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Look, this is not up for debate. We’re going to keep feeding the grizzly bear.

Sure, he may not protect us in any tangible sense. In fact, sometimes he hurts us. But that’s just how the cookie crumbles.

The thing is, the grizzly bear has always been there. We’ve always been feeding him, and there really is no good reason to stop doing that.

Oh, he’s getting increasingly violent? He keeps attacking strangers for no discernible reason? First of all, I don’t know about that. Second of all, that’s not our problem. What the bear does after we feed him has nothing to do with us. That’s his business.

“Feeding the grizzly bear is so expensive,” you say. “That money could be put toward all sorts of better causes.”

Listen, a budget is a budget, and it can’t be changed. Unless we want to devote more money to feeding the grizzly bear, in which case the budget must be changed.

A series of columnists have resigned from the paper over fabrications in articles by former IDF soldier Elon Perry. Now victims of the publication's false claims are speaking up

This summer, at the British Medical Association’s Annual Representative Meeting — the yearly opportunity for BMA members to make their opinions policy — a motion passed calling for the protection of doctors and medical students involved in activism. With one doctor being persecuted for climate activism and in the wake of the Tory government threatening […]

The masculinity of medieval knighthood was expansive enough for both graphic violence and the joys of a flower meadow

- by Jennifer Saltzstein

Read at Psyche

Life is starting to look a lot less like an outcome of chemistry and physics, and more like a computational process

- by David C Krakauer & Chris Kempes

Read at Aeon

So, nice little chart here:

Seems… bad. At least for America and Europe.

Let’s lay this out:

1. Most of what you want to buy you can buy from China, you don’t need to get it from the West, so why use dollars?
2. China almost never uses sanctions or seizes foreign currency. The US often does. US dollars are risky, the right to use them can and is often taken away, and so often are the dollars themselves.

So why use the dollar, except that it’s still easier in some cases?

After John McCain got caught up in a corruption scheme, he went to war with his own party to try to make sure it never happened again.

Occupational entry regulations (OER) are legal requirements that people need to meet to enter certain professions. They are intended to protect consumers by ensuring providers are of sufficient quality – but they can also create costs by making it harder for new workers to enter a profession or for new firms to open and grow. In this paper we construct a database of OER stringency across three states and a number of occupations to better understand these potential costs. We find that for services provided to consumers (businesses), OER tend to be more (less) stringent in Australia compared with the average OECD country. In most occupations OER are more stringent in Australia compared to the least stringent OECD country. We find that more stringent OER are associated with lower business entry and exit rates, and a slower flow of workers from less to more productive firms, both of which may have negative implications for productivity. We also find some tentative evidence that OER tend to be associated with skill shortages. These results do not necessarily suggest that OER should be less stringent.

Pulling children out of rubble, witnessing ill-treatment of Palestinian civilians by Israeli soldiers, witnessing the displaced Gazan population work its way through destroyed streets. In Australia, the Senate debate on housing. These are the items we found on our five-minute scroll on X. Civil defence teams rescue children from rubble @swilkinsonbc Civil defense teams rescue Continue reading »

Source - Patreon

Source - Patreon

Source - Patreon

Source - Patreon

Bolts.com has done some deep research into the elections official positions in states where they themselves are on the ballot this year. Yikes: One needs only to skim recent headlines to be reminded of the power of state elections officials to shape access to voting. Nebraska’s secretary of state just unilaterally shut down voter registration for tens of thousands of people with past felony convictions just weeks before the election. The secretary of state in Ohio, who has spent years courting the Big Lie, this month proposed to make it harder to vote by mail by limiting drop boxes. In Arizona, the secretary of state is laying the groundwork to combat election deniers who might seek to reject election results in November. All these officials were elected by voters in the 2022 midterms, a busy cycle that saw a coordinated (and largely unsuccessful) effort by followers of Donald Trump to take over election administration. Two years later, a new round of states are selecting their chief election officials.

Trump earlier today: Later that day:

Join State of Play as lawyer Kristen Zornada unpacks Israel's lobbying of U.S. Congress to block South Africa's ICJ case. We explore pending ICC warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, and Israel’s growing isolation on the global stage.

The post Israel Targets International Law Amid ICC Warrant Fears – Featuring Kristen Zornada appeared first on MintPress News.

Fresh off the news of the alleged assassination attempt against felon turned Presidential nominee, Donald Trump, Sky News Australia is reporting of an assassination attempt against Coalition leader, Peter Dutton, after a man was seen nearby carrying a potato peeler.... Read More ›

A police shooting that injured three people and one officer is the result of New York Mayor Eric Adams’s enforcement-first mentality.

The post There Are So Many Armed Cops on Subways That Now They’re Shooting Each Other appeared first on The Intercept.

A police shooting that injured three people and one officer is the result of New York Mayor Eric Adams’s enforcement-first mentality.

The post There Are So Many Armed Cops on Subways That Now They’re Shooting Each Other appeared first on The Intercept.

A recent book contributing to the discourse on rent offers a map to those who would brave the chaos of the past and present of rent theory. This humble intervention, conveniently titled Rent, is as compelling as it is concise, which this blog post summarises.

The post The frightful hobgoblins of rent theory appeared first on Progress in Political Economy (PPE).

Depends on who’s asking Ok, ok, I can’t resist. Here’s a little polling chum for a Monday afternoon. Don’t take any of it too seriously because the polls are close and polling is in crisis so we really have no earthly idea who’s ahead and who’s behind. But there are trends… From Dan Pfeiffer’s post this morning on the post-debate polls: The national polling averages remain largely unchanged. On the day of the debate, the FiveThirtyEight polling average had Harris leading Trump by 2.5%. Today, that lead is 2.8%. However, a steady stream of positive polls for Harris came out since the debate. Simon Rosenberg compiled this list in a recent issue of his Hopium Chronicles newsletter: Harris 50-45 (+5) Morning ConsultHarris 47-42 (+5) Ipsos/ReutersHarris 51-47 (+4) RMGHarris 50-46 (+4) Data For ProgressHarris 49-45 (+4) YouGov/Yahoo (LVs)Harris 49-45 (+4) YouGov/Times (LVs)Harris 47-43 (+4) TIPP InsightsHarris 50-47 (+3) Leger/NYPostHarris 48-45 (+3) SoCalHarris 44-42 (+2) Redfield & Wilton And then, on Sunday morning, an ABC News/Ipsos poll showed Harris up by six points over Trump.