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It’s on!

Looks like Iran wasn’t a paper tiger wimp who wouldn’t strike back.

Waves of drones right now, as I understand it the idea is to degrade air defenses, then send in the missiles.

American naval and air assets are helping Israel defend. I wonder if Iran will hit American bases too? Or, perhaps, tell its allies in Iraqi militias to do so, and stop playing around with small drone attacks: really hit them.

To my mind this attack is 100% justified. Embassy immunity is no joke, and Iran really had no choice but to strike, or nowhere would be safe.

Hezbollah is also hitting Northern Israel hard with missile attacks.

There’s some chance of this escalating into a large regional war if Israel counter-strikes, then Iran counter-counter-strikes and so on. Israel wants to draw the US in.

If Washington believed that Iran was about to start a war with Israel, would the Pentagon be bringing home its morticians?

The post U.S. Military Isn’t That Concerned About War With Iran appeared first on The Intercept.

A real man of the people If you enjoyed the 2008 financial system crash you’re going to love a second Trump term: A second Trump White House would seek to sharply reduce the power of U.S. financial regulators, according to a review of public documents and interviews with people allied with the former president. In the wake of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, Congress dramatically expanded the U.S. government’s oversight of the financial industry to prevent a repeat of the 2008 global banking meltdown. Donald Trump would likely renew his efforts to scale back those reforms, if elected, as well as pare protections for small-scale investors and borrowers, and allow companies to raise money with less scrutiny, according to the interviews and proposals from groups positioned to influence a new conservative administration. Reuters spoke with, among others, about a dozen people who have provided advice or been consulted by Trump or his allies.

This is ridiculous. Even Napoleon didn’t go this far. But then, consider this by Jonathan Martin, one of the foremost purveyors of Village 2.0 conventional wisdom in which he reveals that up until now, just everybody has assumed that Trump has a lock on the White House. It has long appeared to me that the beltway press has felt that way and it’s nice to know that my perceptions weren’t wrong. But I honestly did know about the rest of this: It has been close to an open secret in the diplomatic corps that America’s allies and adversaries are anticipating a Trump restoration. Discussing who will fill his second-term Cabinet and White House isn’t just the stuff of parlor games in embassies and overseas capitals — it has taken on a what-will-we-do urgency since Trump sealed the GOP nomination last month. It is one thing for Hungarian President Viktor Orban, the contrarian and would-be authoritarian troll of the continent, to descend on Mar-a-Lago for an ersatz state visit.

How accurately are methane emissions reported and whose estimates can you believe? Who should be the last producers of oil and gas? What are Australia’s commonest birds? How well do you know our Aussie birds? 1          Which of the following are among Australia’s commonest ten birds: Rainbow Lorikeet Red Wattlebird Sulphur-crested Cockatoo Australian White Ibis Continue reading »

Visits to the historical sites of Israel and beyond provide stark reminders that the past – including the recent past – is always with us, with places and monuments marking conflicts of ideologies and conflicts of people. The region of the Levant – Israel, the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon – are blessed with Continue reading »

In a critical forum addressing the Migration Legislation (Removal and other Measures) Bill 2024, Kalyani Inpakumar, representing the Tamil Refugee Council, shed light on the troubling direction of the Albanese Labor Government’s migration and refugee policies. The implications of this bill are stark and unsettling. The bill, as outlined by Greens Senator Meereen Faruqi, carries Continue reading »

Forty-nine years ago, the Australian Prime Minister and the President of Indonesia met in a tiny sugar town in North Queensland and tried to convince the world they were discussing beef cattle exports, and not the invasion of East Timor. They never fooled the locals who didn’t see much action on the cattle front, just Continue reading »

We need journalism that is committed to accurate and uncompromising investigation and not a spurious “impartiality” that hides brutal facts of occupation and genocide. Issues deemed by UK media to be too controversial to be made visible are simply not being covered in Israel’s war on Gaza. Since 1 February, there has not been a Continue reading »

YOUNG people and their communities will celebrate Youth Week across Australia from 11 – 21 April. Youth Week is an opportunity for young people to get involved in the planning, development and management of a whole range of activities. Advertise with News of The Area today. It’s worth it for your business. Message us. Phone...

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NOMINATIONS for the Yandaarra Aunty Grace Roberts Community Awards are now open, offering recognition to outstanding members of the Aboriginal community. The awards – presented by City of Coffs Harbour and the Yandaarra Aboriginal Advisory Committee – showcase the amazing work of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people on the Coffs Coast. Advertise with News...

The post Yandaarra Aunty Grace Roberts Community Awards now open appeared first on News Of The Area.

A LOCAL artists group which has been meeting for 24 years will present an exhibition and sale at the Sawtell Art Gallery from 13-23 April. The Coffs Coast Artists group began with several artists with like minds and interests meeting to share information and techniques in oil, pastel, watercolour, plein-air and landscape painting. Advertise with...

