the world that crowns are merely metal when morality is compromised.

Andrew’s defenders speak of mistakes, of misjudgement, of trust misplaced in bad company. But such arguments ring hollow. Misjudgement does not explain the photographs, the parties, the associations that persisted long after the truth about Epstein began to surface. It doesn’t explain the absence of empathy, the absence of contrition. It doesn’t explain why a prince who once flew rescue missions as a naval officer couldn’t seem to rescue his own reputation with a simple act of decency, an honest apology.

Instead, he chose silence, settlement, and exile. And though the palace may prefer to move on, the world won’t. The court of public opinion has long rendered its verdict. Prince Andrew is not simply disgraced; he is a cautionary tale about what happens when power believes itself untouchable.

The irony is brutal. The British royal family has weathered wars, divorces, abdications and scandalous affairs. But few events have so fundamentally eroded the moral capital of the monarchy as the Epstein connection. For many, it was the final unravelling of a mystique, the moment the velvet curtain fell away to reveal not divine right, but human frailty, entitlement, and failure.

Virginia Roberts Giuffre may no longer be alive to watch the unfolding of her own legacy, but her story has already achieved what she could have hoped for most: truth in the open. She named the names, told her story, and exposed a network of exploitation that operated with impunity for years. And though she was once just a girl whose voice could be dismissed, she became the woman who forced the world to listen.

It is a cruel twist of fate that Andrew’s punishment is not prison, but memory. He walks the grounds of royal estates with the knowledge that history has already chosen its narrative. The photos remain, the transcripts remain and the doubts remain. He is, in the public eye, the man who couldn’t sweat his way out of scandal.

Legacy is not something one can bargain with, and for Andrew, it is already sealed. Centuries from now, when the genealogists of the future trace the House of Windsor, they will stumble upon his name and pause not for his titles or his service, but for the scandal that refused to die. His is a story not of tragedy, but of consequence.

Virginia’s ghost lingers not to torment, but to remind. She stands for all those silenced by wealth and power, for those who never got the chance to tell their stories. And in that haunting, there is justice of a sort.

Prince Andrew will live with it. He will dine with it; walk with it, and age with it. Every headline, every hushed conversation, every awkward silence in the corridors of the palace will whisper the same refrain: this is what remains when truth outlives denial.

In the end, the monarchy will survive, as it always does. But Andrew’s name will forever carry a footnote, an inerasable asterisk beside the grandeur of the crown. And Virginia Roberts Giuffre, in her quiet, enduring defiance, will have the final word.

Because sometimes, history doesn’t need a voice to speak. It just needs a ghost.

Trump’s “military pay fix” exposes more democracy problems in USA by John Reid

It sounds noble at first glance, heroic, even. Amid a government shutdown that’s left thousands of federal workers uncertain about their next paycheck, Donald Trump swoops in and ensures that the armed forces will still be paid. Cue the patriotic music, the waving flags, and the praise from his loyal base for a man who “cares about the troops.” But beneath that perfectly framed headline lies a question that few seem brave enough to ask: where did the money come from, and at what cost to democracy?

If the government is officially shut down, its non-essential services are frozen and its funding suspended. Yet somehow, millions have magically been redirected to ensure military pay continues uninterrupted. No congressional approval, no transparent budget reallocation, no clear source, just a presidential assurance that the troops will get their checks. That should alarm every American who believes in the basic idea that money, especially public money, cannot move without congressional oversight. The act may seem benevolent, but it reeks of something more troubling: the normalization of unilateral decision-making in a democracy built on checks and balances.

Trump’s move fits neatly into a pattern he’s cultivated over the years — the image of the strongman who “gets things done” while others argue over procedure. To his supporters, that’s leadership. To those who still remember the Constitution, it’s overreach. America was not designed to be governed by one man’s will, even if that will happens to temporarily align with something that seems morally right. The military deserves its pay, no question there. But if a president can secretly reallocate millions without Congress, what stops him from doing the same for other causes or worse, for political gain?

