Reading

Created
Mon, 30/10/2023 - 00:00
The whole world is watching Geopolitically, Israel could no more not retaliate for the Hamas butchery and hostage-taking than the U.S. could brush off the 9/11 attacks. The question in each case was always how. “While you feel that rage, don’t be consumed by it,” President Joe Biden cautioned on his 7 1/2-hour visit to Israel after seemingly ISIS-inspired Hamas attacks. “After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. And while we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.” Some of us still remember the mistakes. The PATRIOT Act, the Office of Special Plans, “Curveball,” aluminum tubes, yellowcake uranium, Colin Powell’s U.N. address, the Iraq invasion, Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 2, Abu Ghraib, extraordinary rendition, enhanced interrogation techniques, Guantanamo. Plus, “We’re an empire now.“ Speaking of ISIS, ISIS was the product of our mistakes too. Did Israel listen to Biden? This is from the Times of Israel on Friday (which I’ve not seen reported elsewhere): Cabinet said slated to okay police use of live fire against protesters blocking roads during multi-front war.
Created
Sun, 29/10/2023 - 22:50
Regn och höstrusk ute på ön idag. Men vad gör det — så länge man kan lyssna på programmet Text och musik med Eric Schüldt! Jag har i flera år nu lyssnat på Erics program varje söndag. En helg utan hans tänkvärda och ofta lite melankoliska funderingar och vemodiga musik har blivit otänkbart. Som så ofta […]
Created
Sun, 29/10/2023 - 16:07
For the past three weeks, the ES/PE community is aghast and dumbfounded. On the early morning of October 7th, a Jewish holiday, the Hamas terrorist organization launched a brutal and unprecedented attack in the south of Israel. During this planned, heinous massacre Hamas terrorists intentionally, systematically and viciously murdered more than 1400 innocent people, mainly […]
Created
Sun, 29/10/2023 - 08:00
That’s all he said about Ivanka. As you can see, it’s really all about him. It is perfectly justified to bring Ivanka to testify. She wasn’t made part of the case because of the statue of limitations. A technicality. She was one of the main conduits between the Trump org and its major lender, Deutsche Bank so she is certainly an important witness. “It doesn’t get better than this,” Ivanka Trump boasted in 2011, in an email celebrating the low interest rate she’d just won on a $125 million loan her father needed for his Miami golf course. Lawyers for the New York attorney general’s office, who plan to call Ivanka Trump to the witness stand on Friday at their ongoing, $250 million Trump fraud trial, agree it was quite the deal. As Donald Trump’s top loan negotiator, Ivanka Trump indeed excelled at securing rock-bottom interest rates, they say, saving her father as much as $150 million on $400 million in Deutsche Bank loans used to develop Trump’s palm-studded Florida golf course, his luxury hotel in Washington, DC, and the Chicago tower that is his tallest skyscraper.
Created
Sun, 29/10/2023 - 06:46
Former Labour MP Paul Farrelly explains the circumstances surrounding a new legal investigation into whether members of Parliament’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), looking into phone-hacking and press criminality, were systematically hacked by Murdoch empire
Created
Sun, 29/10/2023 - 06:30
Lately, it seems like all the very richest, most successful people (men, mostly) are batshit crazy. Here’s a primary example: The Adidas team was huddled with Kanye West, pitching ideas for the first shoe they would create together. It was 2013, and the rapper and the sportswear brand had just agreed to become partners. The Adidas employees, thrilled to get started, had arrayed sneakers and fabric swatches on a long table near a mood board pinned with images. But nothing they showed that day at the company’s German headquarters captured the vision Mr. West had shared. To convey how offensive he considered the designs, he grabbed a sketch of a shoe and took a marker to the toe, according to two participants. Then he drew a swastika. It was shocking, especially to the Germans in the group. Most displays of the symbol are banned in their country. The image was acutely sensitive for a company whose founder belonged to the Nazi Party. And they were meeting just miles from Nuremberg, where leaders of the Third Reich were tried for crimes against humanity.
Created
Sun, 29/10/2023 - 05:30
Mike Johnson is a delusional zealot He’s an educated man but his knowledge of history is nil. Someone should tell him about the centuries of religious wars in Europe that shaped the founders beliefs about religion and the state: Mr. Johnson, a mild-mannered conservative Republican from Louisiana whose elevation to the speakership on Wednesday followed weeks of chaos, is known for placing his evangelical Christianity at the center of his political life and policy positions. Now, as the most powerful Republican in Washington, he is in a position to inject it squarely into the national political discourse, where he has argued for years that it belongs. Mr. Johnson, 51, the son of a firefighter and the first in his family to attend college, has deep roots in the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. For years, Mr. Johnson and his wife, Kelly, a licensed pastoral counselor, belonged to First Bossier, whose pastor, Brad Jurkovich, is the spokesman for the Conservative Baptist Network, an organization working to move the denomination to the right. Mr.
Created
Sun, 29/10/2023 - 04:58
Many Australians will be ashamed that our nation has failed to speak and vote unequivocally at the United Nations during this crisis. As a nation we cannot continue to pretend that Israel has “a right to defend itself” while Palestine has no such right and is being systematically destroyed. A two-day debate in support of Continue reading »
Created
Sun, 29/10/2023 - 04:57
Industrial emissions, many hard-to-abate, are increasing. Norway leads the roll-out of EVs but China dominates the number purchased and the production of steel and EV batteries. 40% of amphibians are threatened with extinction. Industry’s rising GHG emissions Industrial activities – for example mining, manufacturing, construction and waste processing but not including the energy sector – Continue reading »
Created
Sun, 29/10/2023 - 04:56
The prolonged debate about the Voice to Parliament was dominated by the question about what rights should be accorded to our First Nations communities. It was, without doubt, the most potent argument advanced by proponents of the no case. By enshrining the Voice in the constitution, it was said, Aborigines and Islanders were to be Continue reading »
Created
Sun, 29/10/2023 - 04:53
The most pressing challenge for the Catholic Church remains addressing women’s inequality in its ranks. The current Synod on Synodality offers some hope, but there are huge roadblocks.  The likelihood of equality for women in the Church requires a leap of faith, extremely long-term thinking, and hoping against hope. I cannot see it happening in Continue reading »