Sometimes one event encapsulates the zeitgeist. Alexei Navalny’s death from what are almost certainly unnatural causes is one such moment. One of the most heroic figures of our time appears to have been eliminated by one of the most despicable and loathsome. The only thing that is really surprising given Vladimir Putin’s track record is Continue reading »
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China is threatening to the West because it provides an example of how a poor and technologically backward country can effectively defy Western domination of the mind and body. Since the late 15th Century until the mid-20th Century the West, through its technological and hence military superiority has been able to project to the rest Continue reading »
Why did well over half the 200-plus million Indonesian registered electors choose disgraced general Prabowo Subianto as their next President? Duncan Graham has some answers. Authority – and fun. The former cashiered general banned from the US and Australia in a previous life has on early counts won almost 60 per cent of the popular Continue reading »
Israel’s citizens seem either blithely unaware of the world’s horror at the terror raining down on Gaza, or do not care. Whichever, the barbarity has stripped it of the significant moral advantage given by the Hamas atrocities of October 7, and have caused fundamental reappraisal of Israel’s standing among people once disposed to be sympathetic Continue reading »
Well, if the cat is the referral of public servants by the Robodebt Royal Commission for code of conduct investigations now being dealt by the Public Service Commission, the answer is a long time. When the referrals were made the Commission brought in a couple of senior former officials, presumably as consultants, and the hope Continue reading »
Recently the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a thinktank in Washington, DC, did a survey asking U.S. and Taiwan Experts if China might use nuclear weapons in a conflict with or over Taiwan. The results were astonishing to most who read the study. Almost half of U.S. experts reported they thought China would. Only Continue reading »
Documents obtained under FOI applications have revealed a worrying side to official Australian efforts regarding WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.In September 2021, DFAT became aware of media reports detailing CIA planning to murder Assange in London. The plot revealed to journalists working for Yahoo News, who spoke to over 30 intelligence sources, involved consideration by CIA of Continue reading »
Många mainstreamekonomer medger att det är svårt att exakt veta var jämviktsarbetslösheten — NAIRU — ligger, men att den kan fungera som en slags ”tankeram” som kan hjälpa politiker och andra policymakare att fatta beslut och göra prognoser … Bra tankeram? Nej! Som senare tids forskning övertygande visat är NAIRU snarare att se som en […]
At least the presidential experts haven’t lost their minds, even if most of the rest of us have. Biden makes his debut in our rankings at No. 14, putting him in the top third of American presidents. Trump, meanwhile, maintains the position he held six years ago: dead last, trailing such historically calamitous chief executives as James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson. In that and other respects, Trump’s radical departure from political, institutional and legal norms has affected knowledgeable assessments not just of him but also of Biden and several other presidents. […] Biden’s most important achievements may be that he rescued the presidency from Trump, resumed a more traditional style of presidential leadership and is gearing up to keep the office out of his predecessor’s hands this fall. Trump’s position at the bottom of our rankings, meanwhile, puts him behind not only Buchanan and Johnson but also such lowlights as Franklin Pierce, Warren Harding and William Henry Harrison, who died a mere 31 days after taking office. Trump’s impact goes well beyond his own ranking and Biden’s.
A revolution in education! A resuscitation of the university mission! To happen in, of all places, not the pompous old northeast or the debauched West…
It’s not just swing voters who will decide our fate. It’s nonvoters. Those of us who simply couldn’t believe Americans were crazy enough to elect Donald Trump in 2016 got a rude awakening. The MAGA types are loud, but not that numerous. Michael Tomasky this Presidents’ Day considers the other voters we didn’t see coming then who will again decide this year’s presidential election. He invites the Biden campaign and us to step outside our political bubble and get inside their heads: Last week, NBC produced a poll showing that respondents were remembering the Trump years comparatively fondly. No, don’t roll your eyes and tongue-cluck these people. It’s vital that we ponder this. Respondents were asked of Biden and Trump whether each man had done about the kind of job they expected, a better job, or a worse job. For Biden, the numbers were 14 percent better, 44 percent as expected, and 42 percent worse. For Trump? Prepare yourself. It was 40 percent better, 31 percent as expected, and 29 percent worse. We can rationalize that away or deal with it. But the numbers are the numbers, Tomasky advises.
Open Rights Group has urged MPs to reject proposals that would enable the UK to secretly veto security updates that ensure our online interactions are safe and secure.The Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Bill, which will be debated in the House of Commons on February 19, could force tech companies to apply to the Home Office prior […]
We certainly agree that regularities or models that explain or that give heuristic value over many different cases are highly desirable. But ones that do neither are not — especially if they use up huge resources along the way. When looking at the details, the Prisoner’s Dilemma’s explanatory record so far is poor and its […]
Chris White once drove three hours out of his way to see the spot where William McKinley was shot. In this column, he answers various questions about our nation’s past, present, and future presidents.
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George Washington was kind of a big deal, and he knew it. Well aware that people would pick through his letters one day, he was careful about what he wrote and bequeathed his papers to his nephew Bushrod (seriously) for careful editing. Wife Martha torched most of what George had written her before she died, probably to hide the fact that they stayed intimate via French Revolution erotic fan fiction. By the end of his presidency, some of his fellow founders were starting to talk smack about George and whine about his politics. But he knew that with a little bit of image management, his legacy could outlive them all.
Why was this man ever a celebrity anything? Donald “91 Counts” Trump has always been high-wealth and low-rent. He has spent his entire life complaining that the world (“they”) are laughing at us (“him”). Go figure. Ron Filipkowski reminds Americans that if you pick your president late at night while watching the Home Shopping Network (HSN), you get what you pay for. Business Insider from 2018: From deodorant to bottled water and, at one point, a personalized vitamin kit that was determined by urine test, Trump has put his name on almost anything shoppers would buy. He also had a menswear line from Phillips-Van Heusen that was sold at Macy’s, as well as a collection of Trump-branded home decor. The Washington Post found in 2016 Trump-branded manufactured in 12 countries. In 2018, Quartz estimated only 15 percent of Mr. America First’s items for sale were made in the U.S. It’s not clear where his $399 Trump “Never Surrender” high-tops are made, but those are the odds. SneakerCon in Philadelphia on Saturday loudly booed when Trump introduced them.
The Rwanda-backed M23 is continuing its campaign of mass rape and murder in the DRC – with the UK turning a blind-eye
Billions of miles away at the edge of the Solar System, Voyager 1 has gone mad and has begun to die. Let’s start with the “billions of miles”. Voyager 1 was launched in early September 1977. Jimmy Carter was a hopeful new President. Yugoslavia and the USSR were going concerns, as were American Motors, Pan […]
A scandal involving a pardon to a paedophile’s accomplice has already taken down Hungary's former justice minister, President, and the head of the Hungarian Reformed Church