On the original Armistice Day in 1918, there was rejoicing at the return of peace as well as the grief, sadness and horror at the appalling human cost of World War 1 – “The War to End Wars”. Since that time the techniques for damaging and destroying human lives have “progressed” to their current, devastating Continue reading »
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Every time a fascist-flirting regime is defeated in an election, more column inches and podcast minutes are devoted to the sense that the moral arc of the universe bends towards justice. When Trump, Bolsonaro, Sunak’s Tories or the Law and Justice Party in Poland lose elections, the centrist commentariat breathes a sigh of relief, believing Continue reading »
As reported in Pearls and Irritations on 11 November 2024, the ACCC executive members who had accepted membership to the QANTAS Chairman’s lounge should have divested themselves of that benefit before commencing the investigation into QANTAS or resigned. Following on from the ACCC issue, Australia at least at the Federal level, has a very serious Continue reading »
If you are like me, you are fed up with the so-called educated ‘Left’ who are not at all educated in the underlying causes of humankind’s current problems and the solutions to them. You will also be fed up with people believing that when we elect Left or Centre-Left parties, the world is on track Continue reading »
AI is already showing dangerous signs of delivering more harm than good. The motivations behind its creation show why. Alessandra Pucci (Pearls & Irritations, October 27) has raised several important points that need careful investigation. But because of the interactions between AI and the collective human brain, these are unlikely to be adequately investigated. As Continue reading »
When Hong Kong’s policy makers were formulating the offence of foreign interference endangering national security, they did not operate in a vacuum. International models were examined, and they heavily influenced the final product. They included the National Security Legislation Amendment (Espionage and Amendment) Act 2018 of Australia, now incorporated into the country’s Criminal Code Act Continue reading »
The cause of Kamala Harris’ disastrous failure in the 2024 presidential election will forever be debated, but there are good reasons to believe the Israeli genocide in Gaza played a significant role. Why did Kamala Harris lose the 2024 presidential election? There is no shortage of answers to this question, most of them self-affirming and Continue reading »
Kitchy and quasi-totalitarian ghastliness, USA (from 2008)
These people are prepared to destroy everything, as long as they can command the ruins. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 15th November 2024 Imagine, as many people do, an all-seeing eye in the sky, looking down on planet Earth. Imagine seeing what it sees. It watches, over the course of decades, ice caps […]
Rachel Reeves thinks that the regulation imposed on the UK financial sector in the wake of the Great Financial Crisis has ‘gone too far’. She described the UK finance sector as the ‘crown jewel’ of the UK economy and argued that its potential had been hemmed in by unnecessary regulation since 2008. Reeves pledged to […]
Silicon Valley has successfully rebranded military contracting as a proud national duty for the industry.
The post Trump’s Election Is Also a Win for Tech’s Right-Wing “Warrior Class” appeared first on The Intercept.
I det senaste avsnittet av Starta Pressarna pratar Daniel Suhonen och Max Jerneck med Andreas Cervenka om hans nyutkomna bok Fuskbygget. Hur har vi kunnat tillåta att våra bostäder har blivit en handelsvara som gör storbankerna stormrika? Och varför har staten tillåtIt framväxten av ett system som förvandlar ett i grunden mänskligt behov av att […]
History never repeats (I tell myself before I go to sleep) – Split Enz These past 10 days have felt like…a bad dream: Last night with @realDonaldTrump & @JMilei pic.twitter.com/8AjQ8QMAIM — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 15, 2024 But alas, as Mia Farrow famously exclaimed in Rosemary’s Baby: Speaking of bad dreams…in an excellent piece published this week titled “Alexander Hamilton’s Nightmare Realized: How the Billionaires Hijacked America”, Thom Hartmann writes: Alexander Hamilton thought he (and the others who wrote the Constitution) had it all figured out. He and his colleagues never imagined that a group of billionaires would spend 43 years and billions of dollars to seize the US Supreme Court, which would then legalize political bribery. They never conceived of a foreign billionaire family coming to American and building a nationwide media ecosystem that was capable of convincing Americans that up was down, wrong was right, and a convicted fraudster and rapist would be a noble president.
