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THE Mother’s Day Silent Auction Luncheon on Saturday 13 May 2023 at Coffs Harbour Surf Club fundraising for a SleepBus for the community raised more than $1,500 through final bids and the raffle, plus a generous anonymous donation of $20,000. “Around 30 people attended who were all very interested in SleepBus and the housing crisis...

The post Fundraising successes for SleepBus Coffs Harbour appeared first on News Of The Area.

FOUR, and sometimes five women talking together, reading together and then writing together under a collective pseudonym, Alice Campion, saw the female authors present their unique project in library talks at Dorrigo and Bellingen in early May. The four women friends, Jenny Crocker, Jane Richards, Denise Tart and Jane St Vincent Welch, who has recently...

The post Alice Campion authors speak at Bello and Dorrigo libraries appeared first on News Of The Area.

Source - Patreon

Source - Patreon

Source - Patreon

Across the state, residents indicated a desperate desire to join Disney in its departure.

Pete Buttigieg is an interesting fellow. I thought this was an interesting analysis: [H]ave you followed the masculinity crusade of former TV personality Tucker Carlson—testicle warming and the rest? I mean, where to begin on this? Fears about masculinity are a way into the fear of displacement. Masculinity establishes a default place, and that place is being shifted and threatened by modernity. A man as the head of the household. The only one who earns income. The default leader in any social or political organization.  The politicization of masculinity is code for Nothing in your life has to change. The problem is, of course, lots of things have to change. Either because there was something wrong with the old way—or because, even as the old way seemed perfectly fine, it’s not an option.  This is true with the realities of climate change. If you can’t face that change, you might retreat to the default place of masculinity. Maybe that’s why someone characterized electric vehicles as emasculating. I think it was Marjorie Taylor Greene. I do believe that Marge may be an expert on emasculation. The larger point is very true.

The U.S. is slow-walking peace negotiations, effectively pushing for a resumption of the war.

The post The Yemen War Can Be Over — If Biden Wants It appeared first on The Intercept.

Our minds seem both physical and intangible. That paradox has gripped this neuroscientist since childhood.

The post Is Consciousness More Like Chess or the Weather? appeared first on Nautilus.

He’s right there in front of us. Don’t look away: A confession: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is living in my head. For nearly three years now, I’ve been fascinated by the performance art of this blustering pettifogger. My first column, published in June 2020, covered DeSantis’ truculent defense of his management of the COVID-19 pandemic in his state. At the time, he complained that criticism of his record on COVID was nothing but a “partisan narrative.” Within days, Florida would see a record surge in cases. To this day, DeSantis has continued to claim success against the virus, never mind that his state has notched one of the worst COVID death rates in the country. Following DeSantis and his hijinks has been what could be described as one of my guilty pleasures. Nothing that happened in Florida had real relevance to our lives here in California; appalling as his policies were, we could afford to watch from a safe distance as DeSantis waged war on LGBTQ+ residents, teachers, universities, anti-discrimination laws, gun safety and so many other the institutions and principles that a sane, inclusive society holds dear. But things have changed.

Its deployment is nothing more than our demise from democracy. It may be all anyone can talk about this morning, but Beyonce’s nothing short of incredible performance (I’m sure) in Cardiff was marred by the disappointing news that Cardiff police were deploying live facial recognition to “support” the concert. What is live facial recognition? For […]

The absurd RICO allegations come after the Biden administration hit the activists with federal charges that carry a 12-year sentence.

The post Abortion Rights Activists Face Attack From DeSantis and Conspiracy Lawsuit — for Spray Painting appeared first on The Intercept.

If you’ve been observing politics for a while I’m sure many of you caught House Oversight Chairman James Comer’s not-so-subtle implications that Joe Biden and his “crime family” are killing off his political enemies over the weekend. It’s redolent of the old Clinton Kill List that was an article of faith on the right back in the 1990s. Tim Miller has the details: JAMES COMER, THE REPUBLICAN WHO CHAIRS the House Oversight Committee, has been widely mocked for claiming during a Sunday interview with not-yet-fired Fox anchor Maria Bartiromo that the “informant” in his committee’s investigation of the Biden family’s business dealings went “missing,” hampering Republicans’ ability to drop the long-promised “bombshell” evidence. While this dung-faced performance merited all the mockery it has received, those of us whose sonar is more closely calibrated to the fainter sound waves of the conservative media world caught something more sinister in the congressman’s subtext.

Like the occasional failure of a president to pronounce the name of our prime minister, US President Joe Biden cancelling his attendance at the QUAD is a reminder that America needs to balance bilateral relationships with 192 nation states and that up to 20 flatter themselves that their relationship is a special one. One time Continue reading »

The Australian Government has announced a four-decades long deal to acquire American and British nuclear-powered submarines, at an indicative cost of $268 billion to $368 billion. This is an extraordinary timeframe and an extraordinary cost. The assumptions on which the deal has been constructed are ill-defined, and many of the assertions made to justify the Continue reading »

Prominent Chinese community leader, Dr Anthony “Tony” Pun died last night in Sydney, aged 77. In 1989 he came to public prominence when he lobbied then prime minister Bob Hawke to allow Chinese students to remain in Australia, in the wake of the crackdown on Chinese student protests that led to the Tiananmen Square incident. Continue reading »

Far more transparency is required about which ‘important public policy objectives’ Defence wants to subvert to its needs. Part two of a two-part series. Read part one. The Defence Department wants to exempt itself from some state and territory laws saying ‘unintended consequences’ of the laws have ‘constrained’ its activities. This follows news of a Continue reading »

In the May 2023 Budget, Treasury caused a ‘big Australia’ furore by increasing its net migration forecast for 2022-23 from the 235,000 it published in the October 2022 Budget to 400,000. Net migration is the number of people, irrespective of citizenship or visa status, who arrive in Australia after being outside the country for more Continue reading »

Joe Biden isn’t coming to Australia. The good news is he hasn’t had a senior moment and forgotten all about an appointment with another interchangeable ‘fella down under’. The bad news is that the United States’ increasingly poisonous domestic politics and crises take priority over everything else, including the long-term security of the Indo-Pacific. To Continue reading »

Ever since the six-day war of 1967, when Israel occupied the whole of Jerusalem, a triumphant march of conquest, called ‘Jerusalem Day March’ takes over the Holy City. How would you feel if this was your home, your neighbourhood and you and your family were faced with hoards of religious fanatics, waving the Israeli flag, Continue reading »