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THE Giving Tree is back at Big W Park Beach in the Plaza. From now until Christmas Eve, customers can place an unwrapped gift under the Giving Tree, each of which will go to families in the community who need it most. Big W has partnered with Good360 Australia to match all 177 stores with...

The post Pop your pressie under the Big W Giving Tree appeared first on News Of The Area.

CUPS of tea and scones have done it again, with sales of food and beverage delights from Mary’s Tea House going straight towards buying medical equipment at Bellinger River Hospital. Just last week, the Bellingen Hospital Pink Auxiliary presented a $5,006 vital signs monitor to the Hospital with the latest funds raised from the café....

The post Bello UHA donate vital signs monitor to Bellinger River Hospital appeared first on News Of The Area.

SERVICE NSW’s Aboriginal Artwork Initiative has launched at the Coffs Harbour branch, the fourth out of ten Service Centres to participate. Established following staff and customer feedback, the initiative aims to strengthen engagement with and acknowledgement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as well as make local service centres more welcoming for all people....

The post Gumnbaynggirr artwork features at Coffs Harbour Services NSW Centre appeared first on News Of The Area.

A radical faction within the Likud party plotted to kill Kissinger in 1977, according to a news report from the time.

The post Members of Israel’s Ruling Likud Party Once Planned to Assassinate Henry Kissinger appeared first on The Intercept.

It’s getting close It looks like the new speaker’s “running room” is running out: Speaker Mike Johnson is edging closer to the same sort of clash with conservatives that helped bring down his predecessor Kevin McCarthy. The brewing storm, crystallized by Johnson’s comments during a Wednesday meeting with GOP senators, is threatening to end what is left of the Louisiana Republican’s honeymoon running the House. On his right flank, some members are already asking behind closed doors whether Johnson might meet the same fate as the deposed McCarthy — though other GOP lawmakers see that speculation as bluster. Johnson has antagonized conservatives most acutely by engaging in policy talks with fellow leaders, rather than pushing exclusively for base-pleasing wins that won’t survive in the Senate. That traditional approach won’t hurt Johnson with most of the House GOP — but as McCarthy’s ouster made clear, it only takes a handful of fed-up members to make a speaker’s life difficult. The new speaker showcased his willingness to stand up to conservatives, as well as its limits, during his visit to the Senate.

Here's a preview of the BBC's upcoming Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson-starring Doctor Who Christmas Special: "The Church on Ruby Road."

It must be a big relief for his targets The minute the appeals court stayed the gag order in Trump’s NY fraud trail he went after the judge’s clerk again, naming her in his Truth Social feed. There is evidence submitted in this case and in the DC January 6th case that his attacks on her and others have led to hundreds of threats and grotesque insults from Donald trump fans, which apparently thrills him to no end since he won’t stop inciting it. The court reinstated the order today: Donald Trump is once again prohibited from attacking the law clerk at his ongoing bank fraud trial in New York, now that a four-judge appellate panel has reinstated a gag order that was briefly lifted this month. The two-page appeals court decision on Thursday wiped out Trump’s lone victory—albeit a minor one—during the trial that threatens to destroy the business tycoon’s real estate empire. While suffering through a trial against New York Attorney General Letitia James, Trump has relentlessly complained about the presiding judge’s right hand adviser, law clerk and attorney Allison Greenfield.

Human society is energy blind. Like a fish in water, it takes for granted the existence of that without which it could not survive. As with so many of humanity’s problems, this conceptual failure can be traced back to an economist. However, the guilty party is not one of “the usual suspects”—Neoclassical economists—but the person … Continue reading "Putting Energy Back into Economics"

Channel 7 has today announced that they will be ditching the kids hospital telethon in favour of a more worthy cause, male survivors of defamation lawsuits. ”What sort of World do we live in, when good wholesome chaps like Bruce... Read More ›

New polling shows that, if given the chance, Floridians will vote for a constitutional amendment supporting abortion A majority of Florida voters say they would vote yes on a constitutional amendment ensuring abortion access until fetal viability around 24 weeks, according to a new poll. “If this amendment does make it on the ballot, initiatives like this one need a supermajority of 60% in order to pass, and it looks like the proposed abortion amendment is right at that threshold among these respondents,” said University of North Florida pollster Dr. Michael Binder. “Even among registered Republicans, 53% would vote to protect abortion rights in Florida, with just 39% voting no.” The University of North Florida polled Florida voters and found 62% support the amendment and 29% are opposed to it, with a 4.37% margin of error. In April, Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a six-week abortion ban, which has not taken effect as a previous 15-week ban awaits the outcome of a legal challenge. A constitutional amendment would supersede either law.

