Reading

Created
Thu, 30/03/2023 - 04:54
The media here thought the terrorism over past decades in Australia fell from the deep blue sky and had no relationship to the help John Howard gave to George Bush in the illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq. Twenty years after that invasion, the Australian media continue to fail us badly over its coverage of Continue reading »
Created
Thu, 30/03/2023 - 04:52
Early this month, the Daily Mail published a story online implying three Chinese men taking photos at the Avalon Airshow in Melbourne were spies. After complaints and an open letter condemning the paper for racially profiling the Chinese communities and throwing around baseless accusations, the story disappeared from the Mail’s site without explanation. Then, The Sydney Morning Continue reading »
Created
Thu, 30/03/2023 - 04:51
In the face of the shocking anti-trans and neo-Nazi rally last Saturday in Melbourne, it’s a time for solidarity – visible solidarity with those we love and all who walk with them. Show your support by joining me at 5.30pm Friday, March 31st at the State Library, Melbourne. Let’s reclaim the streets together. Dear friends, Continue reading »
Created
Thu, 30/03/2023 - 04:30
It’s looking dicey for the latest Great Whitebread Hope Nobody has ever absorbed the right-wing politics of grievance as eagerly as Donald Trump. In anticipation of his possible run for president in 2016, one of Trump’s smartest moves was to deploy aide Sam Nunberg to listen to talk radio for him and give him a rundown on all the talking points floating around in the right-wing fever swamp. He was a CNN guy but he knew that whatever Fox News and Rush Limbaugh were talking about was what the base of the Republican Party was interested in and that’s where he would aim his candidacy. As it happened, Trump found that he and they were very much on the same wavelength. He didn’t even attempt to please the political establishment or cater to their needs. Trump runs almost entirely on instinct. He’s bragged openly that he doesn’t need to learn anymore because he already knows everything he needs to know. In business, he refused to look at marketing data and analyses because he trusted his personal vibes over a bunch of pointy headed numbers crunchers. He hired people because they genuflected to him, not because they had any expertise.
Created
Thu, 30/03/2023 - 04:00

“Twitter users will need a ‘verified account’ to get recommended on the platform’s For You page starting on April 15th, according to a Monday evening tweet from CEO Elon Musk. Given that Twitter has promised to start dismantling the ‘legacy’ verified system at the beginning of April, that appears to mean that you’ll have to be a company, government entity, or Twitter Blue subscriber if you want to pop into the feeds of people who don’t follow you.” — The Verge

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Uruk-hai,

Starting April 15, the White Hand of Saruman will only be given out to Uruk-hai who have a paid subscription to SaruBlue. You do not know pain, you do not know fear, and you will taste man-flesh, all for just $8 a month.

I realize this is a change from our previous model, in which White Hands were given out to all my perfected, fighting Uruk-hai, but this subscription-based model is the only realistic way to ensure true, authentic Uruk-hai are within our midst.

Created
Thu, 30/03/2023 - 03:00
Fox is NOT a journalistic entity, it’s a political operation.A person working for a PAC wouldn’t get congressional press credentials, but Fox does.It’s time to revoke the congressional press credentials for anybody from #Fox. I’m happy Marcy started the conversation. I want to move it forward. I think that de-credentialing should be one result following the resolution of the Dominion case in favor of Dominion. Why Bother To Revoke Fox’s Credentials? Press credentials have VALUE to Fox. It allows them, as a political operation, to masquerade as a news organization. I’m making the case that Fox is like the RNC or a Political Action Committee and not a journalistic entity, therefore they are not entitled to the benefits and protections we offer journalistic entities in America. Having Congressional Press credentials is a sign of legitimacy. Not having them wouldn’t mean they couldn’t still do stories about congress, but NOT having them, and the REASON they don’t have them sends a message to everyone. I’m already hearing all the defeatist responses from the left about trying to do this.
Created
Thu, 30/03/2023 - 02:09
Earlier this week, I was at a meeting to discuss the question whether my university should cut its ties with the fossil industry, or else impose additional conditions on working with partners from fossil industries. There was quite some agreement that the university should think hard about spelling out and endorsing a moral framework, and […]
Created
Thu, 30/03/2023 - 01:30
“any reasonable method to promote peace” “The first militia church I went to I thought was a fluke,” Jeff Sharlet (The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War) told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes Tuesday evening. “And then I started to realize that churches were arming up with the expectation of civil war.” “The doomsday prepper of the past has become a mainstay of rightwing culture,” Sharlet found in his research travels. Sharlet writes about Ashli Babbitt, shot and killed by Capitol security as she tried to climb through broken glass into the Speaker’s Lobby on Jan. 6. I did not know law enforcement had found a weapon on her body inside the ambulance. Babbitt’s knife appears on the cover of Sharlet’s new book. It’s one of those details that the MAGA right does not want or need to know. It detracts from the near-virginal image MAGA Republicans have built up around her since the insurrection. “They were aging Ashli back” within days, Sharlet says, making her “smaller, younger, as if whiter.” A young white girl.
Created
Thu, 30/03/2023 - 00:25
Starmeroid Praful Nargun, who runs chain of private clinics with his gynaecologist mother, wants Islington North parliamentary seat A private health boss has thrown his hat into the ring to contest Islington North for Starmer’s Labour in the hope of taking the seat from Jeremy Corbyn at the next general election. Kier Starmer’s acolytes on […]
Created
Thu, 30/03/2023 - 00:00
That book is banned, comrade MAGA Floridians fear ideas they find mildly threatening. Heads are not rolling yet, but it’s open season on books. At the slightest objection — outrage-addicted MAGAs are drunk on the power of it — Florida is removing books from its schools. A new measure in the Florida legislature would allow any person raising any objection to any book to disappear it as quickly as an East German neighbor turned over to Stasi. Greg Sargent writes that while the bill seems to have support from Republican presidential hopeful Gov. Ron DeSantis, passage could backfire: “If Florida passes this bill, it may be the first state in the country to institute in every public school a rule requiring the immediate removal of materials following an objection,” Jeffrey Sachs, a political scientist who closely tracks these proposals, told me.
Created
Thu, 30/03/2023 - 00:00

In her eleventh book of poetry, Brenda Hillman has given us an expansive lyric—I want to say epic—of our times. The result: gorgeous and subtle, and the work of a poet at the height of her powers. In a Few Minutes Before Later is part of a sequence of books by the poet that take as their subject the nature of time, and our lives in its hold. Her last book, Extra Hidden Life, Among the Days took the day as its preoccupation, and this one measures our existence in minutes, which is to say it’s concerned with a certain kind of moment, a certain urgency, a certain fleeting eternity. Some of that urgency comes born of an awareness that one kind of ending—death—is closer than ever. Some of that urgency is the urgency of a sick world: a number of lines in the book are occasioned, it seems, by having to pack—having to think about packing—a few essential papers before running out of the house because of wildfires. Some of the urgency, then, is a tuning of the breath, of breathing in the stress and hellscape of a beautiful but troubled planet.

Created
Wed, 29/03/2023 - 23:00

“When a champion is crowned at the end of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament, it doesn’t feel official until their highlights are accompanied by ‘One Shining Moment,’ a song that has become synonymous with March Madness.” — The Sporting News

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Player on team that lost national championship game: -100

Player on team that won national championship game: -100

Player on any team in tournament who has weird facial hair: -100

Player on team that lost national championship game crying: -250

Player on team that won national championship game crying: -500

Player on any team in tournament who has weird facial hair and is crying: -1000

Player tipping the jump ball: +100