In his monthly column, John Mitchinson explores how a country house party in Oxfordshire helped invent democracy
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The spectre of Boris Johnson's assault on standards in public life is slowly retreating, argues Josiah Mortimer
Senior politicians, military leaders and experts send an open letter calling on Europe and Canada to join forces in defending Ukraine from Russian aggression
The NAIRU story has always had a very clear policy implication — attempts to promote full employment are doomed to fail since governments and central banks can’t push unemployment below the critical NAIRU threshold without causing harmful runaway inflation. Although a lot of mainstream economists and politicians have a touching faith in the NAIRU fairy […]
The LGBTIQ community, and the broader left, lost a stalwart fighter this week with the death of Mannie De Saxe at age 98.
The post Vale Mannie De Saxe, gay Jewish socialist first appeared on Solidarity Online.
This Tuesday report will provide some insights into life for a westerner (me) who is working for an extended period at Kyoto University in Japan. This is my final report for 2024 as my working time at the university is completed for another year and we will resume these reports in 2025 when I return.…
Not being reported? President Xi Jinping gives President Joe Biden boundaries. Jason Clare MP says you can’t bomb your way to peace while a Gaza Psychiatrist shares footage of bodies in Gaza. Peter Garrett calls out AUKUS and Senator Barbara Pocock supports the issues raised by Senator Lidia Thorpe. Footage of Keir Starmer from 2014 Continue reading »
Philip Bump says Biden had a bigger mandate than Trump has: A lot of early analysis of the 2024 presidential election has suffered from three overlapping problems. First, that vote margins can be influenced by changes in turnout as well as changes in vote preference. If voters stay home, the candidate they would have supported receives fewer votes. And it looks like a lot of 2020 voters stayed home in 2024. But — second — not as many as one might have thought in the first few days after the election. Many immediate analyses of what happened exaggerated the decrease in Democratic votes or suggested that Donald Trump won an outright majority of votes cast, both errors that were a function of failing to consider (particularly) California’s sizable, slow-to-count vote total. The third problem is that the shift to Trump in the voting — real and widespread — is being conflated with broad support for Trump, which is far less dramatic.
A few weeks ago, I drew up a flowchart to estimate the probability that Trump would establish a dictatorship in the US, which looked, at the time, like an even money bet. We don’t need to speculate any more. Trump has announced the dictatorship, and there is no sign of effective resistance. The key elements […]
“When we fight, we win!” – Kamala Harris. So, what do we do when we fight & lose? Never Give Up! Never surrender! People admire that about a leader and a cause. We don’t just fight the fights we can win. You fight the fights that need fighting!” Martin Sheen, The American President (1995) We expect people to follow the norms of losing. Like we do. Accept the loss. Don’t flip the board over. And when we WIN? We are supposed to accept the win. So we stop fighting. We reach out to the losing side & shake hands. We follow the norms of winners. Say, “Good luck! It’s great to have a strong opponent!” We aren’t supposed to be a sore winner! Don’t spike the football. Don’t mock them for losing. Don’t brag about the win everywhere. “Don’t get cocky kid!” I’m getting into too many sports and movie metaphors here, so I want to talk about a specific win and why when we fight & win against RWers we must keep fighting, because the norms of winning aren’t enough against today’s RW.
How a flashy opal inspired artist Tyler Thrasher's new book.
The post Color Makes the Universe appeared first on Nautilus.
This piece by Roxanne Gay in the NY Times spoke to me. I‘ve included a gift link for the whole thing but here’s an excerpt: Mistakes were made in the Harris campaign because mistakes are always made in presidential campaigns. Democrats are now reflecting on those mistakes and figuring out how to manifest a different outcome next time, if there is a next time. The recriminations have been numerous — too many celebrities, echo chambers, ignoring the economy, no alternative to the conservative media ecosystem, too much embracing of conservative politicians, too much identity politics, too big a tent, the price of eggs. But to suggest we should yield even a little to Mr. Trump’s odious politics, to suggest we should compromise on the rights of trans people, for instance, and all of the other critical issues we care most about, is unacceptable. It is shameful and cowardly. We cannot abandon the most vulnerable communities to assuage the most powerful. Even if we did, it would never be enough. The goal posts would keep moving until progressive politics became indistinguishable from conservative politics. We’re halfway there already. Mr.
Join us THURSDAY, November 21 at 1pm ET / 10am PT, for our regularly scheduled call to chat about all things Drupal and nonprofits. (Convert to your local time zone.)
We don't have anything specific on the agenda this month, so we'll have plenty of time to discuss anything that's on our minds at the intersection of Drupal and nonprofits. Got something specific you want to talk about? Feel free to share ahead of time in our collaborative Google doc: https://nten.org/drupal/notes!
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Following his arrest yesterday on historical charges of sexual touching, elements of the media have been calling for the State of NSW to do something to honour Alan Jones, like renaming the State’s fish, the Blue Groper, the Alan Jones... Read More ›