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The rehabilitation of the federal public service is a slow waltz – one step forward, one sideways and a couple backwards. To stretch the metaphors and with apologies to Don Gibson’s fine 1961 hit song, while the administrative ship of state is adrift in a sea of heartbreak, its principal stewards seem half asleep at Continue reading »

After more than six months of Parliamentary wrangling, the ALP’s flagship housing future fund bill finally cleared the Senate last week. For Australia’s neglected social housing sector, this presages a welcome revival of federally-supported capital investment, absent for most of the past quarter century. But, in a longer-term perspective, the resulting program will be significant Continue reading »

China wants to expand its sphere of influence; the West, thankfully, is devoid of such base instincts. We can ignore the US’ vastly greater military budget, its 800 overseas military bases compared to China’s one, its mammoth track record of overseas interventions, and its military encirclement of China with Australia’s aid; China is the obvious Continue reading »

None of us has previously witnessed a barrage of extreme weather events of the kind that has been devastating lives across the globe this summer. Canadian wildfires the size of Austria, a Hawaiian town incinerated by a hurricane-fuelled firestorm, a Greek island devastated by three years of rainfall in a single day, a Libyan town Continue reading »

I would guess that most of you haven’t ever heard of Sneako, a right wing Youtube “influencer.” Here’s a short bio: Nicolas “Nico” Kenn De Balinthazy (born: September 8, 1998 [age 25]), better known online as Sneako, is a right-wing Muslim-American internet personality. Sneako is closely associated with figures such as Andrew and Tristan Tate, rapper Kanye “Ye” West, white nationalist streamer Nick Fuentes, LeafyIsHere and the hosts of the Fresh&Fit Podcast. Through his main channel “SNEAKO” and second channel “SHNEAKO” on YouTube, Sneako amassed over 2,000,000 subscribers, up until his termination from the platform after repeated community guideline violations. He now posts content on the “alt-tech” platform Rumble.com You can get more details here but let’s just say this guy is a real piece of work.

Elaine, did you make this hummus?

No.

It’s really good.

Okay, but I didn’t make it.

David, did you make this hummus?

Nope.

Well, who did?

I don’t know.

I just want to compliment the person who made the hummus, but no one will tell me who made it.

I wish I could tell you who made it so you’d shut up about it.

I’ll shut up about it when I get some answers.

Hey, Eric, did you make this hummus? It’s delicious.

No, I didn’t make it either, and why do you have to compliment the person who made it? Can’t you just eat it and move on?

Because last year when I came to this office party, I made a spinach artichoke dip and no one said shit to me about it. Someone should have said something. Do you remember that dip I made?

No, it was a long time ago. I’ve probably eaten thirty or forty dips since then, so I don’t remember your stupid dip.

Exactly. People forget dips and the people who made them. We need to talk about the elephant in the room while there’s still time.

NATO’s military intervention in Libya in 2011, which overthrew the regime of Muammar Gaddafi, resulted in a chaotic and murderous failed state. Libyans pay a horrific price for this catastrophe.

The post Chris Hedges: Humanitarian Imperialism Created the Libyan Nightmare appeared first on MintPress News.

Over the last few days as most of the media was blathering on about Joe Biden’s “bad week” , Donald Trump was stepping up his campaign and appearing at various venues saying things and behaving in ways that should have made journalists’ ears perk up, wondering if he’s lost more than a step. He was wildly dishonest and incredibly self-destructive even for him. It started with an interview with Megyn Kelly for her Sirius XM show last Thursday, the first since Trump crudely insulted her back in 2015 in the first presidential primary debate. Trump seemed to expect a friendly, Fox-like, interview and she gave him plenty of softballs and expressed her agreement with much of his nonsense. But she did ask some probing questions about his legal troubles and once again he more or less confessed to his crimes. He must have said the words “Presidential Records Act” a dozen times, reiterating over and over that he had every right to take any document he chooses. And he slipped up continuously, providing the prosecution plenty of fodder: Trump on taking classified documents: “I’m allowed to have these documents.

