Purity for thee but not for he Several years ago, when many Democratic strategists were demanding that the party embrace the tenets of the Christian Right in order to win over the salt of the earth, white, Real Americans (whom they insisted were essential to a legitimate governing majority) the media briefly reported on some of their more extreme rituals. They looked at “purity culture” practices such as gay conversion “therapy”, masturbation abstinence and “purity balls” which feature a pseudo wedding ceremony between a father and daughter. All these practices were disturbing enough that they pretty much went underground after being publicly exposed and the culture wars turned to their next battlefield, the latest being the cruel bullying of transgender teens and banning of gay literature in schools. There was something particularly creepy about the purity balls.
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Widely ignored official reports and never-before-seen declassified files suggest shadowy British special forces operatives played a crucial role in one of the 20th century’s most notorious and controversial massacres. In July 2023, few media observers took notice when influential British intelligence operative-turned-lawmaker Alicia Kearns issued a public call for Western boots on the ground in the former Yugoslavia. Addressing a packed session of the House of Commons, Foreign Affairs Committee chair Kearns made the alarming call: “I…urge the Government: let […]
The post Mass graves, grave questions: Britain’s secret Srebrenica role first appeared on The Grayzone.
The post Mass graves, grave questions: Britain’s secret Srebrenica role appeared first on The Grayzone.
A geological discovery shows how carbon was captured to chill the planet.
The post How Earth Once Cooled Off appeared first on Nautilus.
Economics bloggers contribute varied content, making it an accessible way to stay informed without delving into the density of academic journals. Below, we’ve compiled a list, in no particular order, of blogs that we at INOMICS frequently turn to for engaging and informative articles covering a broad range of economic topics … 7. Naked Capitalism […]
This is chapter 5 of “The Construction of Reality”, one of the rewards of our 2023 fundraiser.
Human at Dawn
We humans adapt to the world in two ways: thru biological evolution and thru changes in culture: where culture is everything from tools and technology to language and philosophy. We are still evolving physically, and it can be seen in different human groups. Northern Europeans are more likely to be able to digest milk properly than those of African descent, for example, while whites have less melanin due to spending time in areas with less sunlight, and so on.
But cultural evolution is far faster and it is how we have done most of our adaptation since we started making stone tools.
This is a viral pic of DeSantis being interviewed for a podcast. It says it all, doesn’t it? His campaign is falling apart. Any competent advance person should have seen to it that this wouldn’t happen. And then they went ahead and posted it. But DeSantis has a history of terrible photo ops and memes. Like the go-go boots: And the flight helmet: The man was never ready for prime time. And I don’t think he ever will be.
BBC iPlayer's 2024 trailer includes a look at Russell T. Davies's Ncuti Gatwa & Millie Gibson-starring Doctor Who - set for a May 2024 debut.
Some uplifting messages from your once and (hopefully not) future dictator I love that “additionally, I did nothing wrong…” Dingell criticized his “rot in hell” Christmas message which clearly got to him. Aaaand a little RINO bashing for good measure I don’t know about you, but it doesn’t sound to me like he’s having a very good day. Maybe his Flock of Seagulls do isn’t cooperating?
If the gloves are off from the blood-soaked hands of Israel and the United States, then the gloves should come off for the rest of the world to tell them what they think of their genocidal actions and brutality. There’s no longer any pretence, no false humility, no drawing of the veil from either country. Continue reading »
It is the urgent task of the American people to overhaul a foreign policy that is so broken, corrupted, and deceitful that it is burying the government in debt while pushing the world closer to nuclear Armageddon. US foreign policy seems to be utterly irrational. The US gets into one disastrous war after another — Continue reading »
“The human heart is weak and impulsive; if we find instruments of death in our hands, sooner or later we will use them,” said the Pope in his Christmas Day blessing. “And how can we even speak of peace, when arms production, sales and trade are on the rise?” Pope Francis condemned the global arms Continue reading »
Under Australia’s Constitution, the people of Australia have no way of binding the parliaments and governments they elect to be loyal to them. This is because once parliaments and governments are elected the members must take an oath that obliges them to give their loyalty solely to a foreign monarch who has no reciprocal obligation Continue reading »
From the perspective of a 1960s and 1970s protester, the domestic and international scenario looks worse than grim. Following the 2016 US election cycle, a campaign worker for a moderately liberal Congressional candidate working from an upstate New York campaign headquarters told me after that candidate’s abysmal loss to a far right-wing Republican, “I refuse Continue reading »
Western Australia is famously a long way from everywhere. Given our isolation, it’s not surprising that politics can be a bit parochial. While this may have been forgivable in another era, at this current historical juncture it’s becoming rather embarrassing. But before ‘eastern staters’ start feeling too smug, it’s important to recognise that in many Continue reading »
There is greatness in a system that tolerates public grumbling. Australia’s brand of democracy is a wonderful thing, in which the integrity of every referendum and election relies on the care, commitment and community spirit of thousands of ordinary citizens. People like you and me. It is citizen civics (expertly coordinated by the AEC) and Continue reading »
‘Alternative’ medicines and therapies comprise the biggest scam in the country. But if you think that industry is going to be cleaned up … you’re joking. According to the best estimates, Australians spend well over $5 billion a year on alternative medicines and therapies. Globally, the market is valued at $2.4 trillion, equal to the Continue reading »
Henry Kissinger did not invent some novel doctrine of foreign-policy-by-barbarous-atrocity, he simply continued the family tradition. Henry Kissinger straddled US foreign policy across two presidencies from 1969-1977. Notable in the current moment is the framing that Kissinger was somehow uniquely evil–and that he shifted US policy in this direction. Christopher Hitchens described Kissinger as a Continue reading »
Our 17th most-read article of 2023.
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Originally published April 17, 2023.
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“Guillermo Rubio has found that his job as a copywriter has changed markedly since he started using ChatGPT to generate ideas for blog posts, write first drafts of newsletters, create hundreds of slight variations on stock advertising copy…”
— New York Times
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Please, no more. I beg of you.
If you force me to generate one more “eye-catching email subject line that promotes a 10 percent discount on select Bro Candles and contains an Earth Day-related pun,” I’m going to lose it. What do you even mean by “eye-catching”? What are “Bro Candles”? What do they have to do with saving the environment? Why are we doing any of this?
If the United States is serious about liberty and justice for all, respect for international law, and a rules based order that treats everyone fairly and even-handedly, it’s time to ditch the doctrine and its corollaries. When those of us of a certain age were in school, we learned that the Monroe Doctrine committed the Continue reading »
The random assignment plus masking are supposed to make it likely that the two groups have the same distribution of causal factors. It is controversial how confident these measures should make us that they do this. This issue bears on the trustworthiness of causal claims backed by RCTs. As we noted, trustworthiness is the central […]