Put up or shut up Holding firm to one’s convictions and principles is easy when they are not being tested. Thomas Paine spoke of it eloquently in December of 1776: “THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.” We live in such times again. We’ve simply traded Redcoats for red hats. We watched the latter sack the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, ,2021 in service to a man and a movement that rejects the principles for which Paine and the Continental Army fought.
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Who are you? (biography/background
Brad Jones is a 14+ year member of the Drupal community and a regular contributor to both core and contrib codebases and initiatives. Professionally, he is founder/CTO at Not Vanilla, Inc., a dating-industry startup with a Drupal and open-source technology stack. He has previously worked in state and local politics, investigative journalism, technology consulting, and served as CTO at a Drupal web development agency. A full-time digital nomad living primarily in his RV throughout the mountain American west, he also serves as a part-time paramedic in a rural Colorado county every summer.
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The unprecedented churn in senior government positions means some ministers have been given pay-outs worth more than seven times what they received as their salary
“I no longer love blue skies. In fact, I now prefer gray skies. The drones do not fly when the skies are gray.” That’s what a young Pakistani boy named Zubair told members of Congress at a hearing on drones in October 2013. That hearing was during the Obama years at a time when the government had barely even acknowledged that an American drone warfare program existed. Two years earlier, however, a Muslim cleric, Anwar Al-Awlaki and his 16-year-old son Abdulrahman, both American citizens, were killed by U.S. drone strikes in Yemen just weeks apart. Asked to comment on Abdulrahman’s killing, Obama campaign senior adviser Robert Gibbs said: “I would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father if... Read more
Something even worse than government run by politicians is government run by politics, writes AC Grayling
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Congratulations on your new offspring. I’ve been preparing for this ever since you started waking up to pee every hour. Are you getting tons of sleep advice but no actual sleep? I’m here to help. Trust me, no one is more invested in getting you the rest you need than me, your sleep paralysis demon.
I know you’re not the biggest fan of lying immobilized while I sit on your chest and hiss incantations into your ear or hold a scythe over your sleeping spouse, but things are tough right now, and I need your help. Work exploded during the pandemic. Clinical anxiety and alcohol use were off the charts, and I was working my entire repertoire from multiple demonologies. But before long, every lesser demon with a stage cough was trying to get in the game. Now, the labor market is still saturated, but our client base is dwindling as humans go to therapy and take CBD gummies by the handful. I’m down to you and Mr. Aquino across the street, and the only thing that scares him is his mother-in-law.
The European Court of Human Rights is there to safeguard us against our own worst impulses – calls to leave its jurisdiction are deeply troubling, writes Alexandra Hall Hall
In the BBC's Doctor Who, our hero's constant death & rebirth may be a show-saving gimmick, but it's also what makes the show deeply beautiful.
One of the most widespread myths in economics, but also in sociology and political science, is that game theory provides “tools” that can help solve concrete problems in these branches – especially in economics. Introductory and advanced textbooks thus often speak of the “applications” of game theory that are being made, giving the impression that […]
How Warren Buffett’s billionaire son, Howard Buffett, took over a U.S. city and made it his personal playground.
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Australian novelist Yang Hengjun has been awaiting the verdict on his case in China for more than two years after being accused of spying. Now he fears he may die in detention
I’m not going to go into why that is a load of bullshit. The economy hummed along, no thanks to him but rather the recovery from 2008 finally reaching its stride. Our relationship with the world was nearing catastrophic. The border was a nightmare under him. We were still mired in Afghanistan and every day was some kind of chaotic catastrophe because this miscreant didn’t know what he was doing. This really takes some chutzpah: Not really. There are many more jobs now, manufacturing is coming back and the world is no longer terrified that the president is going to do something really stupid. But really, let’s take a look at where we were exactly three years ago today, shall we? When the pandemic hit he and his band of losers couldn’t even get masks and gowns to NY City while the morgues were filling up because he put his son-in-law in charge of “logistics” and he was clueless. Trump, meanwhile, was saying it was no big deal and if we got it we should take snake oil cures and inject disinfectant. On September 3, 2020: Trump’s answer to all that? On September 3, 2020 he had a rally in Pennsylvania.
The federal Opposition has condemned the Government over their decision to implement 60 day prescriptions, a move which will drop the price of medication, helping pensioners, but affecting chemists. ”Where does Anthony Albanese get off,” fumed Opposition leader Peter Dutton.... Read More ›
The demagogue liar Vivek is the future of the GOP, god help us. But AOC is the future of the Dems — and they are very lucky to have her: Ocasio-Cortez, who at 29 became the youngest woman and youngest Latina to serve in the House of Representatives, is now 33, twice re-elected and comfortable in her political skin. She could hardly be described as an old hand but nor does she channel the shock of the new. She deploys social media with enviable authenticity; she grills congressional witnesses like a seasoned interrogator; she is an object of perverse fascination for Fox News and rightwing trolls; she has been around Washington long enough to draw charges of “co-option” and “selling out”. “AOC Is Just a Regular Old Democrat Now,” ran a headline on New York magazine’s Intelligencer website in July.
There seems to be quite the competition developing between two of the worst Repub licans in the country for the exalted position of Trump’s VP: MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE and Kari Lake have been locked in what one source close to Donald Trump describes to Rolling Stone as a “death race” to become his 2024 vice presidential pick. In public, the far-right congresswoman from Georgia and the failed Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate are happy to present an image of calm unity in their cause to return Trump to the White House. But behind the scenes, the two view one another with intense distrust and disdain, each seeing the other as direct competition for Trump’s political affections, according to four people with knowledge of the matter. Exacerbating the situation is the fact that Greene and Lake are the two leading contenders in a very narrow lane in the race to secure Trump’s VP slot, should he win the 2024 Republican nomination next year.