Reading

Ill health, perhaps especially mental ill health, is generally seen as a personal issue, requiring diagnosis and treatment. But at the population level, mental health problems have a profound message for our societies and their futures. We need to pay it more heed. A new international review has concluded that rates of emotional problems such Continue reading »

Australia once thought of itself as a country of opportunity and innovation – economically and socially. Like most countries self-beliefs, the thought was not always matched by reality. Indeed, it would arguably be better to see Australia as a land of lost opportunities with many of those losses being biggest and most damaging in recent Continue reading »

It’s not often that you find someone writing about open source software and not bothering to make mention of the licences being used. But that’s precisely what Albert Zhang of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a lobby group for big tech and foreign agencies, has done. In an article titled China’s use of foreign open-source software, and how Continue reading »

Catherine Russell, the head of UNICEF, said this week that of the 600,000 children in Rafah, southern Gaza, all of them are either injured, or sick, or malnourished. Much of the Gaza population has been forced south to Rafah by the Israeli military, which had promised them it was a safe zone. She added, “Over 200 days of war Continue reading »

There’s a lot of talk about what should be done to fix education in America, like increasing federal funding, decreasing class sizes, increasing teacher salaries, and investing in better teacher preparation. These are all nice ideas, but they’re totally abstract and conceptual. They’re not things any modern country could actually do.¹

If we really want to fix American schools, we need more Learning Outcomes. Learning Outcomes are the things that captivate children. Learning Outcomes help children to identify, comprehend, and synthesize their dreams.

When I was a child, my teacher took us into the woods in the fall and let us collect leaves. She showed us how the leaves caught the sunlight and magically transformed it into energy. Then she explained how the season’s waning light resulted in chlorophyll breakdown, which caused an explosion of pigments that created the kaleidoscope of patterns and colors we held in our hands. It was like stepping inside a story where the leaves were characters who lived in a fantastical forest.

I wonder if that actually penetrates the minds of the average Fox viewers. And then there’s this: Apparently, she is demanding that Mike Johnson commit to her personally that he won’t ever fund Ukraine again, that he defunds the DOJ and never again passes a bill without majority GOP support. I’m sure he agreed since none of that’s relevant until after the election at which point they’ll vote for leadership again anyway. But sure, let’s put them in charge of the House again.

Here we go As Donald Trump’s criminal trial continues in Manhattan, it appears we will hear today from the adult-film actress at the heart of the hush-money payments allegedly covered up by Trump and his convicted “fixer’ Michael Cohen: Stormy Daniels (Stephanie Clifford) . What made the payments criminal, prosecutors allege, was disguising repayments to Cohen as legal fees. The scheme was intended to influence the 2016 presidential election. Forget the sex. Check out those titillating invoices at the Trump hush money trial, Politico reported. The Associated Press noted on Monday that the prosecution presented the jury with documents from the Trump Organization and testimony from former controller, Jeffrey McConney, who heard about payments to Cohen from Trump CFO Allen Weisselberg. But he was unaware of what they were for: A bank statement displayed in court showed Cohen paying $130,000 to Davidson, Daniels’ lawyer, on Oct. 27, 2016, out of an account for an entity Cohen created for the purpose. Weisselberg’s handwritten notes about reimbursing Cohen were stapled to the bank statement in the company’s files, McConney said.

Much was made of newly elected Conservative Mayor Ben Houchen not being able to find a blue rosette - but outside the Westminster bubble associations with party brands are often an obstacle to get work done

The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

The post Why Animals Run Faster than Robots appeared first on Nautilus.

It was the jokes about Trump’s rumored flatulence in the courtroom that pushed me toward despair. And don’t think it was disgust with the subject matter either. After all, I’ve lived with teenagers and I wasn’t all that surprised by yet another Trump-inspired trivialization of a critical civic institution. What appalled me was the possibility that — let’s be clear here — such stories would somehow humanize the monster, that his alleged farting and possible use of adult diapers would win him sympathy. I even wondered whether such rumors could be part of a scheme to win him votes. So, yes, Trump can make you that crazy. Or maybe it’s something about important trials, about the slow unspooling of evidence... Read more

Source: Donald Trump and O.J. Simpson appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

Palestinians and Israelis are two Indigenous peoples occupying the land that is being fought over.

The post Indigenous appeared first on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents.

The degenerating saga of the GOP’s mind virus The best minds of the MAGA generation were not destroyed by madness. They’re empowered by it, revel in it, slather themselves in it. The T-partiers were pikers by comparison. They pretended that their beef with Barack Obama was taxation and his birth certificate. Alt-right street fighters tacked “based” to the front of their monikers to signify their antipathy towards their fellow Americans. The Party of Trump is an orgy of debasement. The talent competition at Donald Trump’s VP pageant over the weekend involved limbo. How low could they go? Lick his shoes? Lick the bottom of his shoes? Digby profiled some of the contestants on Monday. Then we come to the dog-executing, based governor of South Dakota, Krispi Gnome, and her latest memoir. And its anecdotes and edits. And her “Face The Nation” interview.

The world has changed in the hundred years since A. A. Milne introduced us to Winnie-the-Pooh and his pals, but that doesn’t mean our lovable friends haven’t adapted to life in the twenty-first century. This heartwarming, laugh-out-loud parody—by frequent McSweeney’s contributor Jennie Egerdie—takes us along for some marvelous misadventures as the gang grapples with modern life’s headaches and pesky predicaments. Today, we’re happy to offer an excerpt from Oh, Bother.

Session 1

Deep in the Hundred Acre Wood, in a sensibly furnished den, Eeyore shared feelings of inadequacy with his therapist, Dr. Festinker.

Alan MacLeod explains how the Biden administration periodically leaks stories to friendly journalists in order to distance themselves from the violence they clearly are supporting, helping wash their hands of any culpability.

The post Biden Is Deeply Concerned About Israel’s Behavior, Media Claims appeared first on MintPress News.

“Gen Z has been mocking millennial style with so much glee in the last few years that doing so has become its own TikTok trend.” — New York Times

I’m a millennial, and the media has been talking about how young and cool I am for over twenty years. Then, seemingly overnight, I’m old?

I didn’t even know Gen Z existed until a few months ago. And some of them are already adults? I recently interviewed applicants for a new position in my office. As I was introducing myself, one woman began LOLing. She then continued to ROTFL. I asked her what she was doing, and she said, “IJBOL because of your hair. Side parts are out.”

What was “IJBOL”? And which part of my hair was in? And why don’t I know?

I told my supervisor what happened. He shrugged his shoulders and said, “Young people.” I found this confusing, because I thought I was “young people.”

In today's BCTV Daily Dispatch: X-Men '97, Always Sunny & Drake, TWD: Dead City, Young Sheldon, Superman, Tracker, Doctor Who, and more!

Professor Chris Painter explores the likely determinants of the next general election outcome – which polls consistently predict Labour will win