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Created
Sat, 16/09/2023 - 09:30
Earlier this month, officials from Cedar Breaks National Monument in Utah shared a post highlighting the unique behavior of one of the region’s most adorable and little-known species — the American pika. These tiny animals, a diminutive species related to rabbits, spend their days in rocky outcrops at higher altitudes, where they forage for their favorite food: wildflowers. But pikas don’t just nibble as they go. To ensure they have food enough to last them through the frigid winter, during which fresh flowers are in short supply, pikas get to gathering and preserving colorful bouquets when there are plenty to be found. “[Pikas] do not hibernate and will collect wildflowers and grasses in the summertime and lay them out on the rocks in the sun to dry them,” the Park Service wrote. “They do that so their food does not go moldy during the winter. These are called ‘haystacks’ and they are stored in their dens [until] wintertime.” Because pikas are so small and swift, capturing their flower-gathering behavior on camera can be quite tricky to say the least.
Created
Sat, 16/09/2023 - 08:00
Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo calls the mRNA vaccines “an unsafe medication”. This is incorrect and irresponsible. Someone should ask Ron DeSantis if he would consider Dr Ladapo for US Surgeon General because that by itself would be a reason not to vote for him. https://t.co/tXPli0EFWZ — Jonathan Reiner (@JReinerMD) September 15, 2023 Irresponsible isn’t the word for it. It’s medical malpractice and will cause untold suffering and death among Florida’s vulnerable populations. The state is full of old, white Republicans who watch Fox, some of whom are going to believe this and get very sick and possibly die. And there are plenty of others who will hear this from the state Surgeon General and believe him too. Ron DeSantis is no better than Donald Trump and in this instance is actually worse. We must fervently hope that this campaign will have destroyed his political career. The grotesque bad judgement (or cynical calculation) in hiring this quack to be the surgeon general of the state totally disqualifies him from ever having lives in his hands again.
Created
Sat, 16/09/2023 - 06:30
Why do I have the feeling that Marge Greene leaked this story to the Daily Mail? A rising Republican star tipped by many to be Donald Trump‘s running mate should he win the presidential nomination has been involved in a clandestine affair for years, multiple sources tell DailyMail.com. Married South Dakota governor Kristi Noem, 51 – who stresses her belief in ‘family values’ – and Trump advisor Corey Lewandowski, who is also married, began carrying on in 2019, if not before. Now news of the relationship threatens to wreck Noem’s chances of joining Trump’s ticket in a potential rematch with President Joe Biden. Glamorous Noem – who served four terms as her state’s only member of the US House of Representatives – won the governorship in 2018 promising to uphold the wholesome family values that she said South Dakotans have ‘long embraced’. Defending ‘traditional marriage’, which she defined as ‘a special, God-given union between one man and one woman’, was particularly important to her.
Created
Sat, 16/09/2023 - 05:10
Ten Simple Facts About Covid (With Bonus Fact!)

One of the most irritating things about writing this blog is making statements that are obviously correct which people, especially those with power and large platforms dispute, then later being proven correct.

Covid has been a masterclass:

First, Covid is not over. It will not be over till we either get very lucky and it mutates massively to be less dangerous, or we do what is necessary to end it. Remember that Covid is a pandemic. It moves in waves.

Second, Covid damages immunity.

Third, Covid damages a wide variety of organs, including the heart, lungs, circulatory system and your brain. This damage can be non-symptomatic, or it can be bad enough to be Long Covid.

Fourth, every time you get Covid, it has a chance of doing more damage.

