The main contest between the US and China will play out in the economic arena. At the end of the day, the winner will be seen to be the country with a bigger economy. Editor’s Note: In his book, The Asian 21st Century, Kishore Mahbubani (Mahbubani), a former diplomat who served as Singapore’s permanent representative to Continue reading »
Reading
In a comment on a Doctor Who Instagram post, showrunner Russell T. Davies shared what his dream TARDIS control room would look like.
Q: Do I have to make room for people when the bus starts getting crowded?
A: Not if you don’t want to. Even if the bus driver shouts, “Please move all the way to the back,” several times in a row over the loudspeaker, it’s really just a suggestion. Feel free to ignore them for as long as you want. After all, they can’t stop the bus forever.
Q: I know this is a stoplight and not an actual bus stop, but can I get off anyway?
A: Sure. Just remember to keep aggressively pushing the back door while looking bewildered so the driver knows you need to get off right now. And if the door doesn’t open immediately, yell as loud as you can, and eventually, you’ll get what you want.
Q: Can I stand in front of the exit, even though plenty of seats are available?
A: If that’s where you’re most comfortable, make yourself at home. Remember to put your headphones on and blast your music while scrolling on your phone so no one can interrupt you as they attempt to get off. This is your space now.
Why is RFK Jr bothering? I honestly can’t understand what he’s getting out of this: Democratic presidential hopeful and known anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Sunday that he would support a national ban on abortion after the first three months of pregnancy if elected, only to walk back the stance hours later alleging he “misunderstood” repeated questions from NBC News on the topic. “Mr. Kennedy misunderstood a question posed to him by an NBC reporter in a crowded, noisy exhibit hall at the Iowa State Fair,” a spokesperson said, clarifying the candidate’s stance on abortion as “always” being the woman’s right to choose. Kennedy “does not support legislation banning abortion,” the spokesman added. But Sunday morning, Kennedy was much more specific, telling NBC: “I believe a decision to abort a child should be up to the women during the first three months of life.” Pressed on whether that meant signing a federal ban at 15 or 21 weeks, he said yes.
Big Finish's trailer for the David Tennant & Michelle Gomez-starring Doctor Who – Once and Future: The Martian Invasion of Planetoid 50.
Very rarely do I review a book and find that the best way to convey its significance is to quote, verbatim, its first four paragraphs: In 2020, during the darkest hours of the global coronavirus pandemic, the US government spent $3 trillion to help rescue the country’s – and, to some extent, the world’s – … Continue reading "The Paradox of Debt, by the Tycho Brahe of Credit"
In my first post (here) on Mary Harrington’s (2023) Feminism Against Progress, I focused on her views on the family and suggested that not unlike Yoram Hazony (in his (2022) book, Conservatism: A Rediscovery), she rejects the patriarchic ‘nuclear family’ embraced by American, Christian-ethno-nationalists. Instead they both defend what they call the ‘traditional family,’ which in Harrington’s argument […]
It looks like Sidney Powell is the preferred fall guy Make room under that bus: JACK SMITH’S LATEST indictment of Donald Trump isn’t yet two weeks old, but the alleged “co-conspirators” it identifies are already beginning to turn on each other — and some of them aren’t even being subtle about it. A number of the ex-president’s chief lieutenants and alleged co-conspirators in the plot to overturn the election, such as conservative attorney John Eastman, have insisted the effort was perfectly legal and based on sound evidence. Others, however, have recently sought to distance themselves from the efforts of others, implicitly heaping the blame for any potential criminal conduct onto fellow participants in Trump’s attempted coup. “It is the ‘please don’t put me in jail, put that other guy in jail’ strategy that was sure to come up at some point or another,” says one attorney working in Trump’s legal orbit.
Donald Trump lashed out at the “Biden Justice Department,” saying, “Hunter has done nothing to earn an indictment.”
This town throws pennies at people. They hurt.
