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Polar bear babies! Mierlo, November 30, 2023 – A healthy polar bear has been born in Dierenrijk. The delivery took place peacefully in the Frimas polar bear maternity. Mother and the newborn are doing well. Head animal caretaker Stephan Rijnen: “In early November, we noticed that the mother was retreating to the maternity room. From this, we could deduce that the mating we observed in March was likely successful! A polar bear gestation lasts about eight months, so we had to wait a bit. Tuesday morning, we reviewed the camera footage and discovered good news! A young polar bear the size of a guinea pig was lying with mother Frimas.” The maternity room is a separate enclosure connected to the indoor enclosure of the polar bears in Dierenrijk. This space is built so that pregnant polar bears can withdraw for childbirth. When designing the maternity room, the natural behavior of female polar bears in the wild was also taken into account. Rijnen: “In the wild, the expectant mother goes into winter hibernation, in the snow den she has dug herself. First, the mother eats to fullness so that she is strong enough to survive the winter.
Some rules to help journalists avoid the mistakes of 2016 in 2024: – Ban repeat liars from live interviews – Never put a lie in the headline – Use a truth sandwich when reporting on lies – Don’t take the bait (stop rewarding drama with visibility) – Abandon the social media algorithm (don’t let Xitter […]
The signs of American collapse are everywhere. The Russians are out-producing not just the US, but the West in missiles, tanks and drones. The Chinese have a larger navy than the US and can build three ships in the time it takes the US to build one, and yes, their domestic arms industry is larger and more productive than America’s. They and the Russians are also ahead technologically in missiles, and arguably drones. (America has more expensive larger ones, but Ukraine shows what works is swarms of smaller ones.)
What’s really damning is the Western inability to ramp up production for the Ukrainian war. The Russians vastly increased production, the West hasn’t and can’t. De-industrialization is real.
When leaders ignore threats, they should pay a price That August 6th memo to George W. Bush with a big warning that “Al Qaeda determined to strike inside the United States” which he and others in his administration ignored, may be the moment that permanently destroyed Bush’s reputation, (There were a lot of them, of course. Mission Accomplished” was also one of the worst.) It looks like Benjamin Netanyahu’s government was similarly warned and did nothing about it, which they wouldn’t, since they believed Hamas was contained and that the real issue was giving the extremist Israeli wingnuts on the West Bank everything they wanted. Oy vey. The NY Times reported today: Israeli officials obtained Hamas’s battle plan for the Oct. 7 terrorist attack more than a year before it happened, documents, emails and interviews show. But Israeli military and intelligence officials dismissed the plan as aspirational, considering it too difficult for Hamas to carry out.
The media refuses do it Kevin Drum: On a monthly basis, core PCE inflation was down to 2.0%, which is the Fed’s target rate. Headline inflation was even better, clocking in close to zero. On a year-over-year basis, headline inflation came in at 3.0% and core inflation at 3.5%. POSTSCRIPT: Now that inflation is going down instead of up, I notice that neither the New York Times nor the Washington Post even bothers to report it on their front page. Even the Wall Street Journal mentions it only under a headline about consumer spending slowing down. And we wonder why people don’t seem to know that inflation is way down? I’m very sick of hearing excuses that the reason people say the economy is bad is because they just don’t “feel” it. They do. They’re spending like crazy. The problem is that when people are polled they reflect the conventional wisdom which they get from the media. The right wing media will never tell the truth about this. But there is no excuse for the way the MSM is covering this story.
Hookay, Christian Ziegler, the Chairman of the Florida GOP, has been accused of committing sexual violence against a woman who was in a longstanding, consensual sexual relationship with him AND his wife. And the wife, Bridget Ziegler, is the co-founder of Moms For Liberty, an organization that treats LGBTQ people, especially Trans people, like they are sexual predators. They were in a bisexual threesome relationship and the husband is accused of sexually predator behavior. Oh, and they’re big Christians. MAGA… sigh.
