What will you see? Perhaps you noticed? C-Span operator swept their cameras about the U.S. House chamber on Friday during the vote to reelect Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) as Speaker. A huddle of white Republican men gathered here. A diverse cluster of Democractic women gathered for a selfie there. The cameras opened up the proceding, untethered from their normally fixed gaze. This is typical during a State of the Union Address but not House business as usual. Heather Cox Richardson took note in her Letters from an American substack: Today a new Congress, the 119th, came into session. As Annie Karni of the New York Times noted, Americans had a rare view into the floor action of the House because the party in control sets the rules for what parts of the House floor viewers can see. Without a speaker, there is no party in charge to set the rules, so the C-SPAN cameras recording the day could move as their operators wished. They did. Limiting what the public can can see of the House chamber will return soon enough. Limiting what you can see is already happening elsewhere. Over at The Washington Post, editors were deciding what their subscribers would see.
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Doctor Who writer Steven Moffat on the recurring theme of people's consciousness and bodies being copied after death, and if they're the same.
MMTists often like to position themselves as the only ones to properly understand the ‘operational realities’ of modern monetary systems. Ironically, many of the claims made by MMTists on this topic are misleading at best. One common rhetorical tactic that I’ve noticed they employ, which often catches their critics out, is to use the term […]
On 9 February 1967, hours after the US Air Force had levelled the Port of Haiphong and several Vietnamese airfields, NBC aired a Star Trek episode featuring a concept that clashed mercilessly with what had just happened in Vietnam: the Prime Directive – a general ban on its Starship captains from using superior technology (military […]
The post Star Trek: A humanist communist manifesto for our times – UNHERD appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.
A new internet star is born: Tupi the baby capybara! I co-sign this:
Jeffrey Alexander, a prominent sociologist and social theorist: Inside the culture and structure of modernity, good and evil are tensely intertwined. We should not be naïve about the evils of modernity. Modernity’s contradictions cannot be resolved in some magisterial new synthesis. It is a dangerous delusion to think modernity can eliminate evil; new kinds of […]
To all of you internet addicts like me, I hereby gift you with this marvelous piece by Chris Hayes in the NY Times. He talks about The Attention Economy”, which is the subject of his new book. An excerpt: In the wake of Donald Trump’s second electoral victory, a viral tweet from October 2016 once again started circulating: “i feel bad for our country. But this is tremendous content.” That probably seemed funnier before child separation and Covid. (Indeed, in 2020 Darren Rovell, who wrote it, posted, “Four years later. There is nothing tremendous about this content. I’m just sad.”) But for many millions of Americans, perhaps including the crucial slice of swing voters who moved their votes to the Republican nominee in 2024, Mr. Trump is the consummate content machine. Love him or hate him, he sure does keep things interesting. I’ve even wondered if, at some level, this was the special trick he used to eke out his narrow victory: Did Americans elect him again because they were just kind of bored with the status quo? I have no doubt about it!
Ohio has become the latest state to allow police to charge high fees for access to footage.
The post Ohio Puts Police Bodycam Footage Behind a Paywall appeared first on The Intercept.
Issue 59 of the Nautilus print edition is our Kinship Issue. It includes contributions from philosopher Helen de Cruz, author Philip Ball, anthropologist Harvey Whitehouse, science writer Veronique Greenwood, and more. This issue also features new illustrations by Aad Goudappel. Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now .
The post Print Edition 59: The Kinship Issue appeared first on Nautilus.
John Larison’s new novel The Ancients suggests some societies are built for cataclysm
The post Breaking a Cycle of Apocalypse appeared first on Nautilus.
How the desert taught me to smell
The post Scent Makes a Place appeared first on Nautilus.
Raffi Berg, now at the center of a media scandal over the BBC’s Israel coverage, once worked for a known CIA front and collaborated with Mossad officials.
The post Raffi Berg: BBC Middle East Editor Exposed as CIA, Mossad Collaborator appeared first on MintPress News.
California sober: No alcohol or drugs except marijuana
New York sober: No alcohol or drugs except cocaine
Kentucky sober: No alcohol or drugs except a cool, tall mint julep on a sweltering July afternoon
Oregon sober: No alcohol if it’s not an IPA
Texas sober: No alcohol except empty beer cans to shoot
Maine sober: No addictive drugs except lobster rolls
Maryland sober: No addictive drugs except crab cakes
Georgia sober: No addictive drugs except whatever Marjorie Taylor Greene is on
Oklahoma sober: No drugs, but I suspect we’d grow amazing pot
Arkansas sober: No alcohol except moonshine
Massachusetts sober: No alcohol, but I still act like an asshole
Illinois sober: Liquor? Ya got it all wrong, copper. This here’s an honest Chicago church hall, see?
Kansas sober: I just eat BBQ until I feel drunk
Those currently celebrating the US and Israel’s decisive military victories against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria and possibly the defeat of Ansar Allah in Yemen may soon discover the pyrrhic nature of “reshaping the Middle East” in the interests of Western civilization. Military actions enabled Continue reading »
China scholar Mark Wang still remembers a time in the 2000s when Australia’s China studies was vibrant and in a leading position in the world. “At that time, the student interest, government policy and funding for China studies in Australia were really strong,” said Professor Wang, the director of the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Continue reading »
George Beebe, long-time head of Russia analysis at the CIA, a 27-year veteran of the agency and now the current head of Grand Strategy at the Quincy Institute in Washington, is just the kind of American the world needs right now. Understated, immensely knowledgeable and decent, he understands the Russo-Ukraine war in its widest sense Continue reading »