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Dawn Butler is running to lead the House of Commons' committee on science and tech

To be fair to academia, it has realized that the pure DSGE model is incapable of explaining observable phenomena so they have introduced numerous amendments, known, oddly, as “imperfections” in the model. Long-term nominal contracts, other labour market frictions, imperfection in credit markets, all these and more are prayed in aid and, either rigorously or […]

And melting down too William Irwin Thompson once critiqued the emptiness of a modern culture in which we’ve learned to crave (and pay for) the synthetic as a substitute for the real. Cheez Whiz and Cool Whip. Fake wrestling substituting for real wrestling, etc. “If Americans would rather tour a fake Europe at EPCOT Center in Disney World,” Thompson wrote, “they can go to ‘foreign’ restaurants, but still speak English.” Thompson described the Disneyfication of everything long before we elected Donald Trump, a ratings-obsessed, reality-TV president in place of a real one. “Harris’ large crowds are a pivotal part of her strategy to defeat Trump,” reads CNN’s landing page just now. Hers are bigger. Trump’s manhood as well as his freedom is threatened. Marcy Wheeler this morning speaks of how central spectacle is to Donald Trump’s sense of himself, and how threatened he is by the spectacle of a Harris-Walz rally: The rest is largely a critique of the news coverage’s misread (or ignore) of the timelines involved.

Like nobody’s ever seen Shitposting is a way of life for the former president. He has been doing it since long before the internet, PCs and cell phones. As Maureen Dowd noted (not in so many words), everything’s a dick-measuring contest for Donald Trump. He never loses. To hear him tell it, as Cole Porter might put it in lyrics: He’s the top | He’s the Colosseum | He’s the top | He’s the Louvre Museum Everything and everyone else is crap. Trump’s first speech as president trashed the country as American carnage, a wasteland of rusted out factories and a depleted military, a nation awash in drugs and gangs and crime. Long before Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota applied the term weird to MAGA Republicans, former president George W. Bush on the platform that day described Trump’s inauguration speech as “some weird shit.” Trump and Republicans still trash the country as awash in crime, victimized by Democratic permissiveness.

Doctor Who originally planned to turn companion Ace into a Time Lord in the 1980s before the show was canceled. So what exactly happened?

When the riots stopped conversation moved to the Online Safety Act with suggestions changes would be made 'if necessary'. Prime Minister Keir Starmer also pledged to 'look more broadly' at social media

Over 600 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since Hamas' deadly attack - but residents fear a worse wave of violence lies ahead as tensions between Israel and Hezbollah and Iran intensify

A year at a public school in rural Indiana chronicles how community and education intersect in the American Midwest

- by Aeon Video

Watch at Aeon

My child grew into a new version of himself – as all children do – and I wondered about my new role. Anger helped me grasp it

- by Patricia Martin

Read at Psyche

Modernists and historians alike loathed the millions of new houses built in interwar Britain. But their owners loved them

- by Michael Gilson

Read at Aeon

Disabled people may have been cheering the end of Tory rule – but their trust has not been won by Labour, writes Penny Pepper

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There is some commentary emerging that is finally starting to question the reliance on monetary policy (setting interest rates) as the primary macroeconomic policy tool with fiscal policy forced into a passive role. In Australia, this debate has intensified in the last week following the hubris from the new Reserve Bank governor, who thinks her…

Iran may be about to launch a proper missile strike on Israel for the first time ever – in retaliation for the attack on Tehran last month which killed Ismail Haniyeh. Israeli intelligence says an attack is likely to come within days. The Jerusalem Post on 11 August quoted Ahmad Bakhshayesh Ardestani, a member of Continue reading »

Allow me to venture a prediction. If AI dynamic pricing is adopted by corporations, especially grocery store chains, it will cause just-in-time supply-chain chaos and profits to be unpredictable by two or three standard deviations outside the bell curve. All of which will then result in stock and bond market carnage worse than 2008. Moreover, this kind of short-sighted innovation, just the kind Silicon Valley adores, is untested and untrustworthy and will cause a societal meltdown that will make the results of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans look like Sunday school, possibly ending in a near-famine if adopted. Finally, it’s the kind of intellectual irresponsibility that will increase already Burj Khalifa heights of stupidity out into the cosmos, ultimately ushering in chaos and revolution.

Don’t believe me, bring it on then!

I’ve noticed an interesting if subtle choice of words in Walz’s commentary. He frequently invokes the phrase “the democracy.” This is noticeable for two reasons. First, since the rise of Trump, liberals and progressives of all stripes have resorted to the phrase “our democracy.” I’ve never liked it. It’s cringey and sanctimonious. It has the air of a fetish, as if democracy were a possession, like a precious ring or family heirloom. Democracy is not a possession; it’s a prospect and a process, a condition to be fought for, perpetually. Second, during the early half of the nineteenth century, democracy was frequently called “the democracy.” As if it were a threatening animal, which it was. It was initially the term […]