One had fun, the other one not so much. Guess which was which. Even big GOP influencer “Catturd” notices. (I’m no joking , he’s the leader of MAGA twitter.) When Florida Gov. Ron Desantis agreed to debate California Gov. Gavin Newsom it’s unlikely he knew his presidential campaign would be flailing to the extent it is. But he still should have thought twice. Whatever his political skills might be, he is terrible on the debate stage. He managed to barely hold his own in the sad Trumpless GOP primary debates that have been dominated by his rival former S. Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. He did himself no favors on Thursday night when he finally met with Newsom on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show. Any Trump fan, which would include virtually all Fox viewers, were primed to watch him be humiliated. Trump spokesman Steve Cheung either taking dictation from the boss or channeling him perfectly, put out this humdinger of a statement in advance of the event: “Ron DeSanctimonious is acting more like a thirsty, third-rate OnlyFans wannabe model than an actual presidential candidate.
Dear members of the University community,
The University administration respects all student protests, just not this one. Students have fought for many important causes over the years, and their right to protest is sacrosanct. In this case, however, we must arrest and slander them.
We will not look back and regret this decision. Although we were wrong about not admitting women, abolitioning racial quotas, US involvement in Vietnam, and divesting from apartheid South Africa, we are confident that this time is different.
Rules are rules, and the rules never change.
Past protests inspired the very assets that make our school great. When students marched for wheelchair-accessible buildings, we called the cops and threatened to expel them. Today, we brag about our ADA-compliant dorms on every campus tour.
Those brave students are part of the fabric of our community. And now that they are gone, we can happily assimilate them into our PR strategy.
The Canadian private equity fund Brookfield’s bid for Origin Energy has the sole aim of delivering unconscionable profits to investors. But the rest of us have to know we are in the company of the masters of the universe and click our heels whenever we are given the cue from their obedient investment banks. Origin Continue reading »
Defence Minister Marles, always singing from the same tired US song book, fails to recognise the difference between international law and ‘a rules based international order’ (RBIO) that the US preaches. And there is a big difference. RBIO is code for US rules. In February this year he told us that ‘the rules-based order that Continue reading »
Following the Hamas attack of October 7 and the subsequent Israeli response, the ground has irrevocably shifted. There can be no going back to the previously prevailing status quo in which the Palestinians of Gaza suffer an endless blockade, the Palestinians of the West Bank face on-going rule through military occupation, and the people of Continue reading »
The Reserve Bank is widely expected to increase interest rates further. However, what is now critical to achieving the Bank’s inflation target is the future increase in labour costs, and this may come down sufficiently without any further interest rate rises. The inflation outlook and interest rates As has been widely reported, interest rates have Continue reading »
Objectivity does not exist – it cannot exist… The word is a hypocrisy which is sustained by the lie that the truth stays in the middle. No sir: sometimes truth stays on one side only. – Oriana Fallaci The journalist who penned an open letter to Australian media organisations calling for ethical reporting of the Continue reading »
The grand housing cartel, a couple from Point Piper resurrect Gough Whitlam’s ideas on urban development, CPI data confirms that the RBA can declare itself redundant, Australians disappointed because they thought they elected a Labor government. Read on for the weekly roundup of links to articles, podcasts, reports and other media on current economic and Continue reading »
A week ago today, I and several hundred other members of Rising Tide and were paddling around the entrance to Newcastle Harbour preventing the export of coal from the world’s largest coal port. The event was incredibly well organised and extremely safe for everyone involved. It lasted from Friday until Monday but the actual blockade was Continue reading »
On 21 August 2013 there was an alleged sarin gas attack in Syria, in which hundreds of people, including scores of children, were killed. This is what led the US and its allies to threaten military strikes against Syria. Since August 2013, western governments, mainstream media outlets, and NGOs have routinely blamed the Syrian government Continue reading »