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People are worried about Biden’s mental acuity but this man is on the Armed Services Committee Steve Benen points out that this man has access to very important defense information. I think that’s a big mistake: Over the course of just three years, Sen. Tommy Tuberville has made quite a name for himself. The Alabama Republican is perhaps best known for launching an unprecedented, 10-month blockade, preventing confirmation of U.S. military leaders, but that’s not the right-wing senator’s only notable contribution. Tuberville has also made headlines for embracing Donald Trump’s “Big Lie,” for example, and voting against certification of the 2020 election results. He’s also disputed the racism of white nationalists and presented an unsubtle argument that “inner city” school teachers are lazy and possibly illiterate. He’s also struggled with basic details related to civics and modern American history. But let’s also not forget that Tuberville has shared a variety of curious thoughts about foreign policy in general and Russia’s attack on Ukraine in specific.

What casual sex, pigeon relationships, and a drug for broken hearts can tell us about love.

The post The Brave New Science of Love appeared first on Nautilus.

He just doesn’t have enough scandals JV Last has a very interesting look at the “age problem” in today’s Bulwark that you should read in its entirety if you have the time. He points out all the usual stuff about Biden, who has always been gaffe prone, the stutter etc and points out that Trump is having many similar gaffes and “senior moments” on the trail so the issue in reality is a wash. We have two old candidates and that’s just how it is. But then he explores why this has become such a focus of the campaign, even before the Hur report: Again, the issue is not the discussion of Biden’s age but the disproportionate focus on it. It’s worth speaking clearly about the reasons for this dynamic among Republicans, among Democrats, and in the press. For Republicans, Biden’s age is just about the only true thing they can attack him on. In early 2023, it looked like the economy would be a liability for the president. But with solid growth, low unemployment, rising wages, and tamed inflation, it’s looking strong enough now that Trump is preposterously trying to claim credit for the stock market reaching new highs.

A conversation with Issue 52 cover artist Mark Belan.

The post Building a Bridge Between Data and Art appeared first on Nautilus.

As a calm, balanced person with a suitable amount of self-esteem and a low level of neurosis, I’m happy to receive what you’re about to say in the way you intended it: as a compliment.

Let’s say you’re my friend, and we’re at a party together. You should tell me, “You look nice! I like your outfit.” Don’t worry, I don’t have the superpower of detecting any slight, unexpected emphasis on the word “I.” You like my outfit. Unlike everyone else. I won’t assume everyone is going around this party whispering about my bad outfit.

Or, maybe you could tell me I look nice and ask me where I bought my outfit. I will take this to mean you might buy it for yourself because you like it so much—not that you might buy it for your grandmother because Nana and I have the same style. I definitely won’t wonder if you asked this as a test, because you can’t believe I found such an unfashionable outfit at a store that still currently exists.

The hottest January ever recorded in human history has passed, with barely a nod from governments worldwide and international media. For a full year, the Earth has now exceeded the +1.5 degrees danger level set by the Paris Agreement in 2015. And 2024 may be hotter still, US scientists are warning. Wildfires rage unchecked over Continue reading »

The Australian Parliament failed to recognise its responsibilities last week when Greens Leader Adam Bandt, responding to the International Court of Justice interim ruling to prevent genocide, initiated a vote for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Australians are indebted to human rights champions Adam Bandt, Elizabeth Watson Brown, Stephen Bates, Max Chandler-Mather, Helen Haines and Continue reading »

On 14 February, Indonesia holds simultaneous elections for the presidency and national and regional legislatures. The runes suggest the current Defence Minister, Prabowo Subianto is on track to be the next President. He will not be boring. To win a presidential election, a presidential/vice-presidential ticket must gain more than 50% of the vote. If none Continue reading »

I had been assuming that Julian Assange, whose case comes up for adjudication in the British Courts soon, was a shoo-in for being Australia’s prisoner of conscience of the decade, but a late entry into the competition is Michael Pezzullo, who appears to have been condemned by an Australian Star Chamber convening in secret, without Continue reading »

