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Dear Children:

All my real estate, savings, and tangible assets are to go to all of you, and if you don’t want them, to Goodwill or the thrift shop. Or just find someone who looks like they need them. Some things that don’t look like much are more valuable than you might think, like the cowboy boots I wore in college. They are still good. I wore them at Woodstock!

The same is true for my digital estate. I left a fourteen-page list of passwords in that wooden box that Grandpa made himself—you know, the one he was always bragging about. I may have changed some of them since I last printed out the list, but you can probably figure them out. (I’m not writing anything down: the NSA!)

But here’s the idea. They are usually combinations of the first letters of titles of books that I was reading, or wanted to read, combined with numbers. I used the book about Vikings a lot, and the one about rattlesnakes, but also some lines from the poem about the captain that Grandpa liked.

The Justice Minister has said the Government will 'make sure' that anyone jailed over the riots has a 'prison place waiting for them'

Middle-American White Dad I felt that all the choices were pretty good and Walz is one of the best. He’s a progressive who knows how to talk about progressive issues in ways that sound very accessible to middle Americans. He’s an American archetype — a football coach. I think he makes a very good pair with Harris.

Monkey-wrenching the democracies “The real threat to democracy is a failure to imagine the worst-case scenario,” Tony Gerber, co-director with Jesse Moss, told NPR Monday in an interview about their new documentary War Game. The film simulates U.S. officials responding to a post-election coup after a disputed election. “Insurgents take capitals, questioning the president’s military control,” says IMDB. Officials must counter a “Red Cell” radical faction coordinated by a fictional “Order of Columbus.” Gerber is wrong here. The real threat to democracy is the flagged-bedecked Americans in diapers who have rejected democracy, the Constitution, and America’s founding vision for strongman rule. (And Supreme Court justices prepared to prop it up.) Republicans plan to open a second front after November 5. The election they expect to lose at the ballot box they plan to win, or at least thwart, in court. Georgia is just one battlefield. But the threat of violence War Game postulates is real. For those not paying attention, right-wing riots broke out over the weekend across England and in Ireland. Police arrested hundreds.

Time is running out to be on it “It’s OK to vote against Donald Trump,” Mesa, Arizona’s Republican mayor, John Giles told a press conference on Monday. Giles remains a registered Republican but is stumping for Kamala Harris. He hopes to see the GOP “get away from the personality cult our party has become.” “I think the time has come for us as Arizona Republicans to admit the obvious,” Giles told reporters, “which is that our party’s nominee is not qualified for office and that we need to vote for the adult in the room, and that is Kamala Harris.” “Character matters,” said former GOP state Rep. Robin Shaw. The Harris campaign days ago named Giles and Shaw to head up a task force to do outreach to Arizona Republicans: “As a lifelong Arizonan and longtime Republican, I strongly believe in defending democracy and standing up for our personal freedoms. Donald Trump and JD Vance represent the greatest threat to American values and institutions that I have seen in my lifetime – and that’s why I am committed to defeating him in November,” Giles said in a written statement.

Paul Davidson, the co-founder of the Journal of Post Keynesian Economics (JPKE) and a leading Post Keynesian economist, died on June 20, 2024, in Chicago. He was born in Brooklyn, NY, on October 23, 1930, about a year after the Great Crash of 1929. He was a staunch defender of the importance of John Maynard […]

I understand she’s wonderful. I have no serious critiques. My only concern is… is she electable?

I know she’s a fantastic communicator. Every clip of her I see, I’m blown away by her knowledge, poise, and warm meme-able laugh. I just worry about what others think of her. Not everyone is as willing as I am to take substance, style, content, reputation, qualifications, and confidence over vague vibes. Will they find her electable?

I will vote for her, for sure. No question. I’m a male feminist. And I’m hearing plenty of people say the same thing, including those who were planning to vote for the other guy. But even though millions of individual Americans are willing to cast their ballots for her, I’m just not sure she’s as electable as we need her to be.

