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Later this month it will be World Biodiversity Day, and we will again celebrate the remarkable contributions that biodiversity makes to the resilience and productivity of the earth’s ecosystems. But it will also be a fitting time to face the continued failure of our institutions to grasp the scale of biodiversity loss. Or, if not […]

HOMICIDE Squad detectives are appealing for information following the death of a surfer in the Coffs Harbour area last week. About 6.40am on Thursday 2 May 2024 emergency services were called to Ocean Parade, Coffs Harbour, following reports a man in his twenties had been stabbed. The victim, local surfer and soccer player Kye Schaefer,...

The post Appeal for information after tragic murder of Coffs Harbour surfer appeared first on News Of The Area.

Airlines won’t say how much they make from unused flight credits, but potential automatic refunds could hurt their massive windfall.

Source - Patreon

Source - Patreon

We all know that Trump is nothing more than projection. He says that everything, from his legal problems to the 2020 election is rigged. Guess what? He rigged The Apprentice: The conversation turned to “The Apprentice,” Daniels remembered. Trump told her that she should be a contestant, to which she replied: “There’s no way that NBC would allow an adult actress on television.”  “He said, ‘You remind me of my daughter, she’s smart and beautiful and people underestimate her as well,'” Daniels said. She added that Trump offered to tell her what the show’s challenges were ahead of time: “I can’t have you win … but you can at least make a good showing.” It was reality TV, which means it was scripted. He’s always lied and said it wasn’t.

The trial was pretty banal this morning, even though important: How do you prove a defendant caused others to make false business records where those with direct knowledge of his intent and involvement are limited to the defendant, a man now in jail for perjury, and Michael Cohen?  You surround Michael Cohen’s expected testimony with a mountain of circumstantial evidence, an already substantial pile to which prosecutors just added excerpts from Trump’s books How to Get Rich and Think Like a Billionaire.   Those excerpts reveal Trump as a micromanager who advised never taking one’s eyes off his checkbook, advertised he negotiated the price of everything “down to the paper clips,” trusted Weisselberg wholly, and boasted that he even loved signing checks.  And best of all for the prosecutors? They are Trump’s own easy-to-digest, New York Times-bestselling words, perhaps amplified or made snappier by his ghostwriter, Meredith McIver, but nonetheless his.  He has said many times that he liked to sign checks because that was how he kept tabs on what was being spent. Apparently, he kept doing it while he was in the White House.

The last big protests cost $150 million in NYPD overtime — with tens of millions more in lawsuit settlements.

The post How Much Money Did the NYPD Waste Quashing Student Protests? We Tallied It Up. appeared first on The Intercept.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, expert on authoritarianism, succinctly analyses what statement and I think it’s right on: This as yet another loyalty performance for an audience of One, who is addressed as though he is still the head of state. We are also dwelling in the “upside-down world” of authoritarianism, as I call it. “Accountability” means stopping investigations into abuse of power, and “a threat to our entire system” = a threat to Republican plans to convert America to an autocracy under Trump’s lead. That’s the most telling phrase. This is what it’s all about. The “you can believe me or you can believe your eyes” and “I know you are but what am I” and the rest of these crude descriptions of the intensely frustrating inversion of reality in which these people live is all in service of authoritarianism. Trump isn’t an intellectual or an academic and neither are most of his followers. They are authoritarians who are simply following their own instincts. It’s not uncommon among our species.

Former Australian Prime Minister turned book salesman, Scott Morrison, has stunned attendees at the MET Gala by turning up dressed as a lump of coal. ”When on the World stage I do like to make a splash,” said the former... Read More ›

I’m going to quote retired Israeli general Yitzhak Brit at length:

Netanyahu knows that continuing this process will lead to the collapse of the State of Israel militarily, economically, politically and socially. Even if Hamas and Hezbollah continue to fight as they do today, without military surprises, the “state of Israel” will collapse .

Netanyahu knows full well that we have been in a military stalemate for the last twenty years . The chiefs of staff divided the army into six divisions based on their global vision that the major wars were over. They built a small ground army that could barely fight in one sector; in a regional war we would have to fight in six sectors at once.

As you hear all about Trump’s encounter with Stormy Daniels, get a load of this: Former Trump aide John McEntee promised a ban on pornography was coming in the United States in a recent interview with Daily Wire host Michael Knowles. McEntee had a senior position in the Trump White House and is a key contributor to the infamous Project 2025, a collection of policy proposals to transition the United States to Christian nationalist authoritarianism in the first 180 days of Trump’s second term.  “You bring up the elephant in the room,” McEntee told Knowles, “which is a stain on not only society but the entire dating culture as well, which is pornography. Whenever America bans that, which will be happening at some point, everyone will be much better off.” The Project 2025 plan specifically lists a ban on pornography stating, “[Pornography] is as addictive as any illicit drug and as psychologically destructive as any crime. Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned.” “The minute that goes away, this country will flourish,” McEntee told Knowles.

“Nothing Australia does – with or without AUKUS – will make any difference to the collective capacity to either deter or defeat China in the next decade, which is the time frame that counts. That means the only prudent choice for Australia’s military strategy is to prepare to defend ourselves from major powers such as Continue reading »