We do not want there to be war over Taiwan. If such were threatened, we could never be involved. Dear Secretary Blinken, Right now you are visiting the People’s Republic of China. As an Australian who has been engaged with the PRC officially and unofficially for over fifty years, I welcome this news. I also Continue reading »
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Scientists establish annual dashboard of indicators of climate change to guide policymakers. Bushfires fatal for humans and invertebrates. Commercial sponsors sought for November’s COP meeting in Dubai. Indicators of Global Climate Change (IGCC) The six rounds of compendious scientific reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have been invaluable sources of information over Continue reading »
The Ukraine conflict, and the nuclear threats uttered by Vladimir Putin have made the risk of nuclear war as high as it has ever been. The current position of the Doomsday Clock hands at 90 seconds to ‘midnight’ is the closest ever. Nuclear Winter, together with tech-ending EMP, is one of a number of civilisation- Continue reading »
Since Australia has mortgaged its future to this nation it is worth debating the matter. The preambles to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as statement of ideals are inspiring but the reality is far from these ideals. It is true that the Americans fought a civil war partly based on abolition of slavery Continue reading »
The Voice is beyond politics. It’s about reconciliation between two profoundly different cultures and approaches to life. Politics is important. Democracy wouldn’t exist without it. Engaging politically is how we manage a diverse and pluralist society with relative peace and respect. But there are moments in history when we have to go beyond politics. The Continue reading »
Cricket has always had a difficult relationship with ethics and integrity. This is notwithstanding two things: the game’s pride in the saying “It’s not cricket” to describe anything unfair, and the inclusion in the game’s Laws of a Preamble called “The Spirit of Cricket” to guide player behaviour. Cricket’s Ashes are upon us, and England’s Continue reading »
The United States and its Asian partners want to maintain a balance of power in the Indo-Pacific, ostensibly to prevent China from becoming a “regional hegemon” there. They worry that Beijing will gradually persuade its neighbours to distance themselves from the United States, accept Chinese primacy, and defer to Beijing’s wishes on key foreign policy Continue reading »
Not that they will thank him for it but … Last week Mayor Secretary Pete announced something the Biden administration is doing in Alabama to push their radical, woke, socialist agenda: Here’s the Shelby County Reporter: Man, when will these guys stop pushing their liberal elite values on Real America? This road project is in Shelby County, Alabama, which went for Trump in 2020 by +41. (Not a typo.) I mention this because what we have here is a clear case of the Biden administration centering the real-world concerns of rural voters who did not support him and taking action to make their daily lives better. I do not expect the voters of Shelby County to give Biden credit for this work. But the rest of us should give him credit for trying. Credit for reaching out to the 46.8 percent of the country that didn’t vote for him. Credit for treating them as citizens and neighbors who deserve the government’s help—not as enemies to be punished. For instance, the Biden administration is doling out $11 billion in grants to help rural electric co-ops modernize and compete with for-profit companies in places like Tennessee.
No, it’s not about the cat…. Late yesterday afternoon, Donald Trump published an item to his social media platform, declaring that he’s been “totally exonerated” in the classified documents scandal that led to his federal indictment. Of course, the former president has long struggled with the meaning of the word “exonerated,” so the missive wasn’t too surprising. But as part of the same all-caps message — which included Trump suggesting the authorities should give him back the documents he stole from the White House — the Republican said he should now be in the clear thanks to “the Clinton Socks case.” He made the same point during his weird speech on Tuesday night in New Jersey: When Trump references this in writing, as he often does, he invariably capitalizes “Socks.” This, of course, has led to questions about whether he’s confused about the grammatical rules — the former president tends to capitalize random words he finds important — or whether he thinks the story relates to the former Clinton family cat.