In the first of Pearls and Irritations’ new podcast series, Peter Martin interviews Ross Gittins on 50 years at the Sydney Morning Herald and the radical tax reform necessary to address climate change and Australia’s housing affordability crisis. Click on our logo below to listen to the podcast. (Intro and outro music is Orbiting A Continue reading »

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This level of dislike for Morrison among Chinese Australians should come as no surprise, given that the roughest patch in Australia-China relations happened during his reign. But now he’s gone, can Peter Dutton begin to mend fences? Following the announcement of Scott Morrison’s decision to quit politics, Sydney Today, Australia’s most popular Chinese-language digital media outlet, conducted Continue reading »

David Brooks describes himself as a moderate-conservative. Born in Canada but long resident in America, he is a respected, outspoken columnist for the New York Times and a range of other outlets. He has now explained what he believes is devastating America. Brooks recently published a rousing, extended article in The Atlantic arguing that: “Chicken Continue reading »

One hand in his pocket, nonchalantly leaning against the railing, a friendly-looking man with a moustache smiles from inside a picture. The man is Engelbert Dollfuß, the Austrian chancellor from 1932 to 1934. His political home was the Christian Social Party, the predecessor of today’s ÖVP (Austrian People’s Party). In July 2017 his portrait, which […]

Independent candidates affiliated with the jailed former prime minister’s party staged a shock upset despite allegations of widespread electoral fraud led by Pakistan’s military. In what many observers called a “shock” result, candidates affiliated with imprisoned former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party won the most National Assembly seats in a general election that raised Continue reading »

With no peaceful options left in the Israel-Palestine conflict, the pendulum swings back to the war already being fought by the ‘axis of resistance’ and likely to widen into a regional war at any moment. There is no coming back from this. Tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians murdered, half of them children, thousands of Continue reading »

Postwar neoclassical economics was a reaction against a set of approaches based on the principles of hedonic psychology … Various developments in positive and normative economics had reassured them that references to unobservable entities were not only illegitimate but also dispensable. Thus, the concept of preference came to be the primitive notion of economic theory, […]

Thank goodness Trump’s going to build a big dome over the whole country so we won’t need any As we all, know, the biggest story in the world is the breaking news that President Joe Biden is old. Sure 9/11 was something of a big deal and the war in Iraq and the global pandemic required all of our attention for a time, but this is the most important news of our lifetime, maybe anyone’s lifetime and there’s no telling when, or if, the nation will ever recover. Still, it’s probably important to at least pay a tiny bit of attention to other things that are happening in the world just in case they might also be affected by Biden’s age in some way. In fact, we probably should be just a little bit curious about what the former Fox News celebrity Tucker Carlson was doing in Moscow last week interviewing Russian president Vladimir Putin. Carlson has demonstrated his affinity for Putin for years now and is commonly extolled on the Russian state television channels as a model American with all the right ideas.

He and the rest of the MAGA weirdos are making the Senate work around the clock because they’re having a tantrum. From @SenWhitehouse on Sunday night,here’s an explanation for the weekend activities in the Senate: If you’re sitting around wondering what is happening in the Senate, (a) you need to get a life, and (b) here’s a handy-dandy overview.  We begin with the rule that spending measures have to originate in the House, so to start a bill like our Ukraine funding measure in the Senate you need to bring a House-passed measure to the Senate Floor. The first step is to proceed to that House-passed measure.  A group of Republicans objects to all this, so the Majority Leader had to file cloture on that motion to proceed to the House-passed measure, requiring 60 votes.   Getting cloture on that motion was our first vote, 67-32.  Cloture rules require thirty hours of post-cloture debate, so that debate took place, and then after that came the actual vote to proceed, which only required a simple majority, cloture having been invoked.

David Meller was referred to the 'VIP Lane' by his long-term political ally Michael Gove

The western powers have expressed increasing concern over the conduct of Israel’s campaign in Gaza but applied no consequences in practice, writes former diplomat Alexandra Hall Hall