Created
Sat, 16/09/2023 - 05:00
“They did it to me. Had they not done it to me…you wouldn’t have it being done to them.” Trump reveals impeaching Biden is revenge for his impeachments. In an interview with Megyn Kelly, Trump talked about the Republican's "impeachment inquiry" against Biden, suggesting it's all about retribution for his impeachments: "They did it to me. Had they not done it to… pic.twitter.com/5eVlXNKdPN — Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) September 14, 2023 He’s posted this before on Truth Social. But now he’s on tape saying the same thing. It’s revenge, pure and simple. Unfortunately, at least half the country thinks that’s perfectly normal.
Created
Sat, 16/09/2023 - 04:57
This summer saw the hottest average global temperatures in the last 125,000 years. Europe is embroiled in war, with other conflicts raging around the world. The global economy is still reeling from the impacts of the first global pandemic since 1919. Experts are warning against the threat posed by our most advanced technological creation–artificial intelligence (AI). Continue reading »
Created
Sat, 16/09/2023 - 04:56
On assuming office, one of Prime Minister Albanese’s first actions was to task the Office of National Intelligence (ONI) to review the security threats posed by climate change. The report was finalised in late 2022 but not made public. Accordingly, a “release the ONI report” campaign has dominated climate-security discourse over much of 2023. Foreign Continue reading »
Created
Sat, 16/09/2023 - 04:55
I’m voting “Yes” as a proud Australian of Aboriginal, European and Middle-eastern ancestry. Australia’s Constitution needs to catch up with the nation we are today. We’re a multicultural superpower and Asia-Pacific democracy, founded on 65,000 years of heritage and culture. Our Constitution needs to reflect that. But there’s another very important reason not to Vote Continue reading »
Created
Sat, 16/09/2023 - 04:53
Gratifying it may be to see three of our top performing universities outranking Columbia and Johns Hopkins (with Melbourne even outranking Caltech and Yale (QS World University Rankings)), but as a sector our universities are in crisis. And such a crisis has dangerous implications for our democracy. The model democracy in ancient Athens may have Continue reading »
Created
Sat, 16/09/2023 - 04:52
When Labor and the Liberals share similar strategies regarding China and national defence, why should Chinese-Australian voters stay loyal? Any news pointing to an improvement in Australia-China relations — such as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese accepting an invitation to visit China later this year — is likely to be welcomed by Labor MPs whose seats have Continue reading »
Created
Sat, 16/09/2023 - 04:51
The primary site of the authoritarian cancer is the embrace of abusive power as the way to govern. Nelson Chamisa, leader of the Zimbabwean opposition, insists that the recent election which returned the government party ZanuPF and incumbent President Emerson Mnangagwa to power, was a gigantic fraud. Five years earlier, Mnangagwa succeeded Robert Mugabe, the Continue reading »
Created
Sat, 16/09/2023 - 03:30
Greg Sargent calls it the “MAGA doom loop” : For almost three years now, Republicans have defended or embraced Donald Trump’s authoritarianism — from lies about his 2020 loss to inciting an insurrection — which backfired as Americans proved unexpectedly eager to vote in defense of democracy in the 2022 elections as well as in contests this year. But Republicans aren’t giving up — they’re going even further. To an unappreciated degree, they have responded to these electoral losses with even more flagrantly anti-democratic maneuvers all around the country. The pattern is becoming clear: Even as voters are mobilizing to protect democracy at the ballot box, Republicans are redoubling their commitment to the former president’s anti-majoritarian mode of politics. And this, in turn, is motivating voters even more. Call it the “MAGA doom loop.” It’s playing out in state after state.
Created
Sat, 16/09/2023 - 03:00

Son, you’re eight years old now, and you’ll probably hear this soon enough from the other kids on the playground anyway, so I might as well tell you. Santa isn’t real, the Tooth Fairy is imaginary, and there’s no such thing as the “invisible hand of the market.”

Why did your mother and I lie to you? Well, we didn’t so much lie to you as tell you stories that were untrue, stories that we hoped would add magic to your childhood and also reassure you that capitalism is a good and fair system for everyone, instead of one in which some people can’t afford insulin while other people are Jeff Bezos.

And the thing is, back when Mom and I first told you about the invisible hand, we actually believed in it ourselves—not as a real hand, of course, but as a metaphor for a fundamental principle of economics. The principle I naively thought would save us when I got laid off, but then our mortgage went underwater, and it turned out that not one of Mom’s 223 Facebook friends wanted to get in on that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity she was pursuing at LuLaRoe.

Created
Sat, 16/09/2023 - 02:30
On Thursday morning NBC News reported that the FBI has created a stand-alone unit to investigate all the threats being made against FBI agents and Federal Prosecutors investigating Hunter Biden. You will be forgive for thinking that this must mean there has been a spate of left wing terrorism we haven’t heard about but, in fact, the threats are coming from right wingers who are convinced that these federal officials have been too soft on the younger Biden. Apparently, there has been “a dramatic uptick in threats against FBI agents that has coincided with attacks on the FBI and the Justice Department by congressional Republicans and former President Donald Trump.” And let’s not forget the right wing media which has been hammering this for months, and in the process encouraging their febrile audience to believe that everything coming out of the FBI and the Justice Department is being manipulated by the White House and the career FBI officials and prosecutors are all Democratic operatives.