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The Jedi Academy Will No Longer Teach Anakin Skywalker’s Massacre of the Younglings

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the-jedi-academy-will-no-longer-teach-anaki…
Created
Wed, 08/02/2023 - 05:00

“The new Republican governor of Arkansas, Sarah Sanders, said the move to ban critical race theory in public schools in her state was a preventative measure… ‘Our teachers absolutely need to teach our history,’ Sanders said, ‘but they shouldn’t teach our kids and our students ideas to hate this country and to give a false premise about who we are and what we’re about. And that is something that we have to make sure we protect our students from.’” – The Guardian

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I sense a great disturbance in the Force. Cynical academics are attempting to corrupt our society with their inaccurate revisionist history. In order to protect our Padawans from being indoctrinated in the Dark Side’s ideology, the Council has decided to excise certain ugly chapters from the ancient Jedi texts.

Australia’s National Security Strategy

https://johnmenadue.com/australias-national-security-strategy-part-1-pic-wong-a…
Created
Wed, 08/02/2023 - 04:59
To paraphrase former US President, Theodore Roosevelt, Australia’s national security is best achieved by talking softly while carrying a formidable stick as a deterrent.  For decades following World War II, American leadership provided both security and economic order for the Indo-Pacific region. This rules-based system underpinned stability and unprecedented economic growth and prosperity in our Continue reading »

Australia’s future in Asia: bridge or spear?

https://johnmenadue.com/australias-future-in-asia-bridge-or-spear/
Created
Wed, 08/02/2023 - 04:58
The perceptive Singaporian diplomat Kishore Mahbubani remarked recently that: ‘Australia’s strategic dilemma in the twenty-first century is simple: it can choose to be a bridge between East and West in the Asian Century—or the tip of the spear projecting Western power into Asia.’ He clearly believed that it was a matter of deliberate choice, a Continue reading »

An AUKUS ménage à trois

https://johnmenadue.com/an-aukus-menage-a-trois/
Created
Wed, 08/02/2023 - 04:57
As the government offers new hints at the ‘optimal path’ for the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines, the questions about the viability of the project mount. The political pressure to out-muscle the Coalition on ‘national security’, if that’s what is driving the Labor government’s enthusiasm for this impending car-crash, should not be allowed to undermine the national Continue reading »

Towards an Australian Centre for Disease Control

https://johnmenadue.com/towards-an-australian-centre-for-disease-control/
Created
Wed, 08/02/2023 - 04:56
Three years into the Covid -19 pandemic the many weaknesses and disconnections within the jurisdictional decision-making arrangements are clear. These fault lines significantly impair our national capacity to reliably detect and respond to this ongoing outbreak in a timely, effective and efficient manner. We urgently need to develop integrated national and international responses to disease Continue reading »

Population, growth and the environment: a response to Michael Keating

https://johnmenadue.com/response-to-growth-theorists-population/
Created
Wed, 08/02/2023 - 04:55
Michael Keating’s response to the P&I article series on growth – GDP and population – is very welcome as it provides a condensed summary of what has befuddled Australian political economy in recent decades. Problem one is his seeming complete unfamiliarity with post-growth scholarship: the problems it identifies, the causes of the problems, and the Continue reading »

Inflation Index Calculation Basics — Brian Romanchuk

http://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.com/2023/02/inflation-index-calculation-bas…
Created
Wed, 08/02/2023 - 04:55
There are three main steps needed to calculate a consumer price index.
  • Determine weightings based on consumption.
  • Go out and measure prices in the economy.
  • Aggregate the measured prices into sub-indices which are in turn aggregated into an overall price index.
Statistical issues ensue.

