Reading

Created
Fri, 12/04/2024 - 04:56
I have flashes of climate grief, recognition in photographic bursts: Pakistani cotton farmers walking through knee-deep water trying to salvage a few white puffs of income off blackened plants; precious graves of ancestors being inundated by the sea in Fiji, the Torres Strait Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Samoa, the Marshall Islands; the view of fire-ravaged forests, Continue reading »
Created
Fri, 12/04/2024 - 04:53
Almost unnoticed, the federal government has quietly pushed a Bill into parliament that will transform the NDIS as we know it. Make no mistake – this Bill is about containing costs. And for good reason. The spiralling cost growth of the NDIS – the National Disability Insurance Scheme – threatens its very existence. Doing nothing Continue reading »
Created
Fri, 12/04/2024 - 04:52
UK Health Minister Aneurin Bevan introduced the National Health Service (NHS) pointing out that “Illness is neither an indulgence for which people have to pay, nor an offence for which they should be penalised, but a misfortune the cost of which should be shared by the community.” Advancing age brings with it infirmity and a Continue reading »
Created
Fri, 12/04/2024 - 04:51
Is democracy spawning elected autocracies? In 2024, a tale of two much-vaunted yet internationally ranked “flawed democracies” is unfolding. The outcomes of their national elections—India in June and the US in November—will test the mettle of the democratic institutions that underpin their governance systems. In the lead-up to these pivotal elections, a disconcerting similarity confronts Continue reading »
Created
Fri, 12/04/2024 - 04:50
There is no risk of China’s property sector woes spreading into a financial crisis but there is a policy-induced housing crisis and restrictions must be further eased. The property market must be stabilised to restore public confidence and spur private consumption, so economic growth can reaccelerate. A Chinese former official made headlines last September by Continue reading »
Created
Fri, 12/04/2024 - 03:30
President Biden has announced an order forgiving more student loans. It hasn’t been easy since the right wing Supremes knocked down his big initiative, but they’ve kept at it, chipping away, bringing relief to many people’s debt burden. They say they aren’t done yet. The wingnuts are having their usual fit about anything that might benefit people other than the rich and the fascist, caterwauling that it’s not fair to other Americans who didn’t take out loans or who paid them back already. Why shouldn’t they get a break too? Guess what? They’re special people who deserve it, we know that. The American people should be proud to subsidize them — they’re all millionaires, of course. Those scofflaws who haven’t paid back their student loans need to be taught a lesson.
Created
Fri, 12/04/2024 - 03:00

Whaddup. It’s the flu your four-year-old brought home for spring break. Are you gonna let me in or what? You’re hoping I leave you alone? You booked a family trip to Wolf Lodge Water Park? The deposit is nonrefundable?

Listen, I just KO’ed two dozen preschoolers like complimentary chips and dip at Casa Azteca, and now I want my entrée, capisce? Vis-à-vis for the next week or so, this is my house. And lemme tell you something—Michelangelo had marble. Da Vinci had paint. I have fever, vomiting, and diarrhea. And in three days, your GI tract will be my magnum opus.

Even if I wanted to, which I don’t, I’m way too contagious to pass you by. I’ve literally spent a millennia evolving my DNA to inflict maximum carnage on your O-ring. The fact we’re even having this conversation means I’m already prancing through your upper respiratory system, painting the walls with flu.

What I’m saying is the chain reaction has begun. There’s no stopping the shitstorm descending upon your world. Think of me as Franz Ferdinand, the flu.

Not a WWI buff?

Created
Fri, 12/04/2024 - 02:00
It’s not going his way Later that day… Via Daily Beast: Arizona Republicans refused to vote on a bill to repeal the state’s extreme abortion ban Wednesday, a day after Republicans—including President Donald Trump—attempted to distance themselves from the decision. State Rep. Matt Gress (R) moved Wednesday to bring a Democratic bill repealing the ban, which outlaws all abortions except to save the life of the mother, to a House vote. Before a vote could be called, Rep. David Livingston motioned for a recess and all Republicans in the House—including Gress—voted to table the proceedings. Democrats in the House chanted “Shame!” at their Republican counterparts as voting rapidly came to a close. In a livestream after the session ended, Rep. Analise Ortiz (D) said Republicans moved to recess so they “would not have to be on the record voting to repeal the abortion ban.”
Created
Fri, 12/04/2024 - 00:37
by Dave Rollo

Imagine a landscape with some of the richest wildlife habitats in North America. Settlements are scarce and water is plentiful. Birds dot the skies, mammals abound on the ground, and fishes fill the rivers and lakes.

That’s Tippecanoe County, Indiana. In 1800.

The county’s transformation over the past two centuries would make it unrecognizable to its original inhabitants. Today, much of Tippecanoe consists of flat plains of fertile soils.

The post Water Theft in the Heartland: The Case of Tippecanoe County appeared first on Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy.

Created
Fri, 12/04/2024 - 00:30
A defense like you’ve never seen Looks like Donald Trump picked the wrong week to quit snorting Adderall (ABC News): There are multiple Jeremy Rosenbergs in New York City, as former President Donald Trump’s attorneys found out Tuesday after they sent a subpoena to the wrong one. Last month, Trump’s attorneys in his criminal hush money case [Ed: falsifying business records, to be correct] in Manhattan sought to subpoena the Jeremy Rosenberg who was a supervising investigator in the Manhattan district attorney’s office. Instead, according to court filings revealed Tuesday, the subpoena went to another Jeremy Rosenberg living in an $8 million Brooklyn home. A crack team of attorneys Trump has there, and I mean that crack. It’s led by one Todd Blanche. The Independent continues: “I don’t have any files for you,” the apparently bemused Brooklynite wrote back, according to a filing from the former president’s legal team. He added: “PS – The phone number you provided was disconnected.
Created
Fri, 12/04/2024 - 00:06
In this briefing, we explain how the proposed changes to the UK data protection framework that would be introduced by the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill would weaken legal safeguards around the use of personal data for political purposes, in particular by: WHY DATA PROTECTION MATTERS The use of personal data and data analytics […]