The silence from Capitol Hill is deafening. Either lawmakers are too afraid to question the move, fearing it’ll be twisted into an attack on the troops or they’re so desensitized to the bending of constitutional norms that this latest incident barely registers. The genius of Trump’s tactic is that he frames every controversial decision as an act of loyalty. If you question him, you’re unpatriotic. If you demand oversight, you’re “against the soldiers.” It’s a rhetorical trap, and it’s working.

Let’s call it what it is: a dangerous precedent. Once a president discovers that bypassing Congress can win applause and political points, it’s only a matter of time before this becomes the new normal. Today it’s paying soldiers; tomorrow it could be funneling funds into pet projects, campaign-related programs, or border walls under the guise of “emergency action.” Democracy doesn’t collapse in a single day; it erodes slowly, one “exceptional circumstance” at a time.

What’s even more revealing is the reaction or rather, the lack of it. The media headlines were celebratory. Social media was full of comments about how “Trump takes care of his own.” Very few stopped to ask the fundamental question of legality. There’s something almost hypnotic about the way moral righteousness can blind people to procedural wrongdoing. “He did the right thing,” many will argue. But doing the right thing the wrong way undermines the very system that allows the right thing to exist at all.

In truth, this move isn’t just about supporting the military; it’s about optics. Trump knows that few things stir emotion and loyalty like invoking the armed forces. By ensuring they get paid when everyone else suffers, he sends a clear political message: I stand with the soldiers, not with the bureaucrats. It’s populism dressed in camouflage, and it works brilliantly. But beneath that veneer of patriotism lies an unsettling reality, a president acting like a king, redistributing funds with no accountability.

This moment also reveals a deeper sickness in American politics: the growing comfort with executive shortcuts. It didn’t start with Trump, and it won’t end with him. Successive administrations have stretched the limits of executive authority, from drone strikes to emergency declarations, all under the justification of necessity. But Trump has taken this tendency and turned it into a political weapon, using it to portray himself as the only decisive actor in a sea of timid politicians. He’s rewritten the narrative of governance into one of personality over process.

And that’s precisely what makes this so dangerous. When power becomes personal, democracy becomes fragile. A system based on laws, rules, and shared accountability cannot survive when those in charge treat it like a personal fiefdom. Trump’s decision may have earned him short-term praise, but in the long run, it chips away at the foundation of democratic governance. The military may get its paychecks now, but the bill for this kind of governance will come due and it will be steep.

The irony is that Congress still holds the constitutional power of the purse. But power only matters if it’s exercised. By failing to demand an explanation, lawmakers send a message that they’re willing to let the president operate in financial shadows as long as the move is politically palatable. That’s not oversight, that’s abdication.

Some will say this is all overblown; that ensuring soldiers get paid during a shutdown is hardly the hill to die on. But every unchecked act of power deserves scrutiny, especially when cloaked in patriotism. History has shown us repeatedly that authoritarianism doesn’t arrive with fanfare and tanks; it arrives with applause, wrapped in the comforting language of “doing what’s right.”

So yes, Trump made sure the armed forces are getting paid. That’s commendable. But before we celebrate too loudly, we should ask the hard questions no one else seems willing to ask: Who authorized the transfer? What funds were diverted? And most importantly, if a president can move millions around without telling Congress, what’s left of the democracy that’s supposed to keep him in check?

Because in the end, this isn’t about money, it’s about power. And every time that power is exercised in the dark, democracy takes another step toward the shadows.

Worming #118 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas

A family of worms and all their worm friends worming in new adventures.

For more Worming, HERE!
For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!

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America marched, Trump ...laughed by John Kato

It was supposed to be just another weekend of political theater, the kind we’ve all grown numb to by now, speeches, slogans, chants echoing through cities from coast to coast. But what unfolded this weekend was something else entirely. Across all 50 states, millions of Americans filled the streets in what came to be known as the No Kings protests, a movement less about party politics and more about principle. The message was simple, democracy doesn’t do crowns.

In New York, they marched down Fifth Avenue in cardboard crowns with words like “We the People” and “Liberty” scrawled across them. In Los Angeles, they carried papier-mâché thrones labeled “Return to Sender.” In Texas, a group of veterans wheeled a mock guillotine through downtown Austin, not as a call to violence but as a sharp reminder, power belongs to the people, not the powerful.