Apparently, they don’t know: This grotesque action is happening all over the country and as far as I can tell nobody knows who’s doing it. I guess the point is to harrass and frighten kids. It’s working: Several Santa Monica High School students also received the derogatory message; they immediately reported the situation to school administrators and their parents. “I sent it to my family group chat and was like ‘Oh my god, someone sent me this message,’ and [my mom] was like ‘This is not okay’,” said Aubrielle Gomez. “I was shocked and I kind of started laughing because I thought it wasn’t real.” Ericka Lesley, whose children attend Santa Monica High School and were sent the text, says that the hateful messaging underscores a much larger issue not only plaguing California but all of America. “My son wants to leave the country; he doesn’t feel safe here,” Lesley told KTLA. “There are other people who say ‘Oh, we’re in California, we’re okay,’ — we’ve become too comfortable.
Leaked files show top UK military figures conspired to carry out the Kerch bridge bombing, covertly train “Gladio”-style stay-behind forces in Ukraine, and groom the British public for a drop in living standards caused by the proxy war against Russia. Emails and internal documents reviewed by The Grayzone reveal details of a cabal of British military and intelligence veterans which plotted to escalate and prolong the Ukraine proxy war “at all costs.” Convened under the direction of the British Ministry […]
The post Leaks expose secret British military cell plotting to ‘keep Ukraine fighting’ first appeared on The Grayzone.
The post Leaks expose secret British military cell plotting to ‘keep Ukraine fighting’ appeared first on The Grayzone.
Before the election, Rolling Stone asked a number of experts on authoritarianism about what to do if Trump won. They all had good advice but, for me, this is at the top of the list: Seeing the Threat Clearly Experts in authoritarianism insist that Trump’s dictatorial threats need to be taken with gravity because he’s already done “things that autocrats do,” says Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a history professor at New York University who is an expert in Italian fascism and the author of Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present. “He has been able to domesticate a very old, storied party, and truly make it his personal tool,” she tells Rolling Stone. “He instigated a violent coup attempt,” and — instead of “having to go into exile or going to prison, like in Peru” — he “managed to paint it as a positive thing” or to make “a lot of Americans shrug their shoulders at it.” These are “preconditions for autocracy,” she insists.
Karoline Leavitt has been named Trump’s press secretary. She is 26 years old. Trump clearly thinks she’s right out of central casting. She’s also MAGA to the max: In MAGA world, Karoline Leavitt is a rising star. A former Trump White House staffer, she won national notice last year when, at just 25 years of age, she captured the GOP nomination for a New Hampshire congressional seat. In April, she was hired as a spokesperson by Trump’s super-PAC. But earlier this year, her focus seemed to be elsewhere. She published a series of op-eds heaping praise on Guo Wengui, an exiled Chinese mogul and ally of Steve Bannon who has styled himself a leading critic of the Chinese Communist Party. Guo, who also goes by Miles Guo, has since been arrested and indicted in a massive fraud case. […] The op-eds were highly specific.
I have a problem with registering domains. When I have an idea for a Web site, software project, organization, or sometimes just a pun or joke, I’ll go on a domain registrar site and see what related domains are available. I’ll brainstorm a bit in the search screen to try some different options for names … Continue reading How to register just enough domains
There’s money in it Rolling Stone reports: Donald Trump’s incoming administration brass wants it made clear: The president-elect is not planning to build a brand new network of “camps” to house the myriad undocumented immigrants who Trump has vowed to round up in what he claims will be “the largest deportation” operation in the “history of our country.” To be sure, Trump’s migrant expulsion program, if he were to follow through with his plans to deport millions, would require massive new camps — something that Trump’s top policy-hand has explicitly told reporters.
Carbon capture and storage fails to deliver carbon but succeeds for governments and industry. The pros and cons of reducing your personal carbon footprint. How best to tackle Australia’s land clearing loopholes. Carbon capture and storage is not the solution Kevin Morrison has succinctly summed up the carbon capture and storage (CCS) con trick being Continue reading »