Did you catch the press release from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) denouncing the slander against...
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The new ‘Illegal Migration Bill’ is using the same dishonest tactics used to take Britain out of the EU to secure the Conservatives a fifth election victory, writes Adam Bienkov
I.
You enter a tavern. The crackling hearth warms your bones after trudging for weeks through the wet and windy mountains of Avanste. The place is a little run-down, but it was either here or the village Applebees, and you’re not in the mood for a Captain Bahama Mama.
“Two meads,” you call out to the elf polishing glassware.
He pulls out a couple of bottles and pops the tops. You take a sip while pushing the other bottle back toward the elf. You’re in search of the lost Amulet of Lucien, and befriending a barkeep never hurts the quest.
He accepts your gift, taking a gulp, but offers no information.
The elf gives your total—fifteen gold.
Your heart rate quickens. You should have seen this coming. What have you walked into?
Choose:
Tip (Go to section II)
Don’t Tip (Go to section III)
- - -
II.
You proudly toss down your total, including a hefty tip.
Today’s Sydney Morning Herald and The Age front page stories on Australia’s supposed war risk with China represents the most egregious and provocative news presentation of any newspaper I have witnessed in over fifty years of active public life. It is way worse than the illustrated sampans shown to be coming from China in the Continue reading »
Hysteria over a supposed immediate China threat is being peddled by the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in the first of a series of three reports titled Red Alert. Not since Menzies’s days, have we seen anything like the papers’ dramatic image of an air force fleet emerging from a supersized China to dominate Continue reading »
In the name of all the good and honourable politicians who have gone before them in crafting a relationship with our giant and, yes, challenging neighbour and partner, I ask Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong to call out this rubbish, repudiate it, and forcefully assert that it is wrong. The shrieking warmongering of the SMH Continue reading »
The comparison between Australia’s response to China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims with India’s treatment of Kashmiris highlights that a commitment to human rights is not the driving force in determining Labor’s position on foreign affairs matters. Last September when Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was in Bali for the G20 Summit he tweeted “So wonderful to see Continue reading »
Failure to appropriately value the work women do perpetuates their subordinate status. As International Women’s Day approaches l’ve been thinking about housework – that mundane but essential stuff mostly done by women. Not long ago keeping a house clean required a woman’s body to power the scrubbing brush, the broom, the mop. I remember it Continue reading »
Can we really believe that the power structurers of human societies in 2023 are setting policies and programs that are doing the best for our future? Last year, Australia’s list of serious issues and experiences were acute and costly: major environmental disaster problems, the continuing pandemics, international tensions affecting trade and possible wars, and tense Continue reading »
The unilateral coercive sanctions Australia and its allies impose on Syria make us complicit in a war on the people of Syria, and arguably complicit in policide, if not genocide. To lift the cruel sanctions, we must come to the realisation that Syrians are human, like us. In 1998, the United Nation’s humanitarian coordinator in Continue reading »
In the latest instance of the Australian media’s deluge of propaganda geared toward manufacturing consent for war with China, Nine Entertainment-owned newspapers The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age have brought together a panel of “experts” to assess how well-prepared Australia is for a hot war with its primary trading partner. The question of if Continue reading »
I saw a comment about the drop in the U.S. Federal debt-to-GDP ratio, which reminded me that I wanted to discuss it once the data started to settle down. As can be seen in the above chart, the public debt-to-GDP ratio went from 135% in 2020Q2 to 120% in 2022Q3 (latest figure on FRED). A drop of (roughly) 15% in the ratio without some kind of “austerity” policies might seem surprising — but it is only surprising if you look at debt dynamics the wrong way. That wrong way is relying on “real” variables — real GDP growth, real interest rates — as well as thinking too much about long-term “steady state” or “equilibrium” values.Bond Economics
The reliance on “real analysis” (ha ha) leads to silly things like charts of the U.S. debt/GDP ratio marching in a straight line towards 200%. (Yes, CBO, I am not laughing with you.) This framing also leads to neoclassical economists going on about the question: is r greater or less than g?...
Debt/GDP Ratio: Beware "Real Analysis"
Brian Romanchuk
On 28 February 2023, the Danielle Smith government tabled Alberta’s 2023-2024 budget. Projecting a $2.4 billion surplus for the coming fiscal year, the budget announced some spending increases; but many are effectively cuts when one accounts for both inflation and population growth. Here are 10 things to know: In sum. When one accounts for both inflation and population growth, this [...]
