Reading

Created
Wed, 22/03/2023 - 03:01
Steve Martin and Adam Gopnik celebrate the launch of their new audiobook, So Many Steves, with an evening of music, conversation, and merriment. This multi-media event will include lively conversation and even some musical performances from these old friends. All tickets come with a copy of the So Many Steves audiobook, which will be available for download on May 2. This event will take place on May 4, 2023 at 7pm at the Peter Jay Sharp Theatre in New York City. Livestream Tickets are also available. For more info and tickets, visit, symphonyspace.org
Created
Wed, 22/03/2023 - 02:52

By The Center for Economic and Policy Research The New York Times seems to think it is a newspaper’s job to promote bank panics wherever possible. It would be difficult to explain its reporting on the Silicon Valley Bank’s (SVB) collapse any other way. Last week it ran a piece implying that Silicon Valley’s tech sector was […]

The post New York Times Tries for Pulitzer Prize in Irresponsible Reporting on Bank Crises appeared first on scheerpost.com.

Created
Wed, 22/03/2023 - 02:52
Today U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) announced the first piece of legislation in his new Worker’s Agenda to Rebuild America. The Ending Normal Trade Relations with China Act would revoke China's normal trade relations status to reduce our dependency and protect America’s working class.

China is America’s greatest adversary. To win the fierce economic competition for jobs, industry, and the future, America must return to the long-standing formula for American success: strong and independent workers. Years of short-sighted decisions by policymakers in Washington have only perpetuated the problem.
Created
Wed, 22/03/2023 - 02:26

On March 1st, under the guise of the SNP leadership contest, the Scottish Government signed one of Scotland’s largest-ever PFI deals. NatureScot’s new £2bn partnership with private finance perfectly illustrates how ‘green capitalism’ has come to haunt efforts to tackle the climate emergency. Signed by a Green government minister, the ‘pilot’ project aims to ‘secure […]

Created
Wed, 22/03/2023 - 02:13
The First Great Environmental Crisis Will Be

Water. As I’ve said for many years.

The world is facing an imminent water crisis, with demand expected to outstrip the supply of fresh water by 40 percent by the end of this decade, experts have said on the eve of a crucial UN water summit.

I’ll use the US as an example, though this going to effect almost all countries, some much worse than others, and it will cause a number of wars. Candidates include all nations along the Nile River, and all nations around the Himalayan plateau, among many others. The US may threaten war with Canada to get Canada’s water resources and may invade if Canada is recalcitrant. The Great Lakes will be a great problem.

Created
Wed, 22/03/2023 - 01:48
Management has tried to sell deal as a win, as more and more unions capitulate under alleged pressure from Starmer and TUC The left on the UCU union’s higher education committee have defeated an attempt by the union’s management to railroad striking workers into a ballot on a dire ‘deal’ offered by employers that members […]
Created
Wed, 22/03/2023 - 01:30
An oldie but goodie The conservative columnist best unnamed and cited below went viral last week for being unable to define “woke” after claiming to have devoted an entire chapter to it in her recent book. Matt Binder (better him than me) dredged up a classic tweet by her from 2012. It’s “the conservative mindset perfectly distilled in a single tweet.” Sorry, it’s giants all the way down.
Created
Wed, 22/03/2023 - 00:31
An ongoing concern is that excessive focus on formal modeling and statistics can lead to neglect of practical issues and to overconfidence in formal results … Analysis interpretation depends on contextual judgments about how reality is to be mapped onto the model, and how the formal analysis results are to be mapped back into reality. […]
Created
Wed, 22/03/2023 - 00:02

In April 1953, newly elected President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a retired five-star Army general who had led the landings on D-Day in France in June 1944, gave his most powerful speech. It would become known as his “Cross of Iron” address. In it, Ike warned of the cost humanity would pay if Cold War competition led to a world dominated by wars and weaponry that couldn’t be reined in. In the immediate aftermath of the death of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, Ike extended an olive branch to the new leaders of that empire. He sought, he said, to put America and the world on a “highway to peace.” It was, of course, never to be, as this country’s emergent military-industrial-congressional complex (MICC)... Read more

Created
Wed, 22/03/2023 - 00:00
No country for Black men (among others) Virginia’s Central State Hospital’s original name (according to its Wikipedia entry) was Central Lunatic Asylum. The Petersburg facility “was the first institution in the country for ‘colored persons of unsound mind’.” On March 6, it was the site of the alleged second-degree murder by asphyxiation of shackled Irvo N. Otieno who is unavailable for comment. The Washington Post reports: As many as10 sheriff’s deputies and medical staff at Virginia’s Central State Hospital can be seen piling on top of a shackled Irvo N. Otieno for approximately 11 minutes until he stops moving, according to new video showing the encounter that led to the 28-year-old Black man’s death. The hospital surveillance video, which has no sound, shows Otieno’s final moments on March 6, from the time Henrico County sheriff’s deputies drag him into a hospital admissions room in handcuffs and leg irons, to the 11 minutes in which they restrain Otieno on the ground, to the moment when they release Otieno’s limp body around 4:40 p.m. Most of those visible in the video appear Black themselves.
Created
Tue, 21/03/2023 - 23:00

Dear Miss Heather,

We’re writing to get a little more clarity about Robbie’s job as Snack Helper last week, why he was so quickly replaced (especially without a proper review), and the procedure for him to file a grievance (Robbie said there was no relevant paperwork in the Blocks Corner).

We were very excited when we heard you were starting a job training program after the holiday break. It’s been months of fingerpainting and leaf collages, and, quite frankly, we felt Robbie was ready for something a little more rigorous, with an eye toward his future. We’ve been working on his résumé and interview skills at home, so we were a little taken aback—but flattered!—that he was offered the position of Snack Helper without any sort of competitive hiring process. We’d been hearing about how much uncertainty there is in the labor market these days, so we were pleased to see that he was such a desirable candidate.