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Thu, 19/10/2023 - 06:00
Joe Biden went to Israel today and spoke from experience Joe Biden urged Israel not to repeat “mistakes” the US made after 9/11 as he made a statement during his visit to Tel Aviv on Wednesday, 18 October, following Hamas’ attack earlier this month. The US president told people not to be “consumed” by rage as he compared the attacks to the events of September 11 in the US. “After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. While we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes,” he added. Mr Biden’s statement came as he announced a new $100m aid package to Gaza after a hospital explosion that is feared to have killed hundreds of people on Tuesday. I suspect the right wingers will have a fit about this because American presidents are never allowed to admit to mistakes. On the other hand, they must be confused because Trump is hostile to Netanyahu and they’ve recently been programmed to be against war in the Middle East (what they now call “forever wars” no matter what the circumstances.) So, we’ll see.
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Thu, 19/10/2023 - 05:08
Understanding the Israeli Project

Let’s spell this out in the simplest terms possible.

Israelis came to a land with its own native population. They wanted to live in the land and the land was not very large. (Israel is a small country.)

That required that the people who were already there be removed.

This was done in stages. Some of the early parts were done by buying the land, generally from landlords who didn’t live in Palestine, then evicting the natives. Most of it was done with violence, starting with the Nakba.

The project of Israel is to create a Jewish religious-ethnic state where there hasn’t been one for about a couple thousand years.

Those people also breed faster than Israelis.

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Thu, 19/10/2023 - 04:58
A huge blast in Gaza has destroyed the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, killing hundreds of people. The exact death toll is still unknown. Details of who is responsible for the explosion are being hotly debated by all parties, and this is still a developing story with a lot of details yet to be revealed. But what Continue reading »
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Thu, 19/10/2023 - 04:57
As reported in the New York Times, US President Joe Biden has accepted the summons from his master and will be in Israel to physically manifest his full support for the further enhanced genocidal assault against the people of Gaza which Israel has publicly announced its intention to launch. Unless he has received prior assurances Continue reading »
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Thu, 19/10/2023 - 04:54
Pearls and Irritations has been a source of enlightenment since its foundation in 2013. It has progressively increased in importance. What began as an interesting addition to the Australian media landscape has become an irreplaceable source of ideas and distinctive interpretations provided by a large collection of authoritative experts few of whom have access to Continue reading »
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Thu, 19/10/2023 - 04:52
As the shock waves from last weekend’s Voice referendum reverberate, a deeper reality is beginning to more fully reveal itself. The ‘division’ that Voice opponents claimed the proposition would create already exists among non-indigenous Australians and it is reshaping how politics is done in this country. We are moving ever closer towards a politics of Continue reading »
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Thu, 19/10/2023 - 04:51
The Medical Association for Prevention of War renews its call of last week for the Australian government to express in the strongest possible terms that Australia supports the application of the rule of law impartially and in all circumstances, and explicitly condemns violations of it not only by Hamas but also by Israel in the Continue reading »
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Thu, 19/10/2023 - 04:00

It’s almost robot fightin’ time again, folks!

Of course, I’m more excited than anybody to be going into our twentieth (!!!) season of sparks flying, parts exploding, and essentially no danger of the robots becoming fully self-aware and brutally murdering us all.

While, yes, given recent technological advancements, it’s somewhat logical to ponder how we—the premier robot fighting league in the world—might fend for ourselves when said robots have the ability to think and reflect on past trauma inflicted upon them.

That’s why I’m here as CEO of BattleBots to tell you directly and unequivocally: Don’t worry about it.

It’ll probably be fine.

If nothing else, take heart in the fact that I personally consulted numerous experts on the topic. I’m happy to report that almost none of those experts expected us to one day be lit aflame and/or brutally sawed in half by our own monstrous creations come to life.

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Thu, 19/10/2023 - 03:00
Jim Jordan is the heir to the Gingrich Revolution. Another day, another clusterf***k in the US House of Representatives. After days of behind the scenes haggling (and reports of strong-arming) Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio said he was ready to call for a vote to make him the new Speaker of the House. The word on Tuesday morning was that they believed they had commitments for the necessary votes and the worst case scenario would be defections in the single digits, which were being rationalized as protest votes that would fall away on a second ballot. As it turned out Jordan lost 20 votes and after originally calling for another vote in the afternoon they postponed until Wednesday morning. By the time you read this that vote might have taken place already or perhaps Jordan has seen the writing on the wall and dropped out. The rumors are that serious discussions of making the “acting” Speaker Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina a temporary Speaker with full powers to get the House through the appropriations process although nobody seems to know exactly how that would work.