Coat hanger producers are talking up the prospect of a sales boom in the Australian state of Queensland, should the LNP party form Government following the upcoming election. ”It really is the golden age of coathangers,” said coat hanger manufacturer... Read More ›
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He did it again: Can a reporter please, please please ask Trump to explain what he means when he says that NATO countries are “delinquent?” He clearly believes they are supposed to pay money to the “club” or maybe to him and doesn’t understand that the financial commitment is actually to commit a certain percentage of GDP to defense. The truth is that he is hostile to Europe and has been for decades. They’re “laughing at us” and they gave him trouble with his golf courses. Europeans make him feel inferior. But clearly “NATO has to pay its dues” is the only policy idea he’s ever had so that’s what he’s gone with and nothing has changed in 8 long years. And, it’s also clear, that his phone pal Vladimir Putin, has been telling him for years now to withdraw from NATO. As we know, Trump believes him over his own experts and staff. BTW, only 8 out of the 31 countries are not currently meeting or exceeding their commitment and all of those are very close. When they fell short in the last decade it was largely due to the Great Recession caused by the financial crisis.
Rachel Kushner’s Creation Lake reveals why politics won't save us.
The post Nihilism with a Purpose appeared first on Nautilus.
A conversation with UCLA philosophy professor Josh Armstrong.
The post How Reality Shapes Our Language—and Vice Versa appeared first on Nautilus.
Today we have yet another GREAT piece by Rick Perlstein about our weird political culture. He takes a look at America’s current obsession with “cult-culture” as a way people are trying to explain our politics to themselves. Boy, do I relate to that. I’ve been reading books and studies and psychology papers as well as watching the movies and series Perlstein outlines in his piece. (He notes a few that I haven’t seen which I excitedly made note of for weekend binging.) I have been obsessed with this subject for the past few years for obvious reasons. Here’s an excerpt but do read the whole thing if you’re as concerned about this phenomenon as I am: THE ASSOCIATION OF TODAY’S REPUBLICAN PARTY and its luminous god-king Donald J. Trump with cults began almost as soon as his first presidential campaign did. But what would a docuseries about MAGA-as-cult—the one Netflix, Hulu, Max, or CNN would never produce, because that would make them unduly “partisan”—look like?
Israel has no right of self-defence against resistance to the illegal occupation. Israel cannot both occupy Palestinian lands, and then launch an attack on those lands by citing ‘self-defence’ when occupied populations resist. Neither can Israel treat those resisting in occupied territories as enemy combatants. Consider this scenario: the Prime Minister states in response to Continue reading »
Veteran Singapore envoy on what the West gets wrong about China, ASEAN as a bellwether region and why the US should prepare for No. 2 status. You’ve predicted that the geopolitical contest between the US and China is set to intensify and stretch beyond the next decade. However, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan just visited China Continue reading »
In a world of simultaneous military and environmental crises our capacity to finance both has become unsustainable. Globally, military expenditure over the past decade has been rising at double that of GDP reaching an all-time high of $2.4 trillion in 2023. Continue reading »
Pretty soon we’ll be approaching the 40th anniversary of the December 1984 snap Federal Election that Bob Hawke called, just over 18 months after Labor’s historic win in early 1983 had ousted Malcolm Fraser’s government. Hawke was enjoying very high popularity (75% approval rating in ACNielson polls) and he thought this was a smart tactical Continue reading »
Owner corporations have recently come under attack for their dodgy practices. An overhaul of strata committees of management is also long overdue. Continue reading »
Peter Job’s article in P&I, ‘Palestine – The Lessons of East Timor’, is an interesting foray into the link between international law and moral condemnation as offering a possible insight into the future of Palestine. As Job argues, one generally does need international law to be on one’s side if a just resolution is to Continue reading »
Newsweek has recently (Oct 7) reported that Russian mobile nuclear missile launchers have been placed on combat alert. This could mean nothing – Russian mobile missile launchers do regularly go on patrol, both for scheduled alerts and for training purposes. However, the way in which the move has been telegraphed does suggest that Russia means Continue reading »
“This complaint is not only the largest ever submitted to the ICC, but it is also a milestone in documenting Israeli war crimes for future generations.” A Belgium-based advocacy group on Tuesday announced it “filed an unprecedented and historic complaint with the International Criminal Court against 1,000 Israeli occupation forces soldiers for war crimes, crimes Continue reading »
Today‘s news over Labour’s workers’ rights proposals have got some sections of the media screaming. The Daily Mail — once the chief cheerleader of Liz Truss and her ‘true Tory budget’ — have laughably claimed that legislation to protect workers will damage the country, and that laws that will bring us into line with most […]
Gallup measured some attitudes: Perceptions of Trump are similar to what Gallup found at the same time in 2020, except voters are now slightly more likely to believe he would display good judgment in a crisis, up six percentage points to 52%. (How soon they forget…) Here’s why she doesn’t get points for being a strong and decisive leader: It’s the sexism, stupid, (although why anyone thinks that the guy who wears more make-up and hairspray that last year’s winner of RuPaul’s Drag race and whines like a little bitch 24/7 is some kind of alpha male, I’ll never understand.) As for Trump being able to get things done … lol. They clearly haven’t looked at his record from 2017-2021. How gullible Americans are, how pathetically eager they are to be conned. Trump’s rating for being honest and trustworthy is higher now than his 38% rating in 2016 when he won the election. However, even at that lower level, Trump’s honesty rating exceeded Hillary Clinton’s, at 31%. This changed in 2020 when, despite seeing his “honest” score improve to 41%, Trump trailed Joe Biden by 11 points on this character dimension.
At oral arguments Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito appeared indifferent to the state AG’s insistence that Glossip’s conviction is unconstitutional.
The post The Supreme Court May Force Oklahoma to Kill Richard Glossip appeared first on The Intercept.
A good friend recently told me about Google’s NotebookLM. To test it, yours truly uploaded one of his articles from this blog, and out came a four-minute rather insightful discussion about the content. Pretty cool!
Can I still pay my union dues by sacrificing goats, bartering homemade macramé, or offering to house-sit while the high priestess is on vacation in Tulum?
The Topeka Coven has long accepted sacrificial gifts to our dark lord, in-kind bartering, and occasional house-sitting as payment for dues and services rendered. This will continue to be true after unionization and all suggestions made by Kathy that the coven will be moving to a hard currency-only system are false.
I’ve heard rumors from Kathy that unionizing might stifle spell-casting innovation. Will spells be standardized and/or require union approval moving forward?
No. Under union leadership, you will still be able to cast individualized spells against anyone and everyone in your orbit—from your HOA president to your mother-in-law—but now you will be eligible for exclusive discounts at Costco, Lowes, and Walmart.
Doctor Who spinoff The War Between the Land and the Sea welcomes Adrian Lukis, Patrick Baladi, Vincent Franklin, Francesca Corney & Mei Mac.