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So, I’ve had two good pieces of news for the ActivityPub book from O’Reilly Media. The first one is that I finished the 6th of 7 chapters this week (on using and creating ActivityPub extensions). It was a gruelling chapter that I had to reorganise a couple of times to clarify, but I’m so happy … Continue reading Early Access to O’Reilly Media ActivityPub Book →

Ronny Jackson M.D. was stripped of his Admiral stripes and nobody knew about it Why didn’t anyone know about it? Ronny Jackson, the former White House physician turned GOP congressman, regularly touts his military bona fides. “As a retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral with nearly three decades of military service I understand the commitment and sacrifices made by servicemen and servicewomen to serve our country,” the two-term Texas representative writes on his congressional website, posted to a page listing his work on veterans issues. But Jackson is no longer a retired admiral. The Navy demoted him in July 2022 following a damaging Pentagon inspector general’s report thatsubstantiated allegations about his inappropriate behavior as a White House physician,a previously unreported decision confirmed by a current defense official and a former U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive personnel move. Jackson is now a retired Navy captain, those people said — a demotion that carries significant financial burden in addition to the social stigma of stripped rank in military circles.

As the task force shuts down dissent, students and faculty fear loose definitions of antisemitism will be used to stifle pro-Palestine speech.

The post Columbia’s New “Antisemitism Task Force” Won’t Say What It Thinks Antisemitism Is appeared first on The Intercept.

A 2007 Defense Department study found glaring problems with America’s Horn of Africa campaign plan. The U.S. military plunged ahead anyway.

The post Who Could Have Predicted the U.S. War in Somalia Would Fail? The Pentagon. appeared first on The Intercept.

Everyone has lots of advice for Joe Biden about the State of the Union speech tonight. I suspect it will be like most of them — forgettable. The wing nuts can make it a little bit more memorable by acting like juvenile delinquents and maybe Biden can get off a few memorable lines. Generally, these things just engender a lot of breathless anticipation only to land with a whimper not a bang. However, we are in the middle of the most high stakes presidential campaign in my lifetime so it would be very good if Biden did well tonight and begin to change the trajectory of this race. There are as many ideas about what he should do about that as there are talking heads. But I like this from Brian Beutler: I like to point out that Donald Trump is a shitty person along multiple axes, and I believe his shittiness, which makes him unlikable, is his biggest political liability.  There are others liberals who believe complaining about corruption and poor character falls flat if it seems disconnected from regular workaday concerns. Donald Trump accepted millions of dollars in payments from China while he was president?

WITH Coffs Coast students to undergo NAPLAN assessments this month, a local school principal has backed the tests as one key provider of data on a child’s academic development. The National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) is an annual, nationwide assessment for students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9. Advertise with News...

The post NAPLAN provides key data on students’ progress appeared first on News Of The Area.

BPW COFFS COAST hosted their International Dinner and Candle Lighting Ceremony at the CWA Meeting Rooms in Coffs Harbour last Wednesday. Members and supporters of BPW were joined by women representing many nations that make up the varied multicultural community on the Coffs Coast. Advertise with News of The Area today. It’s worth it for...

The post Multicultural community enjoys International Dinner and Candle Lighting ceremony in Coffs Harbour appeared first on News Of The Area.

The nine justices of the United States Supreme Court sit in their conference room around a grand table fashioned out of old-growth mahogany trees stolen from a Honduran rainforest.

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Okay, then, that’s settled. The vote is six to three to make it legal to hurl diseased cow carcasses into Lake Tahoe. What’s next on the agenda?

JUSTICE ALITO: Can we consider that case about whether women should have the right to drive?

JUSTICE GORSUCH (under his breath): Women. Right to drive. Ha.

JUSTICE KAGAN (sighing): How about if we took a short break? I’m so tired. So very, very tired.

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: I think we could spare a few minutes, sure.

JUSTICE THOMAS: Who wants to talk about guns?

Making the news in the mainstream western media around the world, but not in Australia which is hosting the ASEAN-Australia Special Summit 2024, was the forthright response from Malaysia PM Anwar Ibrahim during his press conference to a question from Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) journalist Stephen Dziedzic. The transcript of this conversation is reproduced here Continue reading »

It is the once-a-year day when the media wants content on how women are fairing. That is not a spelling error but my description of the limited ‘equality’ that women have gained over the last half century. The following is my perception, now in my mid 80’s, as I have been actively involved in feminist Continue reading »

“Under conditions of tyranny, it is far easier to act than to think.” Hannah Arendt You might want to argue with U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres’ view expressed in November 2023 that the Gaza Strip was even then a “graveyard for children”. An unimaginably small area (365 square kilometres; Greater Sydney is 34 times its size), Continue reading »

George Galloway is a British MP again, and it’s the moment he’s been waiting for. His victory in a Rochdale by-election, he told Labour leader Sir Kier Starmer, ‘is for Gaza’. Galloway has been an advocate for Palestine ever since he visited Beirut in 1977 and decided to ‘devote the rest of [his] life to Continue reading »

Picture a courtroom scenario, the accused and his family members have eyes on the jury foreman who is about to announce the verdict. The accused knows he is guilty, but is hoping for luck to come his way through the jury’s decision. The foreman speaks: “Guilty”. A word? No, a sentence. Not just for the Continue reading »

The liberal international order has been responsible for a great many deaths. If the “anti-liberal internationale” becomes ascendant, however, we will see those numbers multiplied exponentially. It is not a stretch to say that the Liberal Party’s campaign in the Dunkley by-election places them firmly in the illiberal category. This is hardly surprising since several Continue reading »

The conclusion of a “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership” by two states leads few observers to experience frissons of excitement. However, the Partnership agreed yesterday between Anthony Albanese and Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Minh Chinh is more than an announceable wrought by officials to garner a headline or two for their principals. For many countries -including Vietnam- Continue reading »

I see in the persecution of Julian Assange, a parallel with a technique put together by the United States in the destruction of Iraq that they called shock and awe, wherein all of the institutions of state were destroyed and plundered, with the exception of the department concerning itself with the production of oil. Now Continue reading »

Sen. Tom Cotton demands the Pentagon root out leftist extremism.

The post Will Aaron Bushnell’s Death Trigger Anarchism Witch Hunt? appeared first on The Intercept.