You’ve probably already heard about the Ukraine/Russia controversy surrounding Walter Isaacson’s new book about Elon Musk. (If not, you can click this link.) But there’s a lot more in the book apparently, which is discussed here in this piece by Matt Pearce in the LA Times: Musk is already one of the most well-known and extensively covered leaders in American corporate life (and one of its most unavoidable figures on the service he has renamed X). Isaacson’s biography is a Musk agonistes: a portrait of a (largely) self-made, emotionally volatile entrepreneur from South Africa who has a tortured relationship with his father and an addiction to crises of the self-inflicted variety.
Reading
Some of them contain materials that are harmful to human health.
The post Should You Ditch Your Eco-Friendly Drinking Straw? appeared first on Nautilus.
“What kind of a man relies on his son to get impeached?” Trump said. “Joe Biden is a disgrace.”
Head of the Australian arm of the Republican party, Peter Dutton, has told reporters to start calling him Donald Dutton or The Donald for short. ”This is a great move by Peter, sorry, Donald Dutton,” said Republican party cheer leader... Read More ›
X and Reddit prevent users from sharing links to Distributed Denial of Secrets. Russia and Indonesia are also blocking access.
The post Tech Companies and Governments Are Censoring the Journalist Collective DDoSecrets appeared first on The Intercept.
Krugman discusses why people people believe things that just aren’t true: Remember “American carnage?” Donald Trump’s 2017 inaugural address was peculiar in many ways, but one of the most striking oddities was his obsession with a problem — urban crime — that had greatly diminished over the past generation. For reasons we still don’t fully understand, violent crime in America fell rapidly from around 1990 to the mid-2010s: True, there was a crime surge after the pandemic, which now seems to be ebbing. But that lay in the future. Trump talked as if crime was running rampant as he spoke. Yet if Trump had false beliefs about trends in crime, he had plenty of company. Gallup polls Americans about crime every year, and all through the great decline in violent crime a majority of Americans said that crime was increasing: Were the crime statistics misleading? Homicide numbers are pretty solid. And people behaved as if crime were falling; notably, there was a wave of gentrification as affluent Americans moved into newly safe central cities. But all the same, people told pollsters that they believed crime was rising.
Sens. Mitch McConnell and Dianne Feinstein, who have access to top-secret information, recently had public health episodes.
The post Pentagon-Funded Study Warns Dementia Among U.S. Officials Poses National Security Threat appeared first on The Intercept.
Later this month I’ll travel to Washington, as part of a Parliamentary delegation, to advocate on behalf of Julian Assange. The Parliamentary delegation includes representatives from across the political colour spectrum – Forest Green (senior Nationals member Barnaby Joyce), Green (Senators Peter Whish-Wilson and David Shoebridge), Red (Labor backbencher Tony Zappia), Navy Blue (Liberal member Continue reading »
Preparations for the United States to launch a war against China are far more advanced than many people realise. And when you look at just how much work has been done, it no longer looks like a matter of “if”, but more of a question of “when”. Quietly, the United States has gone through a Continue reading »
At the G20 summit in Bali last year, most of the world’s most influential leaders had strongly deplored ‘the aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine’. By contrast, the joint declaration from the just concluded summit in New Delhi does not mention Russia by name. Instead, it talks about ‘the human suffering and negative added impacts of Continue reading »
The Age/SMH Resolve Strategic poll on the Voice referendum was a dramatic reminder that progressives should always be ready for a profound kick in the guts. The referendum campaign is not lost yet but it looks increasingly likely that it will be – despite the massive campaign launched by the Yes campaign. That campaign was Continue reading »
It is easy to be pessimistic about prospects for our children, in the face of the climatic events that are now confronting humans everywhere. But there is also some very good news around the idea of developing a Global “Earth System Treaty” (EST) that could radically alter the trajectory we humans are currently on. Developing Continue reading »
The BBC's Doctor Who #WhoSpy posted a preview image, teasing with the caption that "Plans are forming..." - but what plans? And whose?
There is little to celebrate in the Minns’ government commitment to the conversion of the Bankstown line to a metro – basically a train to nowhere but high-rise hell. Opposition to it from locals and community groups was dismissed by the greedy and the aspirational as NIMBYism, but our reasons lie in its genesis, and Continue reading »
Twenty years ago, Japan demanded Russia halt disposal of nuclear waste in the Sea of Japan. What changed? Is it the case that there is felonious nuclear waste – and respectable nuclear waste? Japan seems to believe that this is so and the Mainstream Media understands why this narrative may deserve its support. The Fukushima Continue reading »
Empires are anxious creatures, run by those predatory types with egos vast and awareness minimal. The awareness only gets pricked when risks are posed to the financial returns, military security, what might be called, at a stretch, their way of living. Such risks can come in many forms, and for the US imperium, it’s less Continue reading »
In his newsletter today, Dan Pfeiffer looks at the bizarre phenomenon of a presidential candidate getting much more popular after he’s indicted four times: A number of theories surfaced to explain this unexpected and deeply concerning outcome — Republicans are a cult, Ron DeSantis sucks, etc. Elections are dynamic enterprises. There are a lot of interrelated factors that lead to an outcome. It’s not as simple as “Ron DeSantis sucks,” even if he is one of the most maladroit candidates in modern political history. Here are X findings from recent polls that help explain why Republican voters are flocking to Trump as his likelihood of spending the rest of his life in prison skyrockets: 1. Republicans Trust Trump Over Everyone Else Donald Trump is one of the most prolific and obvious liars the world has ever known. Here’s how the Washington Post fact checker summarized Trump’s presidency: Trump’s dishonesty is so blatant that most Americans find it disqualifying, but Trump’s voters see only qualifications. They do not believe he is dishonest. They think he is the only honest man in public life.
1 package hot roll mix3 tablespoons olive oil1 can (6 ounces) tomato paste½ cup water¼ teaspoon salt⅛ teaspoon pepper½ teaspoon oregano1 can (4 ounces) anchovy fillets½ pound mozzarella cheese, sliced thin Prepare hot roll mix as directed on package. Let dough rise once. Serve oven for hot, 400°. Turn dough out on a lightly floured […]
In 1961, driving back from a short vacation, Betty and Barney Hill encountered a bright...
. One of Chomsky’s primary critiques of postmodernism lies in its epistemological stance. Chomsky argues that postmodern scepticism about objective knowledge can undermine the pursuit of scientific inquiry, which relies on the assumption that there are objective truths waiting to be discovered. Chomsky’s criticisms are forceful reminders of the pitfalls of extreme relativism and scepticism, […]
On the campaign trail, I get asked a lot of awkward questions: “How did it feel when Trump’s supporters wanted to hang you?”; “What was your plan if they started to hang you?”; “Did you not get in the Secret Service’s car because you worried they’d take you somewhere they could string you up?”; “If it had to happen, what did you want to be hanged from?”
These are challenging and important questions, but I’m here to tell you it’s unfair to paint the January 6 demonstrators with such a broad brush. A wide-ranging collection of people with many different beliefs was involved that day. Yet, in what should come as no surprise, you wouldn’t know it from the slanted coverage.
A new proposal would require the FEC’s investigators to get explicit approval from the commissioners for any investigative activity, no matter how big or small.
The post A Trump Appointee Is Trying to Gut the FEC’s Ability to Investigate Campaign Finance Crimes appeared first on The Intercept.