tobychev @tobychev@qoto.org

This WSJ investigation is enormously illuminating. The paper’s findings marry the two conflicting versions I’ve been seeing in the U.S. media and from Team Navalny, ie the deal was far from done vs. Putin killed him just before the deal was signed.

https://www.wsj.com/world/russia/russia-u-s-prisoner-swaps-gershkovich-whelan-be4576f8

According to this WSJ report, Biden met privately at the Oval Office with Scholz to pitch trading for Whelan and Gershkovich. Putin, of course, wants his assassin buddy Vadim Krasikov, but that SOB is locked up in Germany. To “sell” the deal to the German public, how about Russia also coughs up Navalny, who enjoys popularity in Germany.

Biden and Scholz reportedly said, okay, let’s think about this, but “word of the discussions reached the Kremlin via a private intermediary” within a week, before Washington could offer anything formally. (This presumably refers to rumors about Roman Abramovich talking to Putin about the idea of including Navalny in the swap.)

And then, poof, Navalny dies. While this doesn’t conform to Team Navalny’s talk of an “imminent deal,” it does support the main thrust of its claim that Putin ordered Navalny death directly, in relation to his calculations on an exchange deal for Krasikov.

Besides these insights into the Navalny tragedy (including Christo Grozev recruiting Hillary Clinton for the cause, wow), this WSJ article also offers a fascinating look at the partisan politics behind which Americans get swapped and the public opinion and lobbying work that elevates some people over others. (The Griner vs. Krivanek stories are a real indictment.)

Overall, an incredible read.

Good luck finding a story that’s more characteristic of the Putin regime than this: “How the Russian authorities tried to charge a handless activist with strangling a police officer” https://meduza.io/en/feature/2024/03/27/they-try-to-get-rid-of-inconvenient-people

New!! Observations of our Event Horizon Telescope (#EHT) collaboration have uncovered strong & organized magnetic fields spiraling around the edge of the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*). Images in polarized light of the #blackhole in the Milky Way center reveal structures similar to those in M87*, suggesting that strong magnetic fields may be common to all black holes. This also hints toward a hidden jet in Sgr A*!
#astronomy #astrodon #scicomm #physics

https://www.ru.nl/en/about-us/news/astronomers-unveil-strong-magnetic-fields-spiraling-at-the-edge-of-milky-ways-central-black-hole

NEW: Facebook snooped on Snapchat users' encrypted network traffic to study how they behaved, unsealed court documents reveal.

This was part of a secret program called "Project Ghostbusters," and even inside the company, it was very controversial.

“I can’t think of a good argument for why this is okay. No security person is ever comfortable with this, no matter what consent we get from the general public. The general public just doesn’t know how this stuff works,” Pedro Canahuati, Facebook's then-head of security engineering, wrote in an email.

https://techcrunch.com/2024/03/26/facebook-secret-project-snooped-snapchat-user-traffic/

According to German security services, almost half of Microsoft Exchange Server installations in Germany which have OWA internet facing have critical security vulnerabilities due to lack of patching or end of life software. https://www.bsi.bund.de/DE/Service-Navi/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/Presse2024/240326_Tausende_Exchange-Server_verwundbar.html

Nieuwe #Eurobarometer--cijfers tonen dat een minderheid van de arbeidersklasse en lagere middenklasse in België zich politiek gehoord voelt.

New BJIR-article shows that stronger workplace unionization in 🇳🇴 leads to increased employee participation in further education, lower employee turnover, and higher salaries during further education (but lower post-training wage premiums): https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjir.12802?af=R

Soldiers ignoring a judicial order is the sort of thing that happens in the countries that these people are fleeing.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/immigration/article/sb4-texas-soldiers-threatening-migrants-19362944.php

The Insider (an investigative outlet that has worked extensively with Bellingcat) reports that the color, print, and cut of the clothes visible in photos published by ISIS showing the alleged Moscow attackers match the clothes of the arrested suspects. https://theins.ru/news/270191

Russia’s special forces are still looking for the gunmen who executed at least 40 people at a concert hall outside Moscow today, and no one has yet taken responsibility for the terrorist attack. Updates here. https://meduza.io/en/live/2024/03/22/terrorist-attack-at-concert-hall-outside-moscow

Maybe we succeeded too well in convincing people that "the line between good and evil runs across every human heart."

Maybe we should start remarking that, in a very real sense, "the line between good and evil runs around the edge of ExxonMobil."

Reminder that when we make fun of the International Energy Agency for its stodgy conservative solar outlook (less these days), this is the pressure it's under from high up in the US government to not discourage "sufficient investment in energy supplies - specifically, oil natural gas and coal".

Good on the IEA, I say.

https://www.energy.senate.gov/services/files/8E2BA8FC-08F5-432F-A579-0BE6EEAE81C4

this is some 1820s science right here

What.

“We have discovered that hard, electrical conductors (e.g., metals or graphite) can be adhered to soft, aqueous materials (e.g., hydrogels, fruit, or animal tissue) without the use of an adhesive. The adhesion is induced by a low DC electric field.“

Most importantly: it stays stuck with the voltage turned off. It’s stable for MONTHS. Reverse the polarity of the electrical flow and it unsticks. YES REALLY. This is some literal “Alessandro Volta playing around with bananas in a shed” science AND YET it WORKS and we DID NOT KNOW.

Here’s a video. Holy shit. What.

[link] #science #science

Interesting …

in the end federation means federation and so it’s good if more communities are joined, even if you are critical of them.

From: @zuck
https://www.threads.net/@zuck/post/C4yMa0Gxxph

Marc Andreessen: “And another thing! We would’ve solved climate change in the 70s if the pesky environmentalists hadn’t killed nuclear power!”

Also Marc Andreessen: “I’m proud to announce we’re working with one of the most brutal, repressive, corrupt regimes in history to help them launder their oil money on a computer that uses ⅛ of the global electric supply to generate ransom notes.”

Hur kan det komma sig att Putin fick 87%...?

Härifrån:
https://t.me/astrapress/51670?single
(Där finns även fortsättningen, kvinnorna skakar urnan för att det inte ska vara så synligt att de stoppat in en massa valsedlar.)

#ryssland #valfusk

Schools throughout Russia have begun piloting a new extracurricular program in which students are shown Putin’s interview with Tucker Carlson before competing in a quiz about the “reasons” for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, sanctions, and related topics.
https://t.co/oQ1tm6mBuO

@jeffowski Reminds me of the guy who tried to negotiate with the quartet for his wedding.
"If you think we're pricey," the band leader said, "I'll make you a deal. Call the local union and get a quote for four plumbers to work five hours on a Saturday night. We'll take that amount instead."

Methane emissions from oil and gas sites are three times higher than official U.S. government estimates suggest, according to a new study.

Methane leaking or intentionally vented from production sites has been a pervasive feature of the U.S. shale industry for many years. But operators, as well as the US Environmental Protection Agency, have tended to use rough estimates and expected leakage rates for various equipment, rather than physically measuring production sites.

https://gasoutlook.com/analysis/methane-emissions-from-oil-and-gas-3x-higher-than-official-estimates-new-study/