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Created
Wed, 11/12/2024 - 05:00

How You Met

Boston: Attended the same biotech industry mixer.

Chicago: Saw each other’s reflection in the Bean during golden hour.

New York: Almost sat in the same pee puddle on the C train.

The Pickup Line

Boston: “I went to school just outside Boston. No, not Tufts.”

Chicago: “Call me Tom Skilling, because I’m forecasting some action later.”

New York: “I have an in-unit washer-dryer.”

Asking You Out

Boston: “Wanna get Italian food in the North End?”

Chicago: “We should grab a drink by the lake and pretend it’s the ocean.”

New York: “Let’s get condescended to by the staff at a West Village wine bar.”

What Time the Date Starts

Boston: “8 p.m.”

Chicago: “Tonight-ish.”

New York: “Whenever my first date of the night ends.”

Created
Wed, 11/12/2024 - 04:57
The Adass Israel synagogue in Ripponlea, Melbourne was firebombed this week in a horrific attack. When this synagogue was set ablaze, the incident also took a match and gasoline to our news cycle. The debate around antisemitism was already primed to blow. Only a week before the Executive Council of Australian Jewry had published a Continue reading »
Created
Wed, 11/12/2024 - 04:54
Anthony Albanese is not our best leader. He should go now. It’s an open question whether Tanya Plibersek would be the best candidate to lead the Labor Party as Australia’s next Prime Minister. Jim Chalmers is the obvious alternative and there could be others. Both would have a strong claim if there were to be Continue reading »
Created
Wed, 11/12/2024 - 04:52
From the day the war began, 15-year old Ghazal’s life was irreversibly changed. “They destroyed what was inside us,” she said. Her story is a window into the larger tragedy of how war has devastated children, especially those with disabilities. The unimaginable cost of war Ghazal, a 15-year-old girl with cerebral palsy, has lost her Continue reading »
Created
Wed, 11/12/2024 - 04:51
A non- prejudicial clause can end internal bickering. President Prabowo Subianto’s proposal for a joint development project in the South China Sea (SCS) with China has hit a snag. His foreign Minister, Pak Sugiono, was lynched before a parliamentary Committee on 3 December by lawmakers demanding answers to why Indonesia agreed to the term “overlapping Continue reading »
Created
Wed, 11/12/2024 - 04:50
“The first CIA effort at regime change in Syria was in 1947 at the very moment of its inception. And there were multiple efforts to overthrow governments in Syria and well before Bashar Al Assad took power. … They all failed. There were efforts of course to change the Bashar Al Assad regime, to overthrow Continue reading »
Created
Wed, 11/12/2024 - 02:30
Ben Wikler on “The Daily Show” Ben Wikler, Democratic Party of Wisconsin chair, appeared Monday night on “The Daily Show” and made an impression on host Jon Stewart. That’s not easy to do for a political operative. Wikler, 43, a founding producer for Al Franken’s Air America radio show and former national adviser to MoveOn, is running for Democratic National Committee chair. “The passion that you’re bringing, that feels like what it needs in this moment,” Stewart said, remarking that DNC chairs he’s interviewed before felt much more corporate. “You are approaching [politics] from a much more populist, bottom-up standpoint than I’ve heard in the past. Other than Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy.” At that Dean reference, the audience applauded. I’ve mentioned Wikler in the context of the DNC chair’s race twice already. The two front runners for the position are Wikler and Minnesota’s DFL chair Ken Martin. I met Martin in passing this year at a North Carolina party meeting. He’s known, experienced, impressive, and connected. But indulge me.
Created
Wed, 11/12/2024 - 01:30

In the early 1990s, doctors in Hiroshima, Japan, discovered a stress-induced syndrome they called Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, or “broken heart syndrome” — a condition in which the heart’s left ventricle, responsible for pumping blood, loses its capacity in response to extreme stressors like war, natural disaster, and the loss of loved ones. Prevalent among older women, that acute condition involves heart attack-like symptoms, including chest pain and pressure, light-headedness, and dread. More recently, Israeli doctors in Tel Aviv noted a spike in the condition after the October 7, 2023, attack by the militant group Hamas and Israel’s subsequent incursion into (and devastation of) Gaza in response. The mothers of Israeli soldiers in particular have been affected, as have many who didn’t... Read more

Created
Wed, 11/12/2024 - 01:00
The anger of the crowd and the pettiness of plutocrats Princeton economist Paul Krugman just published his final New York Times column in a body of work begun in January 2000. He considers how the world has changed over 25 years. It’s a grimmer place: What strikes me, looking back, is how optimistic many people, both here and in much of the Western world, were back then and the extent to which that optimism has been replaced by anger and resentment. And I’m not just talking about members of the working class who feel betrayed by elites; some of the angriest, most resentful people in America right now — people who seem very likely to have a lot of influence with the incoming Trump administration — are billionaires who don’t feel sufficiently admired. Krugman doesn’t mention Trump again, but he’s the most prominent of those resentful billionaires. In early 2000, Krugman writes, “Polls showed a level of satisfaction with the direction of the country that looks surreal by today’s standards.” One could point to many reasons for the public mood, but the collapse of public faith in elites features prominently.
Created
Wed, 11/12/2024 - 00:00

Like many women around the world and across industries, Mrs. Claus has adopted a simple mantra to get through the waning days of a challenging year: Survive till 25. (December 25, that is.)

Here are a few of her favorite activities that put the “elf” in self-care—and just might help anyone get through this holiday season.

Drafting an Out-of-Workshop (OOW) auto-reply.
“Thank you for your email. I am currently out of the workshop and screaming into the abyssmas. If you need assistance, please contact someone else.”

Eating an entire food-themed Advent calendar in one sitting.
It’s a matter of safety. Gotta make sure there’s not a pear rotting behind door #1. Or #2. Or #3…

Singing “The Twelve Days of Christmas” karaoke alone in her pajamas.
And really leaning into “FIVE GOLDEN RINGS” when Santa is in earshot.

Created
Tue, 10/12/2024 - 23:00

On 15th August 2021, when the Kabul US-puppet regime fell, I expressed relief that US imperialism was defeated and, simultaneously, horror at what the women of Afghanistan were about to suffer in the hands of the jihadist Taliban. Immediately, the US liberal-imperialist lobby attacked me for… celebrating the Taliban victory. You see, for imperialism’s stooges, […]

The post Lessons from Syria: An imperialist’s enemy is not always an anti-imperialist’s friend – China Academy op-ed appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.