Soldier Meir Ben-Shitrit has revealed himself as the main suspect in the infamous gang rape of Palestinians at the Sde Teiman detention facility. Rather than making him an outcast, his story has turned him into Israel’s latest media darling. Three weeks ago, the Israeli right-leaning Channel 14 aired a 10-minute interview with one of the Continue reading »
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The moral distinction between liberal democracies and dictatorships is being flattened by the carnage in Gaza. For most of human history human rights did not exist. The struggle to secure them arguably began in 1215 with the Magna Carta in England, which promised protection from illegal imprisonment as a right. But it took another 733 years and Continue reading »
Peter Dutton’s nuclear plan may well have minimal carbon emissions, but the distant time of arrival, and ignoring the well known drawbacks makes it a dud. On the face of it, it is all whizzbang white heat of technology (albeit of 60 years ago) and no carbon emissions (never mind the other ones). The problem Continue reading »
Will Glasgow’s report from Beijing in the Weekend Australian of 24/25 August is cause for celebration. Since the last Australian journalist left China four years ago, reports on this most important neighbour and on matters of concern to both countries have been either second-hand or coming from non-Australian sources. Although it is ironic that the Continue reading »
Australia and Indonesia are to have new defence cooperation agreement. A big deal for a government whose foreign policy is repeatedly trumped by defence; less of a deal for our northern neighbour which, like us, looks north for its prosperity and security. Continue reading »
Recent P&I contributors have drawn out sharply the consequences of American influence in Australia. Many of these influences have been beneficial, of course. The importation of American exploitation of internal combustion engines and the long-distance transmission of electricity, while not costless, has had many advantages. As for what roughly might be called the “cultural”, Australia Continue reading »
NSW, like Victoria before it, is demonstrating once again that the dangers of politicisation do not lie with just one side of politics. NSW, like most other States, has limited protection against politicisation of its public service. Its senior executives, whether they are departmental secretaries, other agency heads or other executives (with some specified exemptions), Continue reading »
Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – September 1 2024
by Tony Wikrent
Strategic Political Economy
John Kiriakou: The Slide Into Authoritarianism
John Kiriakou [Consortium News, via Naked Capitalism 08-28-2024]
The Social Recession Is Accelerating
Charles Hugh Smith [via Naked Capitalism 08-25-2024]
Look at that mess. That’s not some blog post written by me after a few drinks at 2 in the morning. It’s the NY Times! For reasons that are obscure they, and much of the mainstream media, is engaged in insane gymnastics trying to keep from accurately describing Donald Trump’s disintegration. It’s profound and it’s alarming. Media critic Margaret Sullivan has a newsletter aptly called American Crisis in which she addresses the problem. She names former Timesman James Risen as one of the journalists she most respects (I agree!) and relays a communication she received from him this week: “At first, I thought this was a parody,” Risen told me. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. Even more unfortunately, the lack of judgment it displays is all too common in the Times and throughout Big Journalism as mainstream media covers Donald Trump’s campaign for president. “Harris and Trump Have Housing Ideas. Economists Have Doubts,” is the headline of the story he was angered by.
Moms for Liberty gets “a bit carried away” When Donald Trump is not campaigning in a string of sundown towns, he’s rubbing elbows with Moms for Liberty. * The New York Times has the full story: The Moms For Liberty can get a bit carried away — one of their local chapters once accidentally quoted Adolf Hitler (“He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future”) and then issued an apology disavowing the Führer (“We should not have quoted him in our newsletter”) — but still, their summit on Friday made for a good case study. It was packed with the sort of voters Mr. Trump hopes can help him win in November: fired-up suburban women. How in the world does this get past editors? [image or embed] — Sarah Posner (@sarahposner.bsky.social) Sep 1, 2024 at 9:56 AM Don’t get mad and don’t get complacent. It ain’t over until all the votes are counted. Do something! * Okay, there are so many sundown towns in swing states (and blue states) that it’s almost hard not to end up campaigning in one, but still.
A supermarket chain deletes evidence, fossil fuels score their own justice, and more from The Lever this week.
So is Trump going to be able to pivot to pro-choice in the run-up to the election? I mean: he’s trying. But will it work? And will his pro-life base accept it, because he’s Trump? I hope no pro-choice voters are fooled. I hope they hold him responsible for overturning Roe. It’s beyond obvious they […]
Vance and AI “He’s really thought this through and he is an incredibly twisted man,” Sam Seder tweeted in response to the JD Vance clip below. As if the prospect of this man being one heartbeat away from the presidency isn’t warped enough, our technology-fetishizing overlords want to put the electronic brains behind driverless cars in charge of defining reality for us. You’ve noticed it too: “Google has rolled out generative AI to users of its search engine on at least four continents, placing AI-written responses above the usual list of links; as many as 1 billion people may encounter this feature by the end of the year.” I already don’t trust them: Yet AI chatbots and assistants, no matter how wonderfully they appear to answer even complex queries, are prone to confidently spouting falsehoods—and the problem is likely more pernicious than many people realize.
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