For the last three decades the Reserve Bank of Australia has focused on just one economic goal – a rate of inflation between 2 and 3 per cent. It is a goal they have pursued relentlessly since 1993, regardless of how effective or fair it is. Last Tuesday they increased the cash rate yet again. Continue reading »
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In twelve months time Americans will go to the polls to elect the next President. Is the world prepared for the outcome? It is almost impossible to imagine a second election victory for such a manifestly unsuitable candidate for President of the United States as Donald trump. I still think, on the balance of probabilities Continue reading »
There is a truism that I often cite when discussing the various analytical approaches to assessing the wide variety of geopolitical problems facing the world today—you can’t solve a problem unless you first properly define it. The gist of the argument is quite simple—any solution which has nothing to do with the problem involved is, Continue reading »
Just thought you should know. And plan accordingly.
The work is never finished I am reminded. Full quotation: It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. Michael Beschloss will be along presently. The anniversary brings to mind something related to Gettysburg that I wrote for Dirty Hippies in 2011, “The Future They Feared”: We were sitting in a Waffle House in Staunton, Virginia discussing the state of the nation over breakfast. I had just read an Ed Kilgore column in Salon about the nationwide Republican war on voting rights, and the conservative debate over whether voting is even a right or not. As I am standing in line to pay my tab, a African-American man in his forties slides into an occupied booth next to the register and sits opposite an older white man.
.Macroeconomic models may be an informative tool for research. But if practitioners of ‘New Keynesian’ macroeconomics do not investigate and make an effort to provide a justification for the credibility of the assumptions on which they erect their building, it will not fulfil its tasks. There is a gap between its aspirations and its accomplishments, […]
“Parkinson’s disease sucks” It’s heartening to see people who still believe in public service as a vocation. A neighbor spent his career in international development. My state representative served first in the Peace Corps. I recently met a couple who retired here after careers as Foreign Service officers. Donald Trump calls Washington, D.C. a swamp and people eat it up in part because guys like George Santos and Bob Menendez give public service a bad name. (Even though there’s some “both sides” to that, political corruption and faithlessness does seem to have a right-wing bias.) Yet some people still believe. They’re not the ones who become notorious in the press. CBS this morning profiles Virginia congresswoman Jennifer Wexton (D). Wexton comes from a family of public servants. She’s afflicted with a rare disease, yet forgoes some speech and physical therapy to keep serving her consituents: Progressive Supra-nuclear Palsy, as Wexton said, has no cure. At this time, there is no treatment that will slow its progression, and it tends not to respond to medication, according to the National Institutes of Health.
From a pro-Israel lobbying group crushing Democratic dissent to an insurance giant derailing mental health care reforms, here’s a roundup of our reporting from the past week.
. Statistical reasoning certainly seems paradoxical to most people. Take for example Simpson’s paradox. From a theoretical perspective, it importantly shows that causality can never be reduced to a question of statistics or probabilities unless you are — miraculously — able to keep constant all other factors that influence the probability of the outcome studied. […]
In today's BCTV Daily Dispatch: SNL, My Adventures with Superman, Bill Maher, Star Trek: Lower Decks, The Powerpuff Girls, Doctor Who & more!
Linda Trush sued the city alleging that she was wrongfully terminated and retaliated against after reporting sexual harassment by a co-worker.
The post Last Republican on Philly City Council Fired Staffer Who Reported Sexual Harassment, Says Lawsuit appeared first on The Intercept.
The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal joins Chris Hedges to discuss his investigation into Israel’s indiscriminate use of heavy weapons against Israeli citizens on October 7, and the shock-and-awe campaign of misinformation it subsequently employed to create political space for its brutal assault on Gaza. This was originally published by The Real News Network. Editor’s note: Since the publication of this interview, an Israeli police investigation has confirmed that Israeli Apache helicopters killed numerous Israeli citizens at and around the Nova electronic […]
The post VIDEO: What really happened on October 7? first appeared on The Grayzone.
The post VIDEO: What really happened on October 7? appeared first on The Grayzone.
Karen Gillan posted a TikTok video for the new Steven Moffat-penned series Douglas is Cancelled, reminding us of her underrated show Selfie.
This man is demented — and the audience cheers Back when he was running against Clinton he used to say she belonged in jail and she was crook and that she didn’t “have the strength and stamina” to be president. It wasn’tsubtle by any means. But this … this is beyond grotesque. And his audience loves it. Meanwhile, speaking of stupid: Fine. Everything is fine.
Use to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts.
Don’t let them forget Trump or shirk who they’ve become Following up on the post below, here’s a great piece by Brian Beutler from his excellent newsletter Off Message. He recaps the infuriatingly terrible media response to Trump’s “vermin” comments, proving just how inured they’ve become to his escalating extremism. He notes that the outcry from regular people finally jolted them out of their reflexive “that old Trumps says the darndest things” reaction. But what do we do? But the question now—as days turn into weeks, and fresh stories vie for our attention—is whether this will be a passing kerfuffle, or one Republicans, as long as they support Trump, can never live down. Reporters have no shortage of Trump outrage porn to cover, and if Democrats can’t differentiate the vermin libel as something that transcends his more typical offenses, it will fade like most of the others. That’s the main source of my small misgivings over the couch-fainting, pearl-clutching way liberals have responded to it. “Ack, Hitler said that!” True enough, he did.
REMOULADE SAUCE 2 cups mayonnaise or cooked salad dressing1 tablespoon prepared mustard⅛ teaspoon pepper½ cup finely chopped dill pickle1 hard-cooked egg, chopped1 clove garlic, pressed2 tablespoons drained capers1 tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon or 1 teaspoon dried tarragon leaves1 tablespoon chopped fresh chervil or 1 teaspoon dried chervil leaves1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley2 lb cooked shrimp, […]
Not that some of us didn’t see it coming… Over the past few years people have argued over whether or not Trump and his movement were fascist. (I came down on the side of yes, quite some time ago..) But others made the point that the word has a specific meaning and Trump didn’t necessarily fit it perfectly. Tom Nichols, Never Trump conservative, was one of those people. In this piece he correctly describes him as a lazy, narcissistic, gadfly who doesn’t really care about anything but himself. He points out that he “had only two consistent issues: hatred of immigrants and love for foreign autocrats.” He writes: “Trump, as a person and as a public figure, is just so obviously ridiculous; fascists, by contrast, are dangerously serious people, and in many circumstances, their leaders have been unnervingly tough and courageous. Trump—whiny, childish, unmanly—hardly fits that bill” He warned that the indiscriminate use of the word word could blind us to the time when it might actually become accurate. He says that time has come: For weeks, Trump has been ramping up his rhetoric.