We’ve had mostly floating exchange rates for fifty years. You’d think by now people would report using the correct currency
How will Judge Tanya Chutkan respond? Ten days and a second stern warning later, the toddler threw his spoon again early this morning (Politico): Donald Trump slammed the judge presiding over his newest criminal case early Monday, testing her three-day-old warning that he refrain from “inflammatory” attacks against those involved in his case. In a Truth Social post just before 1 a.m., Trump assailed U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan as “highly partisan” and “very biased and unfair,” citing as evidence a statement she made during the sentencing of a woman who participated in the mob that breached the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. “She obviously wants me behind bars,” Trump wrote. What followed is in all caps, of course. He’s daring her to do it. The deranged teetotaler is so drunk on himself, he thinks he’s bulletproof. Trump was alluding to Chutkan’s remark during the October 2022 sentencing of Christine Priola of Ohio. Chutkan admonished Priola, before sentencing her to 15 months in jail, about the Jan. 6 mob’s threat to the peaceful transfer of power. “I see the videotapes.
In his history of experimental social science — Randomistas: How radical researchers are changing our world — Andrew Leigh gives an introduction to the RCT (randomized controlled trial) method for conducting experiments in medicine, psychology, development economics, and policy evaluation. Although it mentions there are critiques that can be waged against it, the author does […]
Despite failing to speak in Parliament for over a year, Tory MP Nadine Dorries has made time for her lucrative TalkTV job
Here’s the thing, everything you experience is your consciousness. When you see or hear another person or any object, what you’re experiencing is a representation.
Again, what you’re experiencing is yourself; your consciousness. This the heart of all of the “I am everything” spiritual forms. You have never known anything directly except yourself and you never will.
he NHBC is the country’s largest building control inspector says it is " independent of Government and the construction industry”. But its corporate affairs team has strong links to the Conservative Party
The American right lost its religion Pondering the collapse of the simulacrum of conservative faith in God and country, Hemmingway’s account of how one goes bankrupt comes to mind: “gradually and then suddenly.” Digby and then Will Bunch remarked on the NPR interview last week with Russell Moore, editor-in-chief of the Christianity Today magazine, about his new book, “Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call For Evangelical America.” The openness with which holy, coal-rolling Christian nationalists rejected both Jesus and the nation’s founding principles is only a surprise to those who have not been keen observers of the political and religious right. Their pas de deux has spun on since the 1970s, their steamy embrace growing closer with the decades. “The increasingly dire, near-death experience of American democracy has felt like the proverbial frog in boiling water,” Bunch begins. But it’s not just democracy at risk. Evangelicals and American conservatives have lost their faith, gradually and then suddenly.
The economic legacy of the now imprisoned former prime minister Imran Khan is prompting many Pakistanis to think of leaving
It’s the year 2364 and a tatty old space shuttle containing former Wall Street capitalist Ralph Offenhouse, who was cryogenically frozen in 1994, has just been discovered floating through space by a starship called the Enterprise–D. Upon waking, Offenhouse discovers that, although science has found a cure for his previously terminal illness, his bank accounts […]
Just _____
Just checking in _______
Just checking in, sorry
- - -
Hey neighbor ______
Hey neighbor, could you drop the volume a smidge ______
Hey neighbor, could you drop the volume a smidge on your vintage pornography?
- - -
Babe, can I get an update ______
Babe, can I get an update when you’re back from Six Flags _____
Babe, can I get an update when you’re back from Six Flags about whether we’re still monogamous?
- - -
Sure, I’m happy to help ______
Sure, I’m happy to help re-shingle your roof ______
Sure, I’m happy to help you re-shingle your roof after my heart transplant
- - -
Not to _____
Not to rush you on the golf course, ____
Not to rush you on the golf course, honey, but they’re about to strap my arms to the table for the C-section
- - -
Only seeing this now _______
Only seeing this now, reception is awful _______
Only seeing this now, reception is awful on this tightrope. Yes, I can change the dinner res to 8