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What a 300,000-year-old throwing stick reveals about our near-human ancestors.

The post A New Look at One of the Oldest Weapons appeared first on Nautilus.

A new parliamentary report details a complete lack of planning in handing out the money to small businesses, pubs, restaurants and some retail premises and clubs

He loved to dress up. Now he’ll be wearing a different costume: Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, former leader of the right-wing extremist group Proud Boys, was sentenced on Wednesday to 22 years in prison for his role in the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection. Why it matters: Tarrio’s sentencing caps one of the highest-profile prosecutions related to the Capitol riot, and his isthe longest sentence handed down in the Jan. 6 cases. The previous highest sentencing record related to Jan. 6 was held by Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, who was sentenced to 18 years in prison in May. Of note: Prosecutors had sought a 33-year sentence for Tarrio. Flashback: Tarrio was found guilty in May of seditious conspiracy related to Jan. 6, alongside other Proud Boys members. Tarrio wasn’t at the Jan. 6 Capitol Riot because he was arrested days earlier for vandalizing a Black Lives Matter banner at a historic Black church in D.C. in 2020.

Exclusive: A watchdog group finds that lobbyists in California are working for both the culprits of climate change and its victims.

Opposition leader (for now) Peter Dutton has given the board of Qantas a call to see how they managed to rid themselves of the deadwood that was Alan Joyce. ”As Politicians we can learn a lot from business,” said the... Read More ›

New results break with decades of conventional wisdom for the gradient descent algorithm.

The post Risky Giant Steps Can Solve Optimization Problems Faster appeared first on Nautilus.

McConnell and his Kentucky cronies tried to game the system and there’s no reason why Beshear shouldn’t turn Mitch’s clever little gambit right back on him. After Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) experienced his second freezing episode in five weeks, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) is decliningto say whether he would follow a state law requiring him to appoint a Republican in the event of a Senate vacancy. A reporter asked Beshear on Thursday whether, if McConnell were to step down, he would choose a replacement from one of three nominees selected by the state Republican Party, as the statute requires. “There is no Senate vacancy,” Beshear responded at the news conference. “Senator McConnell has said he’s going to serve out his term, and I believe him, so I’m not going to speculate about something that hasn’t happened and isn’t going to happen.” Asked whether voters deserve to know his stance on the issue, Beshear said he would not “sensationalize” McConnell’s health. Heh. Good one.

At the zenith of the mass protests in Egypt on January 25, 2011, Twitter, Facebook and other Western-based social media platforms appeared to be the most essential tools for the Egyptian Revolution. Though some observers later contested the use of the terms ‘Twitter Revolution’ or ‘Social Media Revolution,’ one cannot deny the centrality of these […]

The post When the Torturer is the Savior: Can BRICS Help Us Escape the West’s Hegemony and Contradictions? appeared first on MintPress News.

I wrote about this for Salon a couple of weeks ago. Here’s Dan Pfeiffer: Last Sunday, Speaker Kevin McCarthy went on Fox News to preview the launch of an inquiry. Here’s what he told Maria Bartiromo: Neither McCarthy nor the other MAGA Republicans chomping at the bit on impeachment can point to a single piece of evidence that President Biden had any involvement in Hunter Biden’s business dealings. This lack of evidence comes after a five-year Justice Department investigation by a Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney and 18 months of investigation by the Republican House. For some reason, this story has been getting limited attention from the political media. An impeachment inquiry into Biden is significant both in terms of the current politics and historical precedent. Biden would be the Xth President in U.S. history to face an impeachment inquiry, but the first to suffer through the process absent a modicum of evidence of wrongdoing. This potential impeachment inquiry is a direct result of Kevin McCarthy’s weakness, cowardice, and strategic idiocy. In the long history of dumb things done by Republicans, this might be the dumbest. 1.