In some fields—physics, geophysics, climate science, sensitivity analysis, and uncertainty quantification in particular—there is a popular impression that probabilities can be estimated in a ‘neutral’ or ‘automatic’ way by doing Monte Carlo simulations: just let the computer reveal the distribution … Setting aside other issues in numerical modeling, Monte Carlo simulation is a way to […]
Like the world needs reminding? American Bridge on Friday announced its new campaign: “This F*cking Guy”. The super PAC means to remind voters of the “chaotic moments from former President Trump’s first term in the White House,” The Hill reports. Well, if you must, so long as rubbing our noses in Donald Trump gets under Dear Leader’s skin (The Hill): “The American people already paid the price for Trump’s daily incompetence, inaction, and irresponsibility. He was just as much of a disaster in the White House as he is out of it, and American Bridge is here to remind voters just how much of a nightmare another four years of Trump would be,” Tom Perez, an American Bridge co-chairman who is joining the White House as the head of intergovernmental affairs, said in a statement to The Hill.
New reporting, attributed to U.S. government sources, identified a coronavirus researcher at the Wuhan Institute of Virology who fell ill in November 2019.
The post Documents Link Potential Covid Patient Zero to U.S.-Funded Research in Wuhan appeared first on The Intercept.
Also, the senate wakes up on the insurance industry’s climate hypocrisy, heat pumps are in, Portland voters save a rent cap, and more.
Russian troops struggle to adapt A Ukrainian team had just exited their armored personnel carrier near Bakhmut in March when it came under Russian fire from multiple directions. One killed, nine wounded (New York Times): The ambush was part of a patient, disciplined operation that was in contrast to the disorderly Russian tactics that marked much of the first year of the war, which began in February 2022. It was a deadly demonstration that the Russian military was learning from its mistakes and adapting to Ukrainian tactics, having grossly underestimated them initially. Russians are adapting to Ukrainian tactics, reports say, as Ukraine begins its counteroffensive reinforced by NATO weapons and communications equipment. But Moscow’s forces have improved their defenses, artillery coordination and air support, setting up a campaign that could look very different from the war’s early days. These improvements, Western officials say, will most likely make Russia a tougher opponent, particularly as it fights defensively, playing to its battlefield strengths. This defensive turn is a far cry from Russia’s initial plan for a full-scale invasion and Ukrainian defeat.
In today's BCTV Daily Dispatch: Primal, Star Trek/Boston Legal, AEW, Beast Boy, Batman, Good Omens 2, CM Punk, Scott Pilgrim, and tons more!
What else is there to be said about Ken Loach? Plenty, it turns out. As British Cinema’s go-to socialist turns 87, having recently announced that his latest film, The Old Oak, is likely to be his last, Loach’s filmography is a gift that continues to give. Six decades deep, his has been a career of […]
Daniel Ellsberg has died, aged 92. I don’t have anything to add to the standard account of his heroic career, except to observe that Edward Snowden (whose cause Ellsberg championed) would probably have done better to take his chances with the US legal system, as Ellsberg did. In decision theory, the subsection of the economics […]
A document shows the Protective Services Battalion uses sophisticated surveillance tools that can pinpoint anyone’s location.
The post Pentagon’s Secret Service Trawls Social Media for Mean Tweets About Generals appeared first on The Intercept.
Use to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts.
Daniel Ellsberg, a military analyst who after experiencing a sobbing antiwar epiphany on a bathroom floor made the momentous decision in 1971 to disclose a secret history of American lies and deceit in Vietnam, what came to be known as the Pentagon Papers, died on Friday at his home in Kensington, Calif., in the Bay […]
Baby wolves! A zoo in South Dakota has welcomed a litter of critically endangered red wolf pups — a litter vital to the existence of the species with only an estimated two dozen left existing in the wild. The Great Plains Zoo in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, said that they were “thrilled to announce the births of six critically endangered red wolves” on Thursday in a statement on the zoo’s website. The six pups — two females and four males — were born to first-time parents Camelia and Uyosi, who only arrived at the Great Plains Zoo in October of last year from facilities in Washington and Texas, respectively. These six pups are vital to the existence of the species with an estimated 23 to 25 red wolves remaining in the wild and only an estimated 278 alive in captivity, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Red Wolf Recovery Program. “Camelia and Uyosi are amazing parents, I wouldn’t expect anything less from them,” said Joel Locke, the Animal Care Director of the Great Plains Zoo. “We are fortunate to have vet staff and animal care staff that have worked with red wolves for more than 15 years.