Ouch Jezebel: As a follower of Florida Gov. and likely presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis’ (R) varying moral crimes against queer kids, marginalized people, and even books that dare to mention LGBTQ+ issues, I feel obligated to direct your attention now to the irony of him continually wearing high heels. You see, American presidents tend to be tall. We rarely elect presidents under six feet tall, actually—a fact pointed out by Burlington County Times, which coldly quipped that “manlets” (ostensibly men under six feet) “need not apply” to the office. This is deeply intertwined with the fact that America has never elected a woman president: Voters still seem to be hanging onto this idea that a president has to appear manly and strong, though masculinity and physical strength literally have nothing to do with the job description. Enter DeSantis, whom varying sources approximate to be in the height range of 5’8” to 5’10”.
Conspiracies about voter fraud put our country in danger Navigator is out this morning with new polling: Nine in ten Americans are concerned about the spread of misinformation. 90 percent of Americans say they are worried about misinformation, framed as “false or inaccurate information, especially that which is deliberately intended to deceive those who read or hear it.” This includes overwhelming majorities across party lines: Democrats are most concerned about misinformation (95 percent), but more than four in five Republicans (86 percent) and independents (82 percent) say the same. Cold War babies called this propaganda. But Americans associated propaganda with the Ruskies, with communists. Nowadays, more anodyne terms apply lest we paint Real Americans™ with the same brush. They might take offense. Respondents report encountering misinformation most often on social media and from Fox.
How a word like "equality" has become a bit of a minefield.
Doctor Who showrunner Russell T. Davies made it clear that he's not going anywhere anytime soon; Katy Manning (Jo Grant) discusses spinoffs.
Cesspit of Labour right regime again on show Keir Starmer has posted a tweet welcoming Mike Gapes back to the Labour party. Gapes was one of the handful of Labour right lightweights who quit the Labour party to start the disastrous and racism-linked ‘Change UK’ and worked to prevent a Labour victory in the 2019 […]
Maggie Millner’s debut, Couplets, is a novel in couplets, but also a lyric in lithe but taut paired lines. Better maybe to say that it gestures at the novel, particularly the great love stories—and misadventures—of the nineteenth-century novel. It’s not so much a narrative as the remains of a narrative, as if the set-up and emplotting have been removed, as if the sentences had been stretched sometimes, or compressed, working their way into a long-lined rhythm that suits the rhyming couplets well. The rhymes are often muted, made so by their off-kilter relationships, like “sex” and “transgress” or “husband” and “Casaubon.” There are occasional prose poems, too, but mostly what unfolds unfolds—and disintegrates—across this book-length sequence of two-lined stanzas: a voice detailing its own undoing. The voice tells of a relationship with a man that falls apart as the speaker falls in love with a woman, first with the man’s encouragement, then despite his resistance.
Schwarzenegger keeps trying God knows we all have our flaws, our blind spots and weaknesses. The Austrian immigrant who became an international superstar and California governor has his. One thing wealth and fame have not erased is the memory of what World War II did to his father and to the broken men of his father’s generation who served the Nazi cause. Arnold Schwarzenegger filmed a 12-minute sermon on how the path of hate eats the soul: Schwarzenegger’s rhetoric was couched in terms of a motivational pep-talk for those with prejudice: “Nazis? Losers. The Confederacy? Losers. The apartheid movement? Losers. I don’t want you to be a loser. I don’t want you to be weak … despite all my friends who might say, ‘Arnold, don’t talk to those people. It’s not worth it.’ “I don’t care what they say. I care about you. I think you’re worth it. I know nobody is perfect … I can understand how people can fall into a trap of prejudice and hate.” Schwarzenegger is not talking just about antisemitism but, in the subtext, about the kind of venom being spewed at CPAC and by Gov.
So many crises — from war to mass species die-offs to climate meltdown — afflict our world that we often don’t take time to draw insights from what generally passes for the small stuff, the things that happen all too close to home, including aging. Most of us don’t relish the prospect of getting old, much less watching our parents approach their deaths, something that’s even worse if you’re dying poor. Having a parent die, whatever the circumstances, is bound to be wrenching. The best we daughters and sons can hope for is that our parents finish out their lives on their own terms and where they want to be — with loved ones nearby and suffering as little as... Read more
Source: A Tale of Two Mothers appeared first on TomDispatch.com.
Many countries fail to protect, or even actively exploit, their coastal marine reserves – how will new initiatives be different?
The UK Government must do more to stand against the curtailing of democracy by Beijing in the former British colony – and fulfil its legal and moral responsibilities, writes Lord Alton