But it wasn’t any of those costumes that stole the show.

It was one man in Washington, D.C., who turned up dressed as George Washington or rather, half Washington, half Trump. His colonial jacket split down the middle, powdered wig on one side, golden crown on the other. In his hand, a scroll that read, “The Revolution Never Ended — It Just Took a Coffee Break.”

That image spread like wildfire online. It captured the uneasy humor of the moment, America laughing through its teeth while wondering if the joke had gone too far.

And then came Trump’s response.

While citizens marched in the streets, the former president and now the man once again seeking the Oval Office, posted an AI-generated video on his social platform. In it, he appears as a fighter pilot soaring through the clouds, a golden crown glinting on his head. Below him, he bombs the protestors with literal piles of animated excrement. The caption read: “They’re full of it.”

Crude? Yes. Juvenile? Certainly. But also telling.

That video, for all its digital absurdity, revealed more about Trump’s vision of America than any rally or stump speech could. A leader at ease with the image of himself reigning from above, a king dispensing mock punishment on those who dare oppose him. It wasn’t satire; it was self-portraiture.

And yet, the reactions tell an even deeper story. His supporters laughed, calling it “epic,” “hilarious,” “classic Trump.” To them, it was proof of strength, a man who refuses to bend to “the woke mob.” But to millions of others, it was a gut punch. A symbolic confirmation that Trump’s brand of leadership is less about serving a democracy than ruling over it.

That’s what drove people into the streets, not just his words or his videos, but what they represent: a creeping normalization of authoritarian arrogance.

The No Kings movement isn’t about one man alone, though Trump’s shadow looms large over it. It’s about what kind of country Americans still believe they are. The chants weren’t “Down with Trump” so much as “Up with us.” The message wasn’t partisan; it was existential. The people marching were liberals and conservatives, students and retirees, veterans and parents pushing strollers. They carried signs quoting the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, even Reagan’s old line: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.”

In Chicago, a woman dressed as Lady Liberty held up a torch that flickered with a real flame. “You don’t get to crown yourself,” she said into a reporter’s microphone. “You earn trust. You don’t inherit it.”

That’s the spirit of No Kings, not defiance for its own sake, but defense of something fragile.

Because if democracy is a living thing, then it needs oxygen. It needs voices. It needs people who still believe that leaders answer to them, not the other way around.

Trump’s AI video might be dismissed by some as a joke, a trolling of his critics. But history has a way of turning jokes into warnings. When leaders depict themselves as saviors or worse, as rulers above reproach democracies start to hold their breath. What begins as parody can end as prophecy.

The irony, of course, is that Trump has always understood the theater of power better than the practice of it. The crown is not just a symbol, it’s a prop, an illusion that flatters both his ego and his audience’s fears. He offers the image of control in an age of chaos. But that’s how every would-be monarch begins: not by seizing the throne, but by convincing people to bow willingly.

The No Kings marchers, in their makeshift crowns and ironic signs, refused to kneel. That’s what unnerved him, not their numbers, not their chants, but their laughter. Authoritarians hate laughter. It’s the one sound that can’t be commanded.

So when the fighter-pilot-king dropped digital bombs on his own citizens, it wasn’t power we saw. It was insecurity. A man terrified of being mocked, reduced to pixels in a meme war he no longer controls.

The crowds, on the other hand, had no such fear. They understood something essential: democracy is messy, noisy, irreverent and it thrives only when people dare to mock the powerful.

By the time night fell, city streets were littered with broken signs, melted wax from candle vigils, and thousands of discarded cardboard crowns. But the message lingered: We are not subjects.

If America ever does slide into authoritarianism, it won’t happen with the crack of a whip — it’ll happen with a shrug, with laughter that dies in the throat, with people deciding that a crown is just a harmless accessory.

The marchers refused that shrug. They reminded everyone watching, even those scrolling past the headlines, that democracy doesn’t disappear in a day, but it can erode in silence.

And for at least one weekend, across all fifty states, the silence was broken. Millions marched. The self-anointed king posted his cartoon bombs.

And somewhere between the streets and the screens, America took a long look at itself and decided, once again, that crowns don’t suit this country.