The world has just spent two decades paralysed by fear. Ever since 11 September 2001, the ‘war on terror’ has changed the lives of most people for the worse. Millions have been killed, either by terrorists or by militarists fighting them. Fearing violence, many people have fled their homelands as refugees. Others have absorbed repeated Continue reading »
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According to the UN Human Rights Office, 9,083 civilians have been killed in 500 days of fighting in Ukraine, and 15,779 wounded. These figures are likely to increase dramatically once American cluster munitions are deployed. Invented by Germany and deployed in World War Two, cluster bomb technology spread to the United States, Russia and Italy Continue reading »
While both Donald Trump Junior and Novak Djokovic were granted visas to enter Australia, the stark difference in how the two cases were managed highlight the difference in approaches of the Albanese and Morrison Governments to controversial visitors. Australia’s immigration system has long used the Movement Alert List (MAL) to manage controversial visitors. By listing Continue reading »
The earth is getting especially hot this year, as record after record falls. Seth Borenstein at AP reports that three times this past week, the average temperature of the earth topped anything ever recorded. Thursday’s average 17.18 °C. (62.9 °F.) broke the record yet again. You don’t break all those records without the accumulation of Continue reading »
On China, Biden is faced with both a political problem, represented by his secretary of state, and an economic reality, represented by the Treasury secretary. Yellen’s visit suggests economics may be starting to play a larger role in the bilateral relationship, but the US will need to demonstrate consistent sincerity to see improvement in ties. Continue reading »
That’s Trump talking about the country Excerpts from Trump’s softball interview with the Nevada Globe: TNG: What do you think that they would be saying to you now as you’re going through another campaign and this legal persecution, if you will? President Trump: It is persecution. It is. I call it election interference, more than anything else. These are terrible people, disgusting people. My father would be angry at these people. My mother would be– she’d feel a little remorse for me, because, you know, it’s very unfair. It’s a total…this witch hunt has been going on from the beginning–from the time I came down the escalator, and it has been proven to all be false. Everything has been proven to be false. If you look, every single thing that they’ve done, from Russia, Russia, Russia…it has all turned out to be a hoax. That’s what Democrats are good at is just these hoaxes. They’re not good at policy. They’re not good at, frankly, many things. All Democrats do is disinformation and hoaxes. But, I think that it has been an amazing period of time. We had an amazing presidency.
A loose coalition of Democrats and Freedom Caucus Republicans are pushing NDAA amendments that challenge Washington’s foreign policy orthodoxy.
The post The Military-Industrial Complex Is Finally Facing Intense Bipartisan Scrutiny appeared first on The Intercept.
SIGNATURE CHALLENGE:
SOMETHING WITH BREAD
VOICEOVER: For their signature challenge, the bakers were asked to prepare something, anything, with bread. Because, for the love of god, they need to eat today.
Val’s Bread-fast
PRUE: I appreciate the effort you put into getting out of bed and going to the refrigerator to feed yourself at a reasonable time of day. But you’ve applied the mustard to the slice of bread a bit unevenly. Details like this are important.
PAUL: It’s just yellow mustard on plain bread. I mean, the Dijon was sitting right next to it on the shelf, and you could have used that instead. It’s a shame, really.
Shanti’s Pa-jam-a Toast
SHANTI: This is what I eat when I haven’t gotten out of my pajamas all day.
PAUL: Nicely toasted. Proper jam distribution. Well done.
Next time he’ll get ‘er done: Donald Trump wanted to “tap the phones” of White House aides who he suspected of leaking information, according to bombshell claims made by a former Trump administration official. Miles Taylor, who served as the Department of Homeland Security’s chief of staff under Mr Trump, has claimed in his new book Blowback that the then-president floated the idea “to pursue leakers by tapping phones” at some point in 2018. The idea was quickly shut down by then-White House Chief of Staff John Kelly who warned Mr Trump he would be breaking the law. Mr Kelly “quickly nixed the suggestion, knowing it would be illegal,” Mr Taylor writes in the book excerpt, obtained by Axios. I suspect that Chief of Staff Kash Patel won;t be quite so squeamish.
As there is no consensus yet to invite Ukraine into NATO, an interim security deal would be guaranteed by including it and Poland in the JEF
The move from the governing party has sparked concerns over press freedom
In March 2023, we sent an open letter to Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, to investigate discriminatory police practices in the wake of the conviction of ten young Black men, known as the Manchester 10. The letter was signed by 15 civil society organisations. Below is our response to a reply we received from […]
Ukraine's second biggest city, Kharkiv, has suffered from thousands of missile attacks since Russia's invasion. How are residents dealing with the destruction?
As regular readers will know, for a long time I’ve emphasized what are now being called tipping points, and in particular the tipping point where permafrost melt becomes self sustaining. As a matter of politics, I’ve been quite sure this would occur, since we aren’t likely to do anything about it.
It’s possible this model is wrong on the margins, but I’d be rather surprised if it’s wrong on the fundamentals. The danger has always been passing the point where humanity was in the driver’s seat. We started global warming climate change, but we can no longer stop it short of, perhaps, some hail-mary geo-engineering.
Delay, delay, delay Mentor Roy Cohn taught Donald Trump well. Basic Rules for the Unscrupulous for defeating all enemies, according to one documentary: “Deflect and distract, never give in, never admit fault, lie and attack, lie and attack, publicity no matter what, win no matter what, all underpinned by a deep, prove-me-wrong belief in the power of chaos and fear.” Delay, delay, delay is not in there explicitly. Perhaps it is a Trumpian riff on deflect and distract. But it is by now a familiar Trump tactic. Run out the clock or else bleed out an opponent’s funds for fighting. Hard to do the latter when the opponent is the federal government. So delay, it is. Thus (Politico): Donald Trump on Monday called for a lengthy delay before he goes to trial for allegedly hoarding military secrets at his Mar-a-Lago estate, contending that proceeding while he remains a candidate for president would make it virtually impossible to seat an impartial jury.
Doctor Who star Ncuti Gatwa offers insight into the Fifteenth Doctor, binge-watching the show & connecting personally with the Doctor.
A world in which machines governed by artificial intelligence (AI) systematically replace human beings in most business, industrial, and professional functions is horrifying to imagine. After all, as prominent computer scientists have been warning us, AI-governed systems are prone to critical errors and inexplicable “hallucinations,” resulting in potentially catastrophic outcomes. But there’s an even more dangerous scenario imaginable from the proliferation of super-intelligent machines: the possibility that those nonhuman entities could end up fighting one another, obliterating all human life in the process. The notion that super-intelligent computers might run amok and slaughter humans has, of course, long been a staple of popular culture. In the prophetic 1983 film “WarGames,” a supercomputer known as WOPR (for War Operation Plan Response... Read more
Inculcating hate A friend from the reddest part of my county once described how GOP candidates there rally support. In every group of voters, find out what issue pisses them off, then wedge the hell out of it. As the late Howard Phillips put it, “We organize discontent.” It’s just that on the right, wedge issues come and go (for those of a certain age) like fad products by Wham-O or their support for the U.S. Constitution. The issues are not the issue. Organizing discontent is. Tess Owen at Vice News examines the controversy du jour in Los Angeles schools. Recognition of Pride Month that touched off parent protests: This was grooming, said the protesters, many of whom were parents wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan “Leave Our Kids Alone.” The June 2 protest quickly turned violent. Videos show parents and their right-wing supporters brawling with pro-LGBTQ counterprotesters, beating them, and kicking them. It was hardly an isolated incident in the LA-area. Fights also broke out at two more protests in June, both outside Glendale School Board meetings.