The post Artists group presents Sawtell exhibition appeared first on News Of The Area.

We finally got the latest all-important NY Times poll which shows that Biden has gained 4 points in the last 6 weeks or so and is now virtually tied with Trump. This follows most of the other polling over the past few weeks showing that Biden’s numbers have moved up. The article accompanying is predictably dour, suggesting that everyone hates him anyway and that underneath it all Trump is really much more popular (which is untrue) but that’s how the NY Times polling rolls these days. The fact is that Biden is steadily turning the ship around and Democrats are coming back on board. If the race were held today it would be a a nail biter and it very likely will be the same in November because half the country is in a cult-like trance and believes that Donald Trump is either Jesus Christ or a business genius who will make them all rich and the rest of us are terrified that this fascist cult leader will edge out another win. I don’t know if there’s any way to change that.

It is now more than six months since the armed conflict between Israel and Hamas-led terrorist groups started. Six months of unimaginable suffering in the indiscriminate war currently being fought in Gaza where families have been torn apart, homes destroyed, and thousands of innocent people have died. This one is for you — all you […]

Since my book Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth came out, first in Dutch at the end of November, and then in the US and in the UK a few weeks later, I’ve given more than 60 media interviews and talks. Among them was a long interview in The Observer, a summary of the argument […]

V.P. Kamala Harris goes on the attack “Overturning Roe was just the opening act of a larger strategy to take womens’ rights and freddoms,” Vice President Kamala Harris told supporters in Arizona on Friday. Arizona is challenging other swing states for the designation of “Ground Zero” in the 2024 presidential race. The Arizona Supreme Court’s reanimating the territory’s 1864 abortion ban this week drew Vice President Kamala Harris to the state on Friday. She brought the heat and she named names. Well, just one (CNN): Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday placed the blame squarely on Donald Trump as she went on the offensive over abortion rights in Arizona and across the country. In the wake of an Arizona Supreme Court ruling this week banning abortions in almost all cases, Harris headed to Arizona to mobilize voters who see November’s election as a referendum on women’s rights, one of the Biden campaign’s key issues in the upcoming election. The vice president has become a go-to voice for the campaign on abortion rights and quickly announced a trip to Tucson after Tuesday’s ruling.

Stroll with us down memory lane as we celebrate the pearl anniversary of pixel art creation’s primary progenitor, and some of the many artists and design languages it inspired.

The post For love of pixels appeared first on Zeldman on Web and Interaction Design.

Το γερμανικό Υπ. Εσωτερικών εξέδωσε “Betätigungsverbot” εναντίον μου: απαγόρευση κάθε πολιτικής δραστηριότητας. Όχι μόνο απαγόρευση εισόδου στη Γερμανία, αλλά και απαγόρευση συμμετοχής μέσω Zoom. Εδώ η ομιλία που τους ενόχλησε. Κρίνετε μόνοι σας. Φίλες, φίλοι, Συγχαρητήρια και θερμές ευχαριστίες που βρίσκεστε εδώ, παρά τις απειλές, παρά τη σιδερόφρακτη αστυνομία έξω από αυτόν τον χώρο, παρά […]

The post Η ομιλία μου που προσπάθησε να ακυρώσει η γερμανική αστυνομία, και για την οποία μου απαγορεύτηκε η είσοδος στη Γερμανία! appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.

Watch/read the speech that I could not deliver because German police burst into our Berlin venue to disband our Palestine Congress (1930s style) before I could address the meeting. Today, because I dared publish this speech here, the Ministry of Interior issued a “Betätigungsverbot” against me, a ban on any political activity. Not just a […]

The post My Berlin speech on Palestine that German police entered the venue to ban – and whose publication here led to my being banned from Germany! appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.

Plus, signs of hope emerge in the WikiLeaks case, retirement savings land in better hands, the power grid gets more reliable, and transgender people could score safer workplaces.

Suppressing the vote by any means necessary Another GOP non-solution to a non-problem from frightened men who can’t govern except by making it harder for U.S. citizens to choose their leaders. TFG Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson announced an “election integrity” bill at their Mar-a-Lago meeting on Friday. Their bill would make voting by non-citizens illegaler than it is already. It doesn’t matter if it’s a bluff that has no chance to get past the U.S. Senate if Republicans even introduce it. Trump and Johnson got the publicity. They stoked the MAGA base’s xenophobia. They fed the voter fraud conspiracy theory. These guardians of the republic further undermined confidence in government of the people in which they themselves no longer believe. It’s a win-win-win-win. How will they make the illegal illegaler? We don’t know, not having seen the bill (if it exists). People already must swear on penalty of a fine of “not more than $10,000″ or imprisonment of “not more than five years, or both” that they are U.S. citizens when they register to vote (to be verified by boards of elections).

In today's BCTV Daily Dispatch: X-Men '97, Stranger Things 5, Superman & Lois, AEW, The Boys, Doctor Who, Interview with the Vampire & more!