TIL that in 2009, a campaign succeeded in making Rage Against the Machine's 'Killing in the Name' the Christmas number 1 best-selling single in the UK after the public grew tired of X Factor winners topping the chart every year. [source, comments]

TIL I learned that in 2007 an initiative called the Great Green Wall was started to restore the vegetation of the Sahel and to stop the expansion of the Sahara. The project is funded by the world bank(most of it). The wall goes across the entire part of Africa from Senegal to Ethiopia [source, comments]

Media
On this day, 4 December 1969, Chicago Black Panthers Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were killed by police in Chicago. Hampton was murdered while asleep in his bed during a raid on his apartment by Chicago Police in conjunction with the FBI. Hampton had been drugged earlier in the evening by an FBI informant, who also told agents the location of Hampton's bed, where he slept alongside his nine-month pregnant fiancée, Akua Njeri. Several other Panthers were injured. Aged just 21, Hampton (pictured, right) was an active, charismatic and effective organiser, who had been making significant inroads into making links with working class whites and building a "Rainbow Coalition" including Puerto Rican, Native American, Chicane, white and Chinese-American radicals. Clark (left), aged 22, had been active in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), before joining the Panthers, establishing a chapter in Peoria, Illinois, and setting up a free breakfast programme for local children. He was acting as security in the apartment at the time of the raid, and had a shotgun in his lap. He was shot in the heart and killed instantly.Fellow Panthers Blair Anderson, Verlina Brewer, Brenda Harris and Ronald “Doc” Satchel were all wounded in the attack.Hampton and Clark were amongst the most prominent victims of the FBI's COINTELPRO program, which amongst other things was instructed by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover to "prevent the rise of a Black Messiah".Learn more about the Panthers in these books by former members: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/books/black-panthersTo access this link, click our link in bio # 1 then click this image

Song of the Day 🪣📝: https://youtu.be/qIrDRDzK3RU

In the US, individuals overwhelmingly choose news that aligns with their partisan views, reinforcing political divides. However, this pattern is far less pronounced in Hong Kong and nearly absent in Japan, raising questions about cultural and political factors that influence news consumption.

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#NewsConsumption #PartisanViews #PoliticalDivide #CulturalInfluence #MediaBias

#USA: All 435 seats in the U.S. House have been declared with the GOP (Right) winning a majority with 220 seats and Dems (Liberal) winning 215. The gain of 2 seats for Dems ties 1988 and 1956 for the second smallest gain for any party in the House.

Endlich https://www.blick.ch/politik/energie-axpo-will-akw-beznau-bis-2033-laufen-lassen-id20383161.html

Eine funktionierende Impfung gegen Falschmeldungen:
https://www.srf.ch/wissen/mensch/schutz-vor-manipulation-fake-news-erkennen-ein-spiel-mit-der-wahrheit

Kriegsrecht und Militärputsche – Südkoreas bewegte Geschichte in 8 Punkten https://www.watson.ch/!509476048

TIL 80% of the theatrical productions on Broadway lose money; a failure rate that has remained "unchanged for years." [source, comments]

People who ate at least 5 servings a week of dark chocolate were 21% less likely to develop type 2 diabetes than people who rarely or never ate chocolate, but the same wasn't true for milk chocolate. It could be the higher levels of flavanols, shown to reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes.

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#DarkChocolate #Type2Diabetes #HealthyEating #Flavanols #NutritionFacts

MANDELA CALLS OUT THE US!

South African anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela died on this day in 2013 at the age of 95. Mandela is remembered as the man who helped lead South Africa out of the crimes and excesses of apartheid. Western mainstream media may portray him as a kindly grandfatherly figure who liked to dance and forgive his oppressors, but we remember him as an anti-imperialist until the end.

Song of the Day 🚘🧯: https://youtu.be/BFIgkf7GJK4

Good Idea: Accept the distractions instead of fighting them?

https://ashore.io/journal/crossover-creativity/poisoning-the-day

The article "Poisoning the Day" explores the idea that productivity is often a race against the inevitable distractions and setbacks life throws at you. Using Jack Antonoff’s reflections on creativity and productivity, it suggests that the key is to focus on getting as much done before these interruptions—be it news, personal problems, or simply fatigue—derail your progress. Instead of fighting these disruptions, the article advocates embracing them when they come, adjusting your workload, and picking up the next day. It emphasizes the importance of starting early or finding a rhythm that suits you to avoid the "poisoning" of your productivity.

What do you think of the idea of accepting distractions instead of fighting them?

We can imagine FBI agents investigating the killing of the UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson struggling to make a *short list* of people who have been wronged by the insurance company.

How did insurance companies become so hated?

Modern-day insurance has its origins in grassroots mutual aid programs such as the "Friendly Societies" in which workers motivated by care for one another would pool their resources and take care of each other. Insurance only became a racket after this model was captured by the state and for-profit corporations.

Though the proponents of capitalism and the state claim that centralization and privatization are essential for scaling up social infrastructure and making it run "more efficiently," state bureaucracy and for-profit models have chiefly served to concentrate control over everyone's lives in the hands of a few oligarchs.

And the more unevenly power is distributed in a society, the more volatile that society is bound to be.