Reading

Created
Sat, 25/05/2024 - 04:53
What kind of population does Australia need? Jim Chalmers recently informed us that Australian citizens ought to have more babies. Commentators on various blogs and fora have returned to dwelling on Australia’s “carrying capacity” as though this is a farm and we are grazing cattle. Peter Dutton, in his Budget Reply, stated his intent to Continue reading »
Created
Sat, 25/05/2024 - 04:52
Released last week, the Australian government’s Future Gas Strategy states that “our trade partners […] are relying on Australian gas to transition their economies to net zero”, but falling demand and over-contracting from Japan, our largest LNG export customer, raise questions over this claim. Japan has on several occasions stressed the importance of Australian LNG for its energy security. Continue reading »
Created
Sat, 25/05/2024 - 04:51
Let me introduce myself. I am a child of Holocaust survivors. My mother survived Auschwitz and my father fought the Nazi war machine as a partisan during the Second World War. Ninety-eight percent of my extended family perished during the Holocaust. From a very early age, beginning perhaps when I was four, I became acutely Continue reading »
Created
Sat, 25/05/2024 - 04:50
While the antiwar zeitgeist has been quite understandably focused on the genocide in Gaza, over the past few weeks we’ve been seeing some very disturbing reports about empire managers ramping up nuclear brinkmanship escalations in Ukraine that are worth going over. Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp has been doing a great job covering these developments, as usual. Continue reading »
Created
Sat, 25/05/2024 - 03:00

When the world died, all that was left was chaos. All that awaited us was death. Living in the ashes of our civilization, I’ve learned two things: I can rely only on myself, and I am the only person in this whole wasteland who still drives a sensible car.

I know a 2006 Toyota Camry may not be very flashy or deadly, but it’s dependable, sturdy, and, affordable. And I’ve realized that’s what I need to survive this endless nightmare humanity has created for itself.

Let’s just start with the obvious: there’s air conditioning. Why doesn’t anyone else have that? I have no idea how you drive around an arid dead wasteland without the AC blasting.

Now, look at the safety features. For one thing, my Toyota has seat belts. On all the seats. That used to be standard. I just don’t understand how we reached the point where the number of skulls on your car means more than the number of awards your car got from J.D. Power & Associates.

Created
Sat, 25/05/2024 - 02:05

- - -

Our friends at The Believer are now publishing web exclusives. To celebrate, we’re sharing excerpts of their inaugural weekly column, in which Katie Heindl (author of the beloved Basketball Feelings) writes about the WNBA for both longtime fans and the casual observer. If you want to follow along and bypass the paywall, pick up a Believer digital-only subscription. For just $16 a year, you’ll also have full access to the magazine’s complete two-decade archive, including the most recent issue.

Created
Sat, 25/05/2024 - 02:00
If you want to know what’s causing all the pessimism look no further than him I am loathe to discuss the polls right now because they’re all over the place and mostly within the margin of error which means the snapshot of the electorate we are seeing may be a mirage either way. There are arguments going on throughout the commentariat over whether the polling methodology is accurate and whether they are modeling the electorate correctly. I have no idea about that and frankly I don’t really care. It’s enough to know that the election remains close which I suspect is intensely frustrating to everyone in both parties at this point. It seems as though we are destined to re-enact this polarized groundhog day election every four years and it’s tiresome. It’s especially difficult for Democrats to deal with this considering that the Republican opponent is once again the most odious candidate in American history, a crude brute currently facing 88 felony counts and a record that includes two impeachments and an attempted coup. It’s as if the world has suddenly tilted off of its axis and nothing makes sense anymore.
Created
Sat, 25/05/2024 - 00:30
Have a voice in your own future Brian Beutler cautions against lefties shooting themselves in the foot in 2024: The 2000 election turned out as it did in part because a small but decisive number of voters convinced themselves the major parties were fundamentally similar and similarly unappealing. (Plus the whole Supreme-Court-stopping-the-count thing.) The consequences have shaped the entirety of my adult life; for people of a certain age—my age and just a bit older—the lessons against complacency and collapsing important distinctions have proven lifelong.  To see something very similar happen based on similarly lazy thinking in 2016 was a history-repeating trauma. One fateful hinge point ought to have been enough to create a whole oral tradition and stigma against falling into the same traps.
Created
Fri, 24/05/2024 - 23:00
So say those working to steal it So this is what it’s like to live history. You may have read about the Civil Rights movement and watched coverage of Vietnam, the first moon landing, and the Watergate hearings as they happened. But in this century, American history is more personal. A friend who lost her fiancé on Sept. 11 and dreads every anniversary. We participated in electing the first Black president, lived through the Great Recession, and sheltered from COVID-19. We watched the Trump insurrection unfold live. At a remove like past events, yes, but the feeling is more visceral. This week, we found out that key actors in our national drama fly flags representing support for unmaking our democratic republic and constructing in its place a white Christian theocracy. Heather Cox Richardson reminds us that the Appeal to Heaven flag has been on display “in front of the office of House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and over the houses of Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito and the architect of the right-wing theocratic takeover of the federal courts, Leonard Leo.” “Slow-motion train wreck” may be overused but feels right here.
Created
Fri, 24/05/2024 - 22:00

Dear Joseph (we’re both adults, so I can call you by your first name),

I regret to inform you that we cannot accept your book Heart of Darkness for publication. I loved how short it was, but I hated how dumb it was.

Your story makes no sense. Marlow—is that a first name? Last name? Beyoncé situation?—spends the whole time being like, “Oh no, it keeps getting darker as I go down this boring-ass river, which I could have predicted because I’m going toward a place literally called the heart of darkness.”

Just turn around and go home, dude! It’s not like you went to Great Wall Szechuan with your gorgeous daughter and your loser boyfriend, Gary, and you and Dani got in a fight in front of Jake with the great bangs, and then you read the same fortune cookie at the same time just as lightning struck the restaurant, which made you switch bodies and now you’re stuck. That’s a real problem with some actual stakes. And as my shining daughter’s English teacher, Mrs. Dotmore, always says, without stakes, a story is just a bore-y. Mrs. Dotmore has six cats.

Created
Fri, 24/05/2024 - 18:53
Quick Takes: Hamas, China Semis and More

It seems that the US has figured out that when you’re genociding someone, that helps the organization resisting genocide recruit:

Biden officials have also become increasingly concerned that Hamas has been able to recruit during wartime — thousands over the last several months. That has allowed the group to withstand months of Israeli offensives, according to a person familiar with U.S. intelligence.

Imagine that. People wanting to fight back against those who killed their women and children. Who would have thought such a thing would happen? It’s so contrary to human psychology.