Bond Economics
Inflation Index Calculation Basics
Brian Romanchuk

Pearls and Irritations comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable

https://johnmenadue.com/pearls-and-irritations-comforts-the-afflicted-and-affli…
Created
Wed, 08/02/2023 - 04:54
Pearls and Irritations comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable. Pearls and Irritations is an immensely valuable contribution to understanding major public issues. Every morning five or six challenging articles arrive in my Inbox, delivered without charge and without sponsors. (I have written some myself). Pearls and Irritations comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable. Continue reading »

Putin’s twilight: a prelude to darkness or a new dawn?

https://johnmenadue.com/putins-twilight-a-prelude-to-darkness-or-a-new-dawn/
Created
Wed, 08/02/2023 - 04:51
In his post on 7 January Lawrence Freedman concluded that “The question of what it takes to get Russia to abandon its war of conquest remains unanswered.” The answer, at least in part, has to be a change of leadership – most likely a generational change. For Putin this is a war, not about territory, but about Continue reading »

More evidence that the West sabotaged peace In Ukraine

https://johnmenadue.com/more-evidence-that-the-west-sabotaged-peace-in-ukraine/
Created
Wed, 08/02/2023 - 04:50
Days after the war in Ukraine began it was reported by The New York Times that “President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has asked the Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett, to mediate negotiations in Jerusalem between Ukraine and Russia.” In a recent interview, Bennett made some very interesting comments about what happened during those negotiations in Continue reading »

The Orban schtick

https://digbysblog.net/2023/02/07/the-orban-schtick/
Created
Wed, 08/02/2023 - 04:30
Aaron says this is Trumpesque, which it is on one level. But really, this is Viktor Orban all the way: Note the Orwellian “Truth” running behind him.It’s very creepy. Orban’s method of media dominance probably wouldn’t work here in the US with our media system but the intent is the same. And I could easily see President DeSantis trying some of these tactics. If they can simultaneously weaken the judiciary some of them could work: As Orbán has consolidated his grip on Hungary, his control of the media is now nearly absolute. In 2010, he cut all state advertising funds to critical news outlets and threatened to sever contracts with private advertisers that continued to support targeted media. The following year, he established a Fidesz-controlled media council with the power to levy bankrupting fines against news outlets that did not favor the Fidesz worldview. Hit on all sides by financial attacks, independent and opposition media began to fail just as news media across the globe were struggling financially to adapt to the online world.

Openly Pro-Israel Tech Group Now Has Control over UK’s Most Sensitive National Security Data

https://www.mintpressnews.com/pro-israel-oracle-larry-ellison-control-uk-sensit…
Created
Wed, 08/02/2023 - 02:58

Software giant Oracle, whose CEO Larry Ellison has troubling ties to the Israeli government, just signed a massive deal to store the UK's most sensitive military data.

The post Openly Pro-Israel Tech Group Now Has Control over UK’s Most Sensitive National Security Data appeared first on MintPress News.

Politeness, what a concept

https://digbysblog.net/2023/02/07/politeness-what-a-concept/
Created
Wed, 08/02/2023 - 02:30
You mean not start with hostility? Efforts to reform policing in this country usually involve reworking the training, more of it, eliminating qualified immunity, or technical solutions like body cameras. Mona Charon offers a novel start at police reform that requires politeness. The first thing the Memphis “Scorpion Unit” did when it stopped Tyre Nichols before beating him to death, Charon writes, was to curse at him. Over alleged reckless driving. Why? In a society as gun-saturated as ours, I can understand an order like Let me see your hands, or if the police are planning a roadside sobriety check, a request to Step out of the car. But there is no reason that both of those orders cannot be preceded by Sir or Please or both. Our judicial system is founded on the principle of innocent until proven guilty. Yet our police interactions with citizens too often seem grounded in the opposite assumption. Obviously, in the Nichols’ case, the profanity was the least of the offenses the cops (and others) committed, but it seems that some police lapse into profanity with citizens regularly.

BIG FINISH: Torchwood: Launch Date – Ianto plays Cupid

https://www.blogtorwho.com/big-finish-torchwood-launch-date-ianto-plays-cupid/
Created
Wed, 08/02/2023 - 02:00

Story details and cover artwork are today revealed for a brand-new full-cast audio adventure, Torchwood: Launch Date, due for release in April from Big Finish Productions. In this Torchwood rom-com, Launch Date, there’s an alien threat looming and the only way to defeat it is unusual, to say the least. Ianto Jones (Gareth David Lloyd) […]

The post BIG FINISH: Torchwood: Launch Date – Ianto plays Cupid appeared first on Blogtor Who.