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Created
Fri, 13/01/2023 - 00:01
Following the easing of Covid-19 polices in China, which was quickly followed by a spike in cases, several countries — including the US, Japan, Italy, Spain, France and, most recently, the UK — have reacted by reintroducing restrictions for passengers from China, requiring them to show a negative PCR or antigen test before boarding. The …

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Created
Fri, 13/01/2023 - 00:06
Hi all, I’m proud to announce that the book I co-authored with Toby Green of King’s College London — The Covid Consensus: The Global Assault on Democracy and the Poor—A Critique from the Left — is finally out! Here’s the description: During the first years of the pandemic, the political mainstream agreed that “following the science” with …

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Created
Fri, 13/01/2023 - 00:07
Hi all, I’ve written an article explaining why it’s high time we overcame our irrational fear of nuclear energy — a perfectly safe, zero-emission clean energy source — and embraced its revolutionary potential to offer cheap abundant energy for decades to come. The article is filled with lots of of myth-busting trivia about this tragically misunderstood technology.
Created
Fri, 13/01/2023 - 01:00
“It’s not even clear that the documents had been in Biden’s possession” The GOP is beside itself over news that some classified documents were found in November among papers stored at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, D.C. by Biden’s own attorneys. Isn’t this just what prompted the FBI to investigate Donald Trump, they demand? Where’s the outrage? Where are the jackbooted thugs? Where’s Attorney General Merrick Garland’s investigation? Twitter quipster Jeff Tiedrich put the affair in context, tweeting, “weird how Joe Biden found classified documents and voluntarily returned them without claiming he magically declassified them, or saying the FBI planted them, or lying about having already returned them, or needing to have his shitty golf motel searched. what game is Biden playing”? Indeed, reports indicate the White House notified authorities immediately and the National Archives retrieved the Penn documents the next day. Clearly, the papers surfacing is unwelcome news for the Biden administration. As is news that a search turned up a second batch this week.
Created
Fri, 13/01/2023 - 02:30
There are no classes in our society, conservatives argue Eric Levitz writes at Intelligencer: “Progressives have long held that the right’s economic theories are just elaborate rationalizations for funneling money to the elite.” John Kenneth Galbraith put it more elegantly: “The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” Ed Kilgore remarks on House Republicans renaming the House Committee on Education and Labor the House Committee on Education & the Workforce. The change, Kilgore writes: reflects a tradition of Republican labor hostility that has grown more remarkable as the GOP has come to think of itself as the party of working people with white non-college-educated folk at the core of its electoral coalition. The GOP’s self-identification with the horny-handed sons and daughters of toil is central to its claim that the Democratic Party is now a vassal of woke coastal elitists with Ph.D.’s, whose ground troops are Big Government leeches and the immigrants who want to join them at the welfare trough.
Created
Thu, 12/01/2023 - 07:30
This piece by Jill Filipovic on the latest “cancel culture” flap hits on a number of important issues that I think are worthy of airing. I don’t weigh in on this stuff a whole lot because we’re in a period of rapid social transformation that I may not be the best person to interpret. I’m old, I have lived my life in a period of free-wheeling discourse that has had both good and bad effect and I’m frankly not entirely sure of myself. The very definition of academic freedom is being re-defined on a daily basis, for good and ill. My instincts may not be reliable in this area. I’m taking all that in, trying to balance the new information and attitude with my reflexive opposition to restrictions on thought and speech. Having said that, I am not in the least bit insecure about saying that liberals must stand up to religious authoritarianism. If not that, then what? Filipovic gets to that and more. It’s a very thought-provoking read: There’s been a viral story making the rounds over the past week about a truly egregious incident at Hamline University, a small liberal arts college in Minnesota.
Created
Thu, 12/01/2023 - 11:00
Huffington Post reports on the latest House atrocity: House Republicans are set to vote on a pair of abortion bills this week, just a few months after their disappointing performance in the 2022 midterm elections that even some top Republicans like former President Donald Trump attributed to extreme abortion policies. […] The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act would require physicians to provide life-sustaining care to infants born after an attempted abortion and threatens doctors with criminal penalties if they don’t comply. Rep. Ann Wagner (R-Mo.) reintroduced the legislation earlier this week, along with original Republican co-sponsors Reps. Steve Scalise (La.) and Kat Cammack (Fla.). “All children should have the right to receive life saving care, especially those who survive an abortion,” Wagner said in a Monday statement. “The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act will provide common sense protections for innocent children and their mothers and will ensure all babies receive the essential care they need at an incredibly vulnerable moment.