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Just before last Christmas, the National Security Archive based at George Washington University, published an illuminating cable on US-Russian relations. Authored by political analyst E. Wayne Merry in March 1994 from Moscow’s US Embassy, it was sharply prescient – so much so that it had to be sent by the Dissent Channel to limit its Continue reading »

The presence of the Israel-Premier Tech cycling team in the forthcoming Tour Down Under is illegal under international law. The Australian Friends of Palestine Association is calling on government and private entities to prohibit the unlawful participation of the Israeli team in the event. I am writing as a member of the Executive Committee of Continue reading »

The most comprehensive study of Australian social cohesion — The Scanlon Foundation Research Institute Social Cohesion Mapping 2024 Report — has highlighted strains in Australia society which are not yet dire, but are disturbing. The Report is an annual survey which gauges Australians attitudes, perceptions and behaviours across 1000 indicators of social cohesion, multiculturalism, wellbeing Continue reading »

The Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix has already cost Victorians in excess of one billion dollars and will have cost us an estimated $3 billion by the time the contract ends in 2037. The Australian Grand Prix Corporation, a Victorian Government agency, is taking me to the Victorian Civil Administrative Tribunal at taxpayers’ expense to Continue reading »

An exemplary Christian and an exceptional American, President Jimmy Carter, who passed on last month, embodied the moral conscience of the world. His enduring legacy will continue to inspire generations to come. Though his presidency lasted only one term, Carter achieved notable foreign policy milestones, including the historic normalisation of diplomatic relations between the United Continue reading »

A job listing for the Super Bowl LIX halftime show offers $12 per hour — part of a long pattern of host-city residents getting the short shrift.

The post Everyone’s Making Millions But the Super Bowl Haltime Show Wants to Hire New Orleans Locals for $12 an Hour appeared first on The Intercept.

A meaningless sentence empowering him further It’s done: The historic New York criminal case against Donald Trump — the first of its kind against a former president — closed with a whimper Friday morning, with the president-elect facing no consequences for faking business documents to cover up a sexual affair from American voters in 2016. “Never before has this court been presented with such a unique and remarkable set of circumstances,” Justice Juan Merchan said from the bench. “This has been a truly extraordinary case.” However, the judge pointed out that the soft landing to such a weighty case was directly due to Trump’s impending return to office — and he reminded Trump that the legal protections sparing him what could have been a more serious sentence, which could have included years in jail, belonged not to a man but to the person who temporarily sits at the White House’s Resolute Desk. “Ordinary citizens do not receive those legal protections,” Merchan said as he delivered his sentence.

. I  veckans avsnitt av Starta pressarna  försöker Daniel Suhonen och Max Jerneck att — tillsammans med Peo Hansen och yours truly — reda ut vad MMT (Modern Monetär Teori) är för något och varför så många nationalekonomer ännu idag fortfarande håller fast vid teorier och modelller om pengar som verkligheten sedan länge sprungit förbi. […]

Know your DNC members Over at The American Prospect, Micah Sifry has assembled a list of DNC members ahead of the election of new party officers on Feb. 1. The New York Times reported on the two front runners in November. (I have a favorite for chair.) Your state’s members might want to hear from you about yours. March for our Lives co-founder and Parkland school shooting survivor, David Hogg, is running for 1st vice chair. I haven’t followed who else is running. Sifry writes: So, while some joke that the race for DNC chair is the ultimate high school class president election, whoever holds the office will have a significant role in how Democrats respond to Trump, how they rebuild, what changes they make to their media, technology, and fundraising practices, and how the 2028 presidential selection process plays out. The problem is that the DNC member list is not publically available. Some state parties publish the list of their members (mine does), but others do not. Some you can figure out. Kinda.

President-elect idiocy Believe it or not, the same guy who doesn’t know how maps work doesn’t understand engineering either. It’s Friday. Allow me to geek out a bit. I worked for decades as a mechanical engineer, a P.E., specifically in piping departments of major consulting firms, even more specifically, in pipe stress analysis. (Here’s the Generative AI explanation.) The nonsense being spewed by Trump 2.0 and other RW hacks about the fires in Los Angeles and hydrants with no water gets under my skin. Especially Trump’s “little fish” idiocy. Variety: Thursday night’s late-night shows were focused on the devastation of the Los Angeles fires, as well as incoming President Trump’s bizarre response to them. “Daily Show” host Desi Lydic played a clip of Trump rambling on about smelt, continuing to spread a debunked conspiracy theory about the state’s water supply.

Check out the trailer for the new theatrical production of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest with Doctor Who star Ncuti Gatwa.

I’ll start with the good news: These are the best years of your life. That’s right. You are currently at your overall happiest, most attractive, and most employable. (You were better looking in your twenties, but you were also a total nutcase.) This brings us to the bad news: Seriously, these are the best years of your life.

Go ahead. Take a long, hard look at your thirtysomething face in the mirror while you consider all that you have—but mostly have not—accomplished up until this point. Not exactly what you had in mind for your so-called prime, was it?

You thought by now you would have figured all your shit out and evolved into a superior version of yourself. A more financially and emotionally stable You. (You 2.0, if you will.) Someone who lives their passion every single day, has resolved all their childhood trauma, and is at least on their way to becoming debt- and mortgage-free.

The truth is Starmer made profound improvements to tackling crimes against women and girls while Director of Public Prosecutions, reveals a veteran barrister

Extinction Rebellion UK reflects on the meaning of this historic moment

‘Death isn’t given time, the time that is needed.’ A death doula inspires those nearing life’s end to transform fear into awe

- by Psyche Film

Watch at Psyche

All of our religions, stories, languages and norms were muddled and mixed through mobility and exchange throughout history

- by Inanna Hamati-Ataya

Read at Aeon

Those of us who live in Europe have reason to be very pessimistic about the next four years. The state that Europeans have relied upon as their security guarantee is now in the hands of the nationalist extreme right and the information space is saturated by the output of tech oligarchs such as Elon Musk […]