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Art by Matt Smith

So now Loki’s stahtin’ tah feel a bit down n’ all since Odin keeps givin’ him shit fah r’all his vahrious fuck-ups. N’ I mean, it’s not like he doesn’t desehrve it on some level since he keeps doin’ shit like givin’ bihrth tah wolves that ahr eventually gonnah eat Odin alive. But you know how Odin is, he isn’t the most laid back guy ’round. I mean, sometimes it’s like he’s got a fuckin’ spee’ah shoved up his ass instead’ah pokin’ outtah his goddamned abdomen like it outtah be.¹ So anyway, Loki decides he needs tah blow off some fuckin’ steam n’ so he decides he’s gonnah throw a wild fuckin’ block pahty!

422,000 households across the UK are estimated to be affected by the two-child allowance limit - but not Members of Parliament

Founded by World Bank apparatchiks in 1993, Transparency International has relentlessly exposed public sector corruption in the Global South while leaving government-enabled criminality in rich nations unexamined.

The post Transparency International’s Covert Agenda: A Pawn in Western Intelligence’s Game appeared first on MintPress News.

Decades of war and the memory of genocide add to the threat of starvation in the blockaded Armenian enclave

On this week’s Lever Time, Richard Reeves explores the tensions within the modern male identity.

The former European Research Group chairman was a prominent Brexiteer but has now turned his attention to anti-Net Zero campaigning.

"It's 2023, and it's simply unconscionable that the highest awards in Australian journalism are sponsored by fossil fuels, with no specific climate reporting award."

History repeats itself, the first time as hope, the second time as dread. In a preface to the 2002 reissue of her classic work on the fear of bodily pollution, first published in 1966, the anthropologist Mary Douglas wrote: When I was writing Purity and Danger I had no idea that soon the fear of […]

The post Paradise Lost appeared first on The New York Review of Books.

Statistical models using yield spreads can provide estimated odds of a future contraction. How do the odds change when using real vs. nominal interest rates?

‘You see all these kitchen sink dramas with beautiful kitchens; nothing out of place, no dirty pans,’ said the woman shown sat on screen in a small and untidy kitchen, ‘well, people’s kitchens aren’t like that.’ In spring 1974, BBC One broadcast The Family. In the new documentary series, the Wilkins family from Reading — […]

Ivan Yotzov, Philip Bunn, Nicholas Bloom, Paul Mizen and Gregory Thwaites Inflation in 2023 remains elevated across many advanced economies. Existing studies have considered the contribution of profits to persistently high inflation in the US, euro area and UK. To add to this debate, we recently asked firms in the Decision Maker Panel about their … Continue reading Profit margins and firm price growth: evidence from the Decision Maker Panel →

Just laid my hands on the first copy of TECHNOFEUDALISM – What killed capitalism. Good feeling. There is no substitute for physicality. Below, I copy the Preface and Table of Contents to offer you a whiff of the argument and style. I believe it will be in UK bookshops at the end of the month. […]

The post Technofeudalism has just arrived… Read the Preface here appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.

Despite the rabble on the Right of politics that marches around driven by conspiracies about government chips in the water supply or Covid vaccines and all the rest of the rot that lot carry on with, the reality is that the well-funded Right that is entrenched in the deepest echelons of capital are extremely well…

Welcome to Solidarity’s monthly round-up of working class struggle.

The post Labor learns a lesson as teachers have a spring in their step first appeared on Solidarity Online.

He really thinks this speaks well of him. Sadly, most of his followers probably think so too.

The widespread admiration for the Matildas has been a blow against sexism but it has also fuelled nationalism.

The post Matildas’ success caught up in a wave of nationalism first appeared on Solidarity Online.

Source - Patreon

Source - Patreon

You won’t believe the charge I wonder how many thousands of Americans have committed this crime: Special counsel David Weiss intends to seek an indictment against President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, relating to gun charges by the end of the month, the Justice Department said Wednesday. Hunter Biden had previously reached a deal involving a felony gun possession charge that would have allowed him to avoid prosecution if he met certain conditions over a 24 month period. However, after his plea deal to resolve two tax charges fell apart in court, the future of the gun deal has been in limbo. “The Speedy Trial Act requires that the Government obtain the return of an indictment by a grand jury by Friday, September 29, 2023, at the earliest. The Government intends to seek the return of an indictment in this case before that date,” the special counsel’s office said in a court filing. Prosecutors did not say how many charges would be brought. Hunter Biden’s gun-related legal troubles relate to a firearm he purchased in October 2018.

I find that the Bulwark’s JV Last has a dark view of current events that often fits my mood even if I’m actually quite a bit more optimistic in general. (See my earlier posts today exhorting everyone to chill a bit about Biden’s chances.) But there are days that I ponder our situation and feel the blackness descending and I appreciate Last’s analytical prowess as he tries to assess just what the hell is happening here. He doesn’t come to any firm conclusions and neither do it but it’s important to at least try to figure it out. Anyway, here’s today’s dark missive: 1. Decadence We’re going to keep doing this and I’m sorry. Here are some tidbits from yesterday’s Wall Street Journal poll: What? Trump has more of a record of “accomplishment” in office than Biden? I would pay a lot of money to sit down with that 51 percent of respondents and ask them to tell me five things Trump accomplished in office. I’d even spot them the first four: A tax cut; the appointment of three SCOTUS judges; the killing of Qasem Soleimani; Operation Warp Speed.

Once denounced by Zelensky as a “criminal,” gun runner Serhiy Pashinksy has become the top private supplier of arms to Ukraine. Eyewitness testimony has fingered Pashinsky as the architect of a bloody false flag operation which propelled the 2014 Maidan coup and plunged the country into civil war. Years before emerging as Kiev’s top private weapons trafficker, ex-legislator Serhiy Pashinsky played a key role in the 2014 US-backed coup which toppled Ukraine’s democratically-elected president and set the stage for a […]

The post Ukraine’s ‘biggest arms supplier’ orchestrated 2014 Maidan massacre, witnesses say first appeared on The Grayzone.

The post Ukraine’s ‘biggest arms supplier’ orchestrated 2014 Maidan massacre, witnesses say appeared first on The Grayzone.

I just love this story so much: In August 2022, James O’Keefe needed to get to Maine for a sailing trip. Rather than take a commercial flight for roughly $200, the conservative undercover-video activistdirected his employees to book a $12,000 helicopter flight direct from New York to the seaside town of Southwest Harbor, using funds donated to Project Veritas, the nonprofit he founded, according to a draft of a private internal audit conducted by an independent law firm. When bad weather forced the helicopter to make an unscheduled landing in Portland, O’Keefe booked a $1,400 black car for the three-hour drive from the helipad to the sailboat. O’Keefe justified the expenses by saying that he had a meeting near the dock, the audit stated. Two Project Veritas staffers described the person he met with to The Washington Post as a low-level donor.