The Attorney General's office has said it plans to push forward contempt of court proceedings against retired social worker Trudi Warner.

Copyright 1942, Pet Milk Company, St. Louis, Mo. Form No. 3856

How languages steal words from each other

Sorry, when you are semi-retired and in France anyway, easy to forget days of the week. Here’s an iPhone photo, from when I happened to be out and about in Pézenas. The wall is actually something to do with a local sport, possibly “jeu de tambourin”, but I’m not quite sure of its function, and […]

Are there not enough real problems to fret over? Democrats should have learned from the 2016 presidential race not to underestimate the commitment of the Republican tribe to its presidential frontrunner. Savvier GOP play-ahs may be nervous about having Donald Trump and his indictments running atop their 2024 ticket, but from what Mitt Romney revealed last week, many, many of them are too afraid of their violence-prone MAGA base to openly oppose him/them. An emergent “existential brand of cowardice,” as McKay Coppins put it, permeates the party leadership. That is to say that Democrats should know better this time than to count on some deus ex machina to recast the race that seems already cast … for both parties. What was it Andy Dufresne said in Shawshank? But Democrats being Democrats, they will. One thing Democrats are good at is self-doubt. Slate’s David Faris suggests (obliquely) that they get busy instead. He finger-wags at murmurings about a second-term VP for Biden: “Maybe the president should dump the veep” is a Beltway parlor game as old as time. Or at least as old as the writers doing the speculating. There were calls for George H.W.

One thing which never ceases to bemuse me is the intellectual insularity of mainstream economics. Every intellectual specialization is, by necessity, insular. Specialization necessarily requires that, to have expert knowledge in one field—say, physics—you must focus on that field to the exclusion of others—for example, chemistry. Given the extent of human knowledge today, this goes … Continue reading "The Impossibility of Microfoundations for Macroeconomics"

“An acquittal is yours for the asking if you’re white, male, and nefarious,” one perpetrator said. “I check all the boxes.”

Local journalism is on life support. Once the eyes and ears of readers in towns and cities across the UK, it has been devastated by swingeing cuts. Today, there are fewer local newspapers than at any time since the eighteenth century. More than 320 local titles closed between 2009 and 2019 — a trend that […]

Values drag Honestly, the headline summarizes well a column that tells us little we don’t already know, but let’s run with that: The Republican Party Has Devolved Into a Racket. But you knew that. Professors Sam Rosenfeld and Daniel Schlozman make their case that “the G.O.P. has lost a collective commitment to solving the nation’s problems and become purposeless.” But you knew that too. Trump, his Big Lie co-defendants, and Mitt Romney’s assessment of his Senate Republican colleagues marks a party “aimless … beyond the struggle for power and the demonization of its enemies.” The pair include a walk down memory lane from the 1970s until the party was consumed with conspiracism and its “long provenance on the American right, reaching back to McCarthyism and the John Birch Society.” “For Republicans, the only election results they respect are the ones that they win… I guess “heads I win, tails you lose” is the GOP approach to electoral democracy in America in 2023.

Miko Peled, who was serving in the Israeli military at the time, examines the events leading up to the infamous Sabra and Shatila massacre and questions why the world turned a blind eye to the signs of impending tragedy.

The post Israel’s License to Kill: Unraveling the Sabra and Shatila Massacre appeared first on MintPress News.

I am the fire that I fight.

You don’t craft customized soap bars made from organic goat’s milk because you want to craft customized soap bars made from organic goat’s milk; you craft customized soap bars made from organic goat’s milk because you have something to say.

Being a librarian is an act of peace.

Administering medication to elderly patients is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality.

Mopping up vomit begins in delight and ends in wisdom.

Investment banking is the rhythmical creation of beauty via income inequality.

Starting an OnlyFans is what happens when nothing else can.

A social worker is a painter of the soul.

Plumbing is discovering.

A podiatrist is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with feet.

Delivering for Uber Eats is how we give name to the nameless so it can be eaten.

Therapy is the lifeblood of rebellion, revolution, and the raising of consciousness.