We know Australia’s got a problem when a cautious, technical, energy market operator says: “Imminent and urgent investment is needed, or the reliability of the NEM [National Electricity Market] will be at risk.” More broadly, Australia’s energy transition is at risk. But the federal government has the challenge and the opportunity to get things back Continue reading »

This year’s challenge was to make Dr. Bobb’s mother’s “Hot Fudge Pie”. Now, I love me some Dr. Bobb. Which is why I’m loathe to tell him that I suspect his childhood was filled with lies. I’m sure his mamma meant well, but hoodwinking a young boy into thinking a brownie was a pie seems […]

Loud warnings of climate disaster continue. We could be in for a catastrophe from which there is no recovery. But we are dawdling along. It is time for more decisive action. Last November, opening the COP27 world climate conference in Cairo, António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, proclaimed “We are on a highway to Continue reading »

The narrative about the inevitability of a war with China began to dominate US strategic thinking in the second decade of the twenty-first century. The extraordinary growth of the Chinese economy in the first decade of this century deeply worried the neocons who control US foreign policy. As the size of the Chinese economy threatened Continue reading »

There is a lot more substance to the Members of Parliament (Staff) Amendment Bill now before the Parliament than the Public Service Act Amendment Bill. But, once again, a key reform proposed by the Thodey Review and endorsed by the Robodebt Royal Commission is missing. The MOP(S) Amendment Bill originates primarily from the Jenkins Review Continue reading »

We’ve all heard the ‘rules-based order’ catchphrase a lot and Australia has historically been a great supporter, championing the major international institutions at the time of their establishment. In recent years, we have joined the refrain that this international order represents the agreed rules of the road, and there’s no reason to alter it. Sounds Continue reading »

How is the war going? Two expert observers add to the confusion. Former British soldier Richard Iron, reflects on what he sees as the brittleness of Putin’s situation, thinks Putin could fall in a coup and predicts that Ukraine has a good chance of turfing Russians out of Ukraine altogether. American Professor John Mearsheimer, a Continue reading »

We, Westerners, impose our sense of individualism onto a society that has a sense of communalism. We are bothered by it.  But this is not something the Chinese people need “rescuing from”. China is not your enemy, the people telling you China is your enemy, are you enemy. An open letter from Jerry Grey to Continue reading »

An unbiased look at the progression within Israeli politics shows that there is a clear and direct line between the early Zionists like Golda Meir and Shimon Peres and today’s Zionists Ben-Gvir and his vile constituency of racists.

The post From Golda Meir to Ben-Gvir: Examining Israel’s Supremacist Apartheid Legacy appeared first on MintPress News.

New CNN poll: Former President Donald Trump continues to hold what has proven to be an unshakeable position atop the Republican field of candidates vying to take on President Joe Biden next year, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS. Trump is the top choice for his party’s nomination at the traditional Labor Day start to a more engaged campaign season, ahead of his nearest rival by more than 30 percentage points (52% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independent voters support him, compared with 18% behind Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis). And Trump is broadly seen as best able to handle a wide range of issues. More than 4 in 10 in the potential GOP primary electorate say they have definitely decided to support him for the nomination (43% are definite Trump backers, 20% are firmly behind another candidate, and 37% have no first choice or say they could change their minds). Nearly two-thirds consider him one of their top two choices, and 61% say they think he is extremely or very likely to become the party’s nominee, up from 52% at the start of the summer.

I’m going to say something you wouldn’t expect from the CEO of a car company: America’s roads are a warzone. Over 40,000 traffic fatalities in 2021. Millions of car accidents per year. Our streets and highways are dangerous, and it’s clear that the current system isn’t working. Years of preventable tragedies inspired me to start this company, and I’m proud to say that our self-driving cars will someday save countless lives. But, and I want to be upfront about this, they will kill some of you first.

We all think we’re above-average drivers, but let’s face it: humans make mistakes. We get tired. We get angry. We drink. Combine any of those with an automobile, and you’ve got a recipe for tragedy. Our autonomous vehicles don’t make human mistakes. Instead, they make errors that only a machine could make, like confusing a cyclist for an open roadway, or mixing up a pedestrian for an open roadway, or making a small oopsie and thinking that playing children are an open roadway. Nobody’s perfect.