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We believed we were capable of anything. We had already used 22,000 bagels to test 280 brands of toasters in North America. We sent twenty-five reporters to forty-five different countries to test six hundred kinds of alarm clocks. We recruited ninety ex-CIA operatives to embed themselves in every city in India to test every last brand of cooling sheet.

But we were also under a lot of pressure. In 2019, when the New York Times increased our budget from $2 million per year to $500 million per year, the stated expectation was that we would subject every product ever created to twelve months of continuous, hard use by poor cooks, over-sleepers, and profuse sweaters. Once, we received a letter from top brass under our door. The letter contained two words: “TIRES. NOW.”

While there is a measure of agreement among Australian policymakers, and those who influence them, about the severity of regional security challenges we will face in the years ahead, serious divisions persist between Government and Opposition, within the wider think tank, academic and media policy community, and to some extent within the Albanese Government. They Continue reading »

Some years ago I reached the conclusion, reluctantly, that there was no longer a realistic prospect of achieving a two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Since the 1930s, among outsiders, two state solution proposals have been relatively logical, intellectually neat and tidy, morally defensible, politically appealing notions that appear to present answers to the Continue reading »

This is a direct quote from a banner that was paraded in Tel Aviv in 2016 in support of the Israeli soldier, Elor Azaria who shot, at point blank range, a Palestinian teenager, Abdel Fattah al-Sharif two years earlier. No matter how many Palestinians the Israeli Occupation Forces kill, the cry will always be ‘Kill Continue reading »

On the eve of International Human Rights Day when invited to support the existing international rules-based order the United States’ leadership failed. Not only did their veto prevent a cease-fire in Gaza, but this powerful nation could not even offer an alternative path to protect humanity. Does the United Nations matter to the Australian Government? Continue reading »

There is never a bottom to Labor ministerial cowardice and incompetence when manipulated mob fury is at its height. On immigration policy, Labor has surrendered, and is dancing to Dutton’s tune. Labor has won one federal election from opposition, and almost another, by bowing to a coalition narrative about the menace of refugee boat people Continue reading »

There is a clear need to explain to outsiders what is going on in the Jewish community in Australia. There is all-too-common assumption that there is one Jewish voice on this tragedy and this is something projected by the ‘official’ organisations. In fact, the published views of people such as Louise Adler or Jenna Price Continue reading »

A recent submission to a Senate inquiry by the Centre for Public Integrity claimed that in the decade to 2023 companies making political donations “were 2.49 times more likely to win procurement contracts than non-donors”, and that the value of contracts won by donor companies was on average 4.4 times the value of contracts won Continue reading »

The Biden administration has spent most of its diplomatic energy since the February 24, 2022, [on the] Russian invasion of Ukraine marshalling the world to punish the Russian Federation, to boycott its petroleum and gas, to seize assets even of private citizens in Europe and North America, and to make Russia a pariah. Russia certainly Continue reading »

A massacre of protesters during the 2014 Maidan coup set the stage for the ouster of Ukraine’s elected president, Viktor Yanukovych. Now, an explosive trial in Kiev has produced evidence the killings were a false flag designed to trigger regime change. Two police officers charged with the mass shooting of opposition protesters in Kiev’s Maidan Square in 2014 have been released after a Ukrainian court determined the fatal shots in the infamous massacre were fired from an opposition-controlled building. On […]

The post Ukrainian trial demonstrates 2014 Maidan massacre was false flag  first appeared on The Grayzone.

The post Ukrainian trial demonstrates 2014 Maidan massacre was false flag  appeared first on The Grayzone.

My journey with Benjamin Zephaniah began in the vibrant cauldron of ideologies that was Handsworth in the mid-1980s. As a member of the Sheffield Asian Youth Movement, I found myself immersed in the Black revolutionary politics that defined this hub, attracting artists, activists, and academics. It was here that I first encountered the magnetic presence […]

The media finally caught on to his plans U.S. Presidents have been accused by their political rivals of wanting to be kings or dictators ever since the very beginning of the Republic. It’s even a charge that’s had some merit from time to time. In 1800 Thomas Jefferson charged John Adams with acting like a king when he expanded federal power and passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, which basically made it a crime to criticize the government. But Adams lost his re-election and gracefully conceded, establishing the tradition of the peaceful transfer of power that until very recently was observed by every president. Then there was Andrew Jackson whom his critics assailed as a would-be king for wielding his veto pen for political purposes and challenging the primacy of the Supreme Court to decide constitutional matters, among other things. But he too left peacefully after eight years. Abraham Lincoln was repeatedly accused of being a dictator during the Civil War for implementing numerous extreme measures including the suspension of habeas corpus and the jailing of journalists.

A robot just swapped my electric car's battery

To help celebrate our twenty-fifth year of being on the information superhighway, we have reached out to some of our former columnists for check-ins and updates. Today’s columnist, Ali Fitzgerald, won our Column Contest in 2013 with her comic “Hungover Bear and Friends,” which ran on our site for over three years. We’re happy to have Ali back with a brand-new installment.

Anything but “violent insurrection” Let’s begin with this clip from “The Daily Show”: The clip illustrates how the GOP is dedicated heart and soul(?) to fitting its square-peg worldview into an other-shaped hole. Speaker Mike Johnson, Brian Beutler offers, is dispersing “unreleased Capitol security footage from January 6 (to help pro-Trump propagandists lie about the insurrection) but not before he blurs the faces of the rioters (because the raw footage would make it easier for these lawless, often violent Trump supporters to face justice).” Johnson wants to both protect MAGA footsoldiers while aiding the right’s efforts to rewrite the history we saw with our very lyin’ eyes. That’s a rather delicate maneuver (subscription req’d): [I]t’s a policy manifestation of the MAGA code, wherein January 6 can be anything BUT a violent insurrection orchestrated and encouraged by Donald Trump. It can be Antifa, or a false flag, or tourism, or a Patriotic Protest or any combination thereof. But not what it actually was. Call if Big Lie 2 Electric Boogaloo.

Kit Yates argues that the former Prime Minister's lack of scientific training was not the real problem

In the midst of war, Ukraine has made exceptional progress on meeting the requirements for joining the alliance argues Mark Temnycky

The Immigration Exemption to data protection is STILL unlawful as Courts tell Home Office again that they cannot sidestep Parliament when using personal data to profile migrants. The Court of Appeal found today that the Immigration Exemption in the Data Protection Act 2018 is unlawful. The Home Office uses the exemption to deny migrants access […]

An oligarchy, as we use the word today (the dictionary definition is different) is rule by the rich, because they are rich. (A feudal king may be rich, but his power is not primarily a result of his wealth, but rather his wealth is primarily a result of his power.)

As I have written a number of times before, Russia is NOT a plutocratic oligarchy. America, on the other hand, is. What wealthy American elites want is what they get, and what ordinary people want they don’t get: this was shown clearly by the Princeton Oligarchy Study.

When Putin took control of Russia he broke the oligarchs.