This link is provided for easy access to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Release Advice. The ABS Release Advice is updated daily and contains details of upcoming ABS releases for the following week.

A GOP death spiral?

by digby

Farting Controversy Clouds Grand Slam Of Darts Quarterfinal

(Thanks to Cindy Pearson)

from Dean Baker The folks who remain determinedly ignorant about the financial crisis and Great Recessioncontinue to look for another crisis where it isn’t. Much of the latest effort focuses on corporate debt. There are four big reasons why corporate debt does not pose anything like the same sort of problem that mortgage debt did during the housing […]

Listen to the moron talk about the fires. Oh dear God.

by digby

Chris Wallace asks Trump about the purpose of his trip.

"Just to see the firefighters. Nobody's ever seen what's going on over there."

From there, it gets worse.

Listen, if you can. Only 85 seconds pic.twitter.com/Zr80dAfW3U— ☇RiotWomenn☇ (@riotwomennn) November 16, 2018

One of the charges laid against Mike by the Blairites and the Israel lobbyists in the Labour party was that he accused British Jews of being more loyal to a foreign state or their own people than other Brits. This, they argued, followed the classic pattern of anti-Semitism.

In the short time since Chris Chibnall (Broadchurch) assumed the role of show runner for Doctor Who, he has taken pride in shaking things up. In addition to a new Doctor (Jodie Whittaker, Broadchurch) who has a new outlook on life, there is new theme music, a new TARDIS (inside and out), and new companions who the Doctor treats as equals and friends rather than disciples.

Throwing away a Kleenex

Every now and then a Conservative defender of capitalism tries to argue that Nazism and Fascism were forms of Socialism. Jonah Goldberg tried it a few years ago in his book, Liberal Fascism, a Tory MP stood up in the European parliament a couple of weeks ago and made the same accusation, though he had to take it back and apologise. And Private Eye in recent weeks have also published a couple of letters from readers making the same claims.

Trump's GOP picked up voters in only one demographic

by digby

Guess which one?

Shania Twain once accidentally urinated during performance

(Thanks to pharmaross)

A man accused of threatening to blow up Willie’s Chicken Shack Tuesday night (Nov. 13) claimed to police when confronted about the allegation that his words were merely a reference to a bowel movement, the man’s warrant states.

(Thanks to Unholy Slacker)

Casey walked down the aisle in her wedding gown, and when it came time for them to do her vows, she turned to all of their friends and family members and said, “There will be no wedding today. It seems Alex is not who I thought he was.” Then she took out her phone and read the text messages that he had sent this other woman out loud.

(Thanks to Steve K.)

You don't want to know.

Seriously, you don't.

(Thanks to Barry Nester and coscolo, who says, quote, "Ew.")

I got nothin'

...Proud Boys are coming to town.

Gritty sign: “GET FUCKED FOREVER RACIST PROUD BOY TRASH” pic.twitter.com/A7wBIcHZqR

— Billy Penn (@billy_penn) November 17, 2018

Adolf Grünbaum, professor emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Philosophy of Science and its Department of History of Philosophy of Science, died this past Thursday.

Professor Grünbaum was known for his work in philosophy of physics and the philosophy of psychology.

Benjamin suspected the Salvadoran gang Barrio 18 Revolucionarios would kill him when he asked permission to leave. He was 21 years old and had been in the gang for a decade. He was ready to die to get out.

Twenty years ago Phil Mirowski was invited to give a speech on themes from his book More Heat than Light at my old economics department in Lund, Sweden. All the mainstream professors were there. Their theories were totally mangled and no one — absolutely no one — had anything to say even remotely reminiscent of […]

by New Deal democrat Credit remains loose, but big borrowers aren’t interested; real consumer spending may be stalling We interrupt this coverage of the ongoing Trump Boom (c) to advise you that two more long leading indicators, while still positive, are showing at least some weaknesses.  This story is up at Seeking Alpha. As usual, reading […]

Since the U.S. midterm elections I’ve been playing around with some Congressional Quarterly data about the composition of the House and Senate since 1945. Unfortunately I’m not allowed to share the data, but here are two or three things I had to do with it that you might find useful.

The data comes as a set of CSV files, one for each congressional session. You download the data by repeatedly querying CQ’s main database by year. In its initial form, the top of each file looks like this:

Professor Outis Philalithopoulos was found dead in his home three days ago; the coroner’s report cited natural causes that were left unspecified. Unfortunately, all of the professor’s academic work has disappeared; the only trace left appears to be the following letter, which he sent to an admirer shortly before his death. The understandably concerned recipient […]