Reading

Now that even the Council on Foreign Relations is admitting Ukraine can’t and won’t win its war against Russia, there might be some serious cognitive dissonance for people who’ve not been paying much attention and bought into the official narrative on the war.

 

If you find yourself faced with the proverbial ignorant uncle at Thanksgiving this year and want to appear fact-based rather than conspiratorial, maybe the following round up of links and sources about the beginnings of the war will help.

It’s bad enough that hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in a losing and pointless effort, but it’s important to rebut the narrative that Russia was the aggressor and not NATO and the US.

A winning photograph shows a wasp that has parasitized an egg.

The post A Stolen Egg appeared first on Nautilus.

Real estate agents around Australia are ”encouraging” their tenants to think about giving their landlords a BJ this Christmas, as a way to say thank you for providing them with an expensive place to live. ”It’s been a tough year... Read More ›

If you’ve spent any time at your local state park, your local body of water, or your local abandoned granite quarry turned rock climbing haven, then I’m sure you’ve seen me. I was probably leading a hiking group, a kayaking expedition, or belaying for a group of middle schoolers on a YMCA-sponsored after-school trip. If so, then you saw me in my element, for I am a guy in a Patagonia UV hoodie, and I have never been indoors.

I was born in the fresh fall air to a mushroom-foraging father and a reiki-healing mother. My parents opted for an outdoor water birth, and I entered into this world in a stock tank on an organic farm where my parents spent the year WWOOF-ing.

Shortly after my birth, my parents embarked on a three-year RV excursion along the entire Pan-American highway from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, to Tierra del Fuego. At fourteen months, I took my first steps at the top of Machu Picchu and climbed my first mountain in Patagonia (the region, not the store) a year later.

For the third year in a row the nations of the world, meeting in solemn climate conclave, have vowed to cook their children and grandchildren alive. COP29, chaired by petro-state Azerbaijan and stuffed to the gills with 1773 oil industry lobbyists, was never going to deliver more than tokenism and lip service to the greatest Continue reading »

Jews in Germany, Bosnians in former Yugoslavia, Tutsis in Rwanda, and now Palestinians in Gaza. In a recent interview, Francesca Albanese posed a rhetorical question: What kind of monsters have we become to see the live-streamed genocide of Palestinians and not act? When you look at Anthony Albanese, who founded the Parliamentary Friends of Palestine, Continue reading »

The death of cricketer Phillip Hughes ten years ago to-day (November 27) was one of several hundred workplace fatalities in 2014. The manner of his death raises a key concern for occupational health and safety. Best practice is to remove the source of danger. Second or third best is to minimise its ill-effects. School cricket Continue reading »

COP29 was a failure not because there wasn’t enough money on offer, but because it ignored population. The UN Climate talks COP29 have just concluded in Baku, Azerbaijan. The key issue on the agenda was how much developed countries were going to pay to help alleviate climate change in the developing world. The visuals on Continue reading »

My recent review of the book, Australia’s Pandemic Exceptionalism, by Steven Hamilton and Richard Holden (H&H) highlighted its ‘convincing, frank and honest account’ in just over 200 pages, and encouraged the Health Department in particular to listen to its lessons. The official COVID-19 Response Inquiry Report by Robyn Kruk, Catherine Bennett and Angela Jackson ( Continue reading »

At least one group of experts is asking why proposed online porn regulation lacks natural justice, damages sexual expression and promotes risky technology. Regulating the content most people describe as ‘pornography’, the Draft Consolidated Industry Codes of Practice for the Online Industry (Class 1C and Class 2 Material) (the Codes) consultation closed last week. They Continue reading »

The Philippines enacted two enabling legislation on 8 November 2024. Known as Republic Act (RA) 12064 or the Philippine Maritime Zones Act; and Republic Act (RA) 12065 or the Philippine Archipelagic Sea Lanes Act, the legislation has attracted a fair number of criticisms from the region among those not familiar with the 1982 UN Convention Continue reading »

A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. As things now stand, the world is trembling on the brink of the abyss. Instead of going over the edge, we need to step back, lower the temperature and the tension, and move to a position in which it is possible to negotiate a Continue reading »

Byline Times speaks to Liberty Director Akiko Hart, after the human rights organisation came out against the Assisted Dying Bill

. Riksbanken har en nästintill oinskränkt makt över penningpolitiken, en politik som i hög grad styr inflation, sysselsättning och ekonomisk stabilitet. Denna makt bör vara föremål för större demokratisk övervakning för att säkerställa att den överensstämmer med vad vi som samhällsmedborgare har för intressen. När man diskuterat  Riksbankens oberoende har man oftast definierat detta i […]

Ownership and control of social media platforms is a first-order concern for both domestic politics and international conflict. The most important battleground in the Russia-Ukraine war is elections in NATO member states. And there, Russia is clearly winning. Trump, obviously, but yesterday saw the stunning success of formerly fringe right-wing candidate C?lin Georgescu. In an […]