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Created
Sat, 02/11/2024 - 09:30
Kamala Harris speaks the truth: Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris warned voters on Thursday that Republican Donald Trump and his allies would scale back healthcare programs if he wins the White House and said his comments at a Wednesday rally were offensive to women. In a brief press conference, Vice President Harris reminded voters that former President Trump had tried unsuccessfully to repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, during his 2017-2021 presidency. Now he says this: He said he wouldn’t cut Social security but presented a budget that cut it every single year he was president. And they still plan to do it: If they get the chance they’re going to repeal it, don’t ever think otherwise. It’s their holy grail.
Created
Sat, 02/11/2024 - 09:20
When Labour Opposes Rapid Technological Change

So, I recently saw this:

our obsession with jobs might trap us – everything could look like healthcare, still using fax machines when email and text exists.

“sorry I know this is possible via AI but we have our manual spreadsheet guy, following regulation 1284”

Leaving aside the word “AI”, because it’s not clear how expansive the use case for current AI really is, there’s a point here and it’s an important one.

He’s exactly right about our obsession with jobs, but I’d state it a different way:

Created
Sat, 02/11/2024 - 07:00
I know that some of you don’t listen to podcasts and I’d guess that most of you have never listened to Joe Rogan, the man who runs the most popular podcast in the world (making hundreds of millions of dollars at it.) Trump appeared on his show last week and it’s been dowloaded 35 million times. Anyway, here’s a taste of the kind of thing this superstar is selling to his massive audience: He is very stupid and he makes everyone who listens to him stupid. A case in point: his interview with JD Vance who is not as stupid as Rogan but knows the audience will believe anything: During a prolonged discussion about the environment, Vance asserted that he “didn’t have a strong view about what the carbon footprint ultimately does,” appearing to waffle about whether human-caused climate change exists.  “It’s interesting that the environmental movement in America, the only thing that it talks about is the carbon footprint, and it never talks about . . . why do we have the highest rates of obesity in the world right now,” Vance said.
Created
Sat, 02/11/2024 - 06:00
I know we shouldn’t pay too much attention to the early vote and this might not mean anything. But if it holds up it’s big. Old people vote: Donald Trump is lagging Kamala Harris in Pennsylvania early voting with a critical and once-reliably Republican constituency: seniors. It’s a warning sign for the former president that reflects early vote data and polling across the battlegrounds, after Republicans won the senior vote in each of the last five presidential elections. In Pennsylvania, where voters over the age of 65 have cast nearly half of the early ballots, registered Democrats account for about 58 percent of votes cast by seniors, compared to 35 percent for Republicans. That’s despite both parties having roughly equal numbers of registered voters aged 65 and older. The partisan gap is narrower than it was in 2020, when views of early voting were more partisan, and Republicans take that as a good sign. But the GOP still is counting on more of its older voters to show up on Election Day, while Democrats have more votes in the bank. The data is in line with polling in the state that has shown Trump shedding support among older voters.
Created
Sat, 02/11/2024 - 04:58
Three years on, there is still no compelling argument, strategic or otherwise, for Australia’s acquiring eight Virginia-class nuclear-­propelled submarines (SSNs). Nor is there any compelling calculation of the large lick of funding – $368bn and more – that the program will soak up. Only Defence seems able to command such stupendous outlays when childcare, aged Continue reading »
Created
Sat, 02/11/2024 - 04:57
The primary focus of the Zionist movement and the Israeli lobby is not combating anti-Semitism but rather combating critics of Israel’s colonial apartheid regime and the crimes it is perpetrating against the Palestinian people. Zionists deliberately conflate Judaism with Zionism and assert every Jew is a Zionist, while Israel, on the other hand, calls itself Continue reading »
Created
Sat, 02/11/2024 - 04:54
Some events of recent weeks have been a reminder of the phenomenon the ancient Greeks called hubris. The Greeks thought of hubris as a character flaw in a leader that led to delusional overconfidence and complacency that blinds a leader and results in a tragic fall. Anthony Albanese does not present himself publicly as the Continue reading »
Created
Sat, 02/11/2024 - 04:52
The nation’s public hospital system is sicker than it looks. There are practical, affordable ways to make it better — but not if governments go on doing the same things. Public hospitals all over the country are overcrowded, inefficient, bad for staff and worse for patients. They badly need more space, more staff. But why, Continue reading »
Created
Sat, 02/11/2024 - 04:51
Leading international relations scholar Wang Jisi from Peking University, who just met Kurt Campbell, urges Beijing not to make new enemies, focus on domestic affairs, & maintain confidence in peaceful reunification. The Institute of International and Strategic Studies (IISS), Peking University, reported on October 25 that Wang Jisi, its Founding President and a PKU professor, visited the U.S. Continue reading »
Created
Sat, 02/11/2024 - 04:50
A United Nations report, published on Monday, lays out in chilling detail the advances made by Israel in Gaza as it seeks to eradicate “the very existence of the Palestinian people in Palestine.” This genocidal project, the report ominously warns, “is now metastasizing to the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.” The Nakba or “catastrophe,” which Continue reading »