Let’s not forget that Kissinger’s crimes included the deaths of thousands of Arabs and Israelis.

The post On Top of Everything Else, Henry Kissinger Prevented Peace in the Middle East appeared first on The Intercept.

Government memo suggests the Biden administration is angering allies by undermining strict standards for a new global carbon market.

UTS Comms Critical Webinar Series #2

The Atlas Network: Big Oil, Climate Disinformation and Constitutional Democracy

Date and time:

10-12 noon, Friday 8 December, Sydney time
6-8pm, Thursday 7 December, New York time

Register here

Welcome: James Goodman
Chair: Scott Ludlam

Speakers:
Dr Jeremy Walker (Silencing the Voice)
Prof Nancy MacLean (Democracy in chains)
Amy Westervelt (Drilled)
Prof J. Timmons Roberts

Responses:
Brendan Demelle - Desmog
Climate Investigations Center (tbc)

The post Webinar: The Atlas Network: Big Oil, Climate Disinformation and Constitutional Democracy appeared first on Progress in Political Economy (PPE).

Why do Marvel buy their comic book creators deep in the "special thanks" in the final credits when they relly don't have to?

An extraordinary email uncovered under freedom of information laws raises serious questions about whether Bellingcat, the “open source” collective widely cited by mainstream journalists and loved by the CIA, collaborates directly with Western intelligence agencies. Editor’s note: On December 22, The Grayzone received an email from Bellingcat founder and editor-in-chief Eliot Higgins threatening legal action if this story was not removed from the internet. Attempts to respond to Higgins produced an out of office automated reply, noting he was now […]

The post FOI raises further questions about Bellingcat coordination with Western intelligence  first appeared on The Grayzone.

The post FOI raises further questions about Bellingcat coordination with Western intelligence  appeared first on The Grayzone.

What the melting permafrost looks and sounds like to a scientist.

The post Portrait of a Fractured Arctic appeared first on Nautilus.

My mother taught me that you should not speak ill of the dead on the occasion of their passing. So I won’t.

Let’s microdose in my softest micro French terry sweatshirt gown. Let’s do Molly under my heritage-quality Molly Patchwork Quilt. Let’s celebrate the happiest season with the hug drug and a cheeky panty in boiled wool.

I live in the Garnet Hill catalog like Barbie lives in Barbie World. And like the Barbies, we have a matriarchy. All the men wear flannel joggers and have no penises. We do not need a social safety net because there are no poor, elderly, or human people here. The children buy their own childcare and Signature Supima long johns, which allows us ladies to stroll the tawny streets of medieval Portugal, or hunt whales above the Arctic Circle.

MDMA is all about connectedness to self and others. I want to mix and mingle at a private school winter concert. I want to make a hefty donation to the capital campaign and unwrap my crepe wrap dress for the head of school. I want to wear a $349 velvet button-down to the neighbors’ cocktail hour and sneak away to their timeless bathroom to pleasure myself with a porcelain Christmas tree figurine.

Henry Kissinger’s death draws to a close the epoch of intellectualism in foreign policy to which he was committed following his early study of and belief in a system of organised strategic balance and restraint of the kind that emerged from the Treaty of Westphalia in the 17th century. I first met Henry Kissinger in Continue reading »

It is more than 20 years since Labor Leader Simon Crean addressed Australian troops leaving to fight in the Bush-Blair-Howard war on Iraq. “I don’t believe that you should be going,” he said, absent a United Nations determination. “But that’s a political decision, that’s an argument that the prime minister [John Howard] and I will Continue reading »

Dozens of ‘small modular reactor’ designs are being promoted but precious few will reach the construction stage and the likelihood of SMRs being built in large numbers is negligible. Small modular reactors (SMRs) are defined as reactors with a capacity of 300 megawatts (MW) or less. The term ‘modular’ refers to serial factory production of Continue reading »