Education should not be seen as a “buy and sell” commodity. Words matter, and the choice of the term “market” when referring to Australian vocational education and training (VET) is more than symbolic; it shows a preference to continue Australia’s deeply problematic policy of marketising (substantially privatising) the VET system. The term underlies and reinforces Continue reading »
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Although Penny Wong is eager to condemn Hong Kong, she has done nothing of any substance to help her fellow countryman, Julian Assange; an Australian citizen currently in a UK jail fighting extradition to the US, which is using the extraterritorial reach of the Espionage Act (1917) for the alleged “crime” of exposing malfeasance at Continue reading »
They’re super white too… Those numbers of Millennials and Gen Z are just astonishing. NBC News reports: Republican primary voters are older, whiter and much more conservative than the electorate at large. That should surprise no one who follows American politics, but our most recent national NBC News poll captures the profile of what the GOP primary electorate looks like. Thirty-nine percent of Republican primary voters are age 65 and older, compared with 25% of the overall electorate and 25% of Democratic primary voters, according to the poll. Eighty-nine percent of GOP primary voters are white, versus 72% of all voters. And 67% of Republican primary voters say they are conservative, including 41% who are “very” conservative. That compares with 36% of all voters who are conservative, including 18% who are “very” conservative. There are two slight — but significant — changes to the composition of the Republican electorate since the 2016 election cycle, when Donald Trump won the party’s presidential nomination and the White House, per the NBC News poll’s historical results.
A deep fake is a picture or video of someone doing or saying something they didn’t. In the old days pictures and video were considered “proof”, it was easy to tell if they had been altered, as with the laughable removal of out-of-favour leaders from Soviet pictures.
With the advent of useful “AI’ making deepfakes has become easy, and it is destroying one of the ways we know the truth. In addition it is putting people into positions they never took, having them say things they did not say and so forth. The common general use is for pornography, but putting words into someone’s mouth is potentially just as bad.
The law will need to be changed to deal with this.
A new Senate report calls out the FBI for lying to Congress about its social media monitoring, pointing out the FBI’s hiring of ZeroFox.
The post FBI Hired Social Media Surveillance Firm That Labeled Black Lives Matter Organizers “Threat Actors” appeared first on The Intercept.
The Least Expensive Thing on the Registry: You are cheap, sure, but they wouldn’t put the gift on the registry if they didn’t want it, right? Enjoy the picture frame, newlyweds! At the $200-per-plate reception, you’ll be telling the “drinks are on me!” joke at the open bar all night.
The Second Least Expensive Thing on the Registry: Someone already bought the cheapest item.
Le Creuset Dutch Oven: You hope they will buy this for you when you get married. Or at least whatever advanced model is on the market by the time you get married. Someday.
High-End Thank You Notes: Hint-hint.
The Knife Block with Seven Japanese Steel Blades: You grossly overestimated how much this couple likes to cook.
Sur La Table Flatware: You fully expect to be invited over for a dinner party after they get back from their honeymoon.
Not exactly news, but this analysis pulls it all together: Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, looking to shift his run for president into a higher gear after an early series of missteps, spent the last two weeks rolling out an immigration policy and holding town halls with voters. But rather than correcting course, he stumbled again this week, raising questions about where his campaign is heading. First, Mr. DeSantis’s team was forced to battle allegations, including from fellow Republicans, that it had shared a homophobic video on social media. Then, a top spokesman for the main super PAC supporting Mr. DeSantis acknowledged that former President Donald J. Trump was the race’s “runaway front-runner,” while Mr. DeSantis faced an “uphill battle.” “Right now in national polling we are way behind, I’ll be the first to admit that,” the adviser, Steve Cortes, said in a livestream Twitter event on Sunday. It was an admission notably at odds with the confidence that the governor’s advisers usually project in public. To top it off — in a visual representation of his recent troubles — Mr.
Κάθε 5η Ιουλίου, από το 2016 μέχρι και χτες, τα κανάλια της διαπλοκής εξαπολύουν μπαράζ μαύρης προπαγάνδας εναντίον του ΟΧΙ που τόσο τους είχε στοιχίσει. Κάθε 5η Ιουλίου τα κανάλια της διαπλοκής προσπαθούν φιλότιμα να με πλήξουν (εν τη απουσία μου, βέβαια). Δεν είναι προσωπικό το θέμα. Απλά, έτυχε να ήμουν ο ΥπΟικ που τίμησα […]
The post Το βράδυ της 5ης Ιουλίου 2015 όπως το έζησα appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.