When I ask people if they’re with her, they say yes. But when I ask if they find her electable, almost everyone says no. Or they say yes. Or they say, “What does that mean?” which is rude. I’m just trying to make conversation. All of which is to say: I’m worried.

She’s just so much. I won’t explain. I worry she’s not electable.

Last Friday’s news was dominated by the ‘biggest IT outage in history’, as   a bug in a routine software update cascaded into a global crisis.  Millions of computers were knocked out, thousands of flights  cancelled,  hospital operations  postponed,  television channels went off the air, payments systems  crashed,  supply chains  froze. In  short the digital foundations … Continue reading Letter to the TLS on AI 22nd of July

In his interesting opinion article (Robots sacked, screenings shut down: a new movement of luddites is rising up against AI, 27 July), Ed Newton-Rex misses one of the most serious concerns about artificial intelligence: its surveillance potential. Governments have always spied on their subjects/citizens: technology multiplies their powers of spying. In his novel 1984, George … Continue reading Letter in the Guardian on AI 2nd of August 2024

Sir, William Hague poses a false alternative: letting Russia win or allowing Ukraine to fire western-supplied missiles deep in Russian territory. There is better way: a negotiated peace, involving neither a Ukrainian defeat nor military escalation. This requires a recognition that Ukraine has already won its most important victory. Putin expected to be in Kyiv … Continue reading Letter in the Times on Ukraine 24th of July 2024

Russia’s latest military gains in the Donetsk region (Report, July 5) reinforce the case for a negotiated settlement of the war in Ukraine. The US and its allies support Ukraine’s key war aim, which is a return to the 2014 frontiers, ie, Russia’s expulsion from Crimea and Donbas. But all informed analysts agree that short … Continue reading Letter in the Financial Times on Ukraine 10th of July 2024

Labour’s Economic Plan Lacks Keynesian Ambition Jul 24, 2024 Robert Skidelsky Today’s risk-averse economic climate calls for increased public investment to attract reluctant private capital. But British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s insistence on adhering to strict fiscal rules casts doubt on his ability to pull the United Kingdom out of its economic malaise. LONDON – … Continue reading Project Syndicate 24th of July 2024

Across the country, fascists are committing horrendous acts of racist violence in broad daylight. In Rotherham and Tamworth, hotels housing asylum seekers were set on fire; in Burnley, Muslim graves were vandalised. On social media, videos are said to show young people beating those they perceive to be Muslims in the street. In one post […]

If human knowledge can disappear so easily, why have so many cultural practices survived without written records?

- by Helena Miton

Read at Aeon

A moment of insight captured the danger in our widespread ‘sovereigntism’ – and how we ought to relate to each other instead

- by Rupert Read

Read at Psyche

The UK is acting as if the bombing of hospitals, starvation of civilians, and razing of entire neighbourhoods was just a disappointing but ultimately anomalous spell of bad behaviour

Cuts to the UN aid agency's budget in the aftermath of the reports were estimated to have cost it half a billion dollars in crucial emergency funds

"It is irresponsible and disrespectful to punish the very people that the company relies on for its success in pursuit of shareholder profits."

These life-size portraits of South Korea’s most iconic ocean women showcase a dying way of life.

The post The Salty Grit of the Haenyeo Divers appeared first on Nautilus.

Western media focused intently on a Russian “murderer” released in the exchange with Washington, but whitewashed the record of his target – a Chechen militant now confirmed as a CIA asset. August 1 saw the largest prisoner exchange between Moscow and Washington since the end of the Cold War. Among those freed were Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former US marine Paul Whelan, who were each serving 16 year sentences for espionage. In the other direction, Russian opposition […]

The post Historic US-Russia prisoner swap exposes CIA support for Chechen jihad first appeared on The Grayzone.

The post Historic US-Russia prisoner swap exposes CIA support for Chechen jihad appeared first on The Grayzone.