Polluting privatised water companies have been hollowed out by dividend stripping and reckless borrowing. But there is a way out
Tyrannies have to act, constantly. Thinking comes later. So Russian disinformation will not end with the demise of one oligarch
A revealing interview with Manchin’s former right-hand man.
Tom Cruise gets endless rehearsals. We don’t. “Well, this is more than a little terrifying. Shouldn’t we all be paying a little bit more attention?” asks Dan Froomkin. It’s like something out of Mission Impossible. Recent Wagner mercenaries’ moves against Moscow leave the West wondering about Vladimir Putin’s fate, the stability of the Russian state, and the security of the Russian nuclear arsenal (Washington Post): And in recent weeks the drumbeat has intensified, with some well-connected Russian strategic analysts and think tank experts openly proclaiming the “necessity” for Moscow to carry out a preemptive tactical nuclear strike on a NATO country, like Poland — to avoid defeat in the war on Ukraine and to revive Western terror of Russia’s nuclear might. Since the Wagner rebellion, Sergei Karaganov, a former Kremlin adviser and influential Russian political scientist, has doubled down on calls for Moscow to do so.
by Daniel Wortel-London
The economy of the USA, like that of any other nation, depends on natural resources—minerals, timber, fossil fuels, land, and a host of other renewable and nonrenewable assets. It couldn’t function without these resources any more than you or I could survive without air. So you’d think that determining whether our country’s demand for natural resources exceeds the environment’s supply would be of the greatest importance to politicians.
The post Who Tallies the Resources? appeared first on Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy.
An aged Native-American chieftain was visiting New York City for the first time in 1906. He was curious about the city and the city was curious about him. A magazine reporter asked the chief what most surprised him in his travels around town. “Little children working,” the visitor replied. Child labor might have shocked that outsider, but it was all too commonplace then across urban, industrial America (and on farms where it had been customary for centuries). In more recent times, however, it’s become a far rarer sight. Law and custom, most of us assume, drove it to near extinction. And our reaction to seeing it reappear might resemble that chief’s — shock, disbelief. But we better get used to it, since child labor... Read more
A global coalition is urging ministers and lords to protect end-to-end encryption in the Online Safety Bill
The right is relentless. The left needs to be. Several small stories this morning worth attention. Lin Wood retired to avoid being disbarred (NBC News): Lin Wood, a high-profile Georgia lawyer who embraced and promoted former President Donald Trump’s bogus 2020 election claims, told the state bar he was retiring amid disciplinary probes. “I understand that this request is unqualified, irreversible and permanent,” Wood, 70, said in a letter to the State Bar of Georgia seeking to be transferred to “Retired Status.” “I further understand and acknowledge that if granted Retired Status I am prohibited from practicing law in this state and in any other state or jurisdiction and that I may not reapply for admission,” he wrote in the letter, which he posted on his Telegram account.
Republicans’ anti-abortion playbook shows they’re ready to fight the legal challenges — all the way to the Supreme Court.
The post Judges Keep Ruling That Anti-Trans Health Care Bans Make Shitty Law. The GOP Isn’t Giving Up. appeared first on The Intercept.
“You won’t feel anything.”
It won’t hurt per se, but it will feel like the nurse is dragging a bone-dry tampon out of your vagina over and over again.
“This might be a little warm.”
This will feel like the time you accidentally burned your hand on the stove, but only for a few seconds.
“This might be a little cold.”
This will feel like you’ve contracted instantaneous frostbite, but for more than a few seconds.
“There may be some discomfort.”
It’s going to hurt more than the worst period you’ve ever had.
“You might feel a slight pinch.”
You’ll think the nurse thrust a hot knife into your cervix, and then twisted it.
“You may experience some cramping.”
You are actually going through labor.
“Most women experience 2-3 out of a pain scale of 10.”
This procedure is a 10/10 on the pain scale. We’d say 11/10, but the scale doesn’t go that high.
US maternal deaths keep rising.
Over a year has passed since the RMT union began industrial action on the railways. In that time, we’ve had three prime ministers, four chancellors and three transport secretaries. One constant, however, has been the determination of the government to force through damaging cuts. The closure of 1000 ticket offices announced yesterday is the latest […]
Some argue that economics as a science is already pluralist and that the critique of pluralists addresses a strawman. Newly emerged research areas such as behavioral economics are often presented as examples. Yet, to assess the argument that ‘economics is already pluralist’, one has to be explicit about the dimension and degree of plurality that […]