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Created
Wed, 08/03/2023 - 07:30
What’s he actually saying? Aaron Blake takes a look at Trump’s latest slogan: Even for a former president known for casting situations in the most apocalyptic terms possible, and his enemies as being as nefarious as possible, it was a remarkable rhetorical flourish. “In 2016, I declared, ‘I am your voice,’” Donald Trump said Saturday night at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). “Today, I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed: I am your retribution.” The line validates long-held suspicions that Trump’s 2024 campaign amounts to something of a “revenge tour.” Trump has disputed that his goal is to stick it to his enemies; now he’s admitting that it is a revenge tour of sorts — if not for him personally, then for his supporters. But as much as anything, it reflects just how much the Republican Party, despite its apparent interest in turning the page in 2024, has enabled Trump to rise again.
Created
Wed, 08/03/2023 - 07:00
‘New Keynesian’ macroeconomists have for years been arguing (e.g. here) about the importance of the New Classical Counter Revolution in economics. ‘Helping’ to change the way macroeconomics is done today — with rational expectations, Euler equations, intertemporal optimization, and microfoundations — their main critique of New Classical macroeconomics is that it didn’t incorporate price stickiness […]
Created
Wed, 08/03/2023 - 05:30
Tucker: "To this day, there is dispute over how Chansley got into the Capitol building." False. You can literally see QAnon Shaman entering in footage he aired moments earlier. He wasn't snuck in some back door, he came in moments after the door was kicked in. Tucker is lying. Here is Jacob Chansley entering the Capitol less than 40 seconds after the breach. There is no dispute. https://ia902307.us.archive.org/10/items/Cwxj9RMtddritN4Ds/Cwxj9RMtddritN4Ds.mpeg4 Also the “someone” who opened the door, as Tucker Carlson referred to him, is an anti-abortion extremism who purported to respect the sanctity of life until he (allegedly) plotted to kill a FBI agent following his Jan. 6 arrest. #Parasnooper “Kelley and Carter discussed collecting information and plans to kill the individual law enforcement personnel on the list that included an attack on the FBI’s Knoxville, Tennessee Field Office.” https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/two-tennessee-men-arrested-planning-attacks-law-enforcement-personnel-and-fbi-s-knoxville You can also see QAnon Shaman here at the front of rioters breaching the police line, near Brent Bozell III’s adult son Brent Bozell IV.
Created
Wed, 08/03/2023 - 05:29

The history of the North of England is a history of astonishing visions, great attempts to realise true progress, and painful deferrals of these dreams, so argues Alex Niven, who constructs this argument incisively, elegantly and movingly in The North Will Rise Again: Searching for the Future in Northern Heartlands (Bloomsbury).  Niven’s intervention is a […]

Created
Wed, 08/03/2023 - 05:00

I.

You enter a tavern. The crackling hearth warms your bones after trudging for weeks through the wet and windy mountains of Avanste. The place is a little run-down, but it was either here or the village Applebees, and you’re not in the mood for a Captain Bahama Mama.

“Two meads,” you call out to the elf polishing glassware.

He pulls out a couple of bottles and pops the tops. You take a sip while pushing the other bottle back toward the elf. You’re in search of the lost Amulet of Lucien, and befriending a barkeep never hurts the quest.

He accepts your gift, taking a gulp, but offers no information.

The elf gives your total—fifteen gold.

Your heart rate quickens. You should have seen this coming. What have you walked into?

Choose:
Tip (Go to section II)
Don’t Tip (Go to section III)

- - -

II.

You proudly toss down your total, including a hefty tip.

Created
Wed, 08/03/2023 - 04:59
Today’s Sydney Morning Herald and The Age front page stories on Australia’s supposed war risk with China represents the most egregious and provocative news presentation of any newspaper I have witnessed in over fifty years of active public life. It is way worse than the illustrated sampans shown to be coming from China in the Continue reading »
Created
Wed, 08/03/2023 - 04:56
In the name of all the good and honourable politicians who have gone before them in crafting a relationship with our giant and, yes, challenging neighbour and partner, I ask Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong to call out this rubbish, repudiate it, and forcefully assert that it is wrong. The shrieking warmongering of the SMH Continue reading »
Created
Wed, 08/03/2023 - 04:55
The comparison between Australia’s response to China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims with India’s treatment of Kashmiris highlights that a commitment to human rights is not the driving force in determining Labor’s position on foreign affairs matters. Last September when Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was in Bali for the G20 Summit he tweeted “So wonderful to see Continue reading »
Created
Wed, 08/03/2023 - 04:53
Failure to appropriately value the work women do perpetuates their subordinate status. As International Women’s Day approaches l’ve been thinking about housework – that mundane but essential stuff mostly done by women. Not long ago keeping a house clean required a woman’s body to power the scrubbing brush, the broom, the mop. I remember it Continue reading »
Created
Wed, 08/03/2023 - 04:52
Can we really believe that the power structurers of human societies in 2023 are setting policies and programs that are doing the best for our future? Last year, Australia’s list of serious issues and experiences were acute and costly: major environmental disaster problems, the continuing pandemics, international tensions affecting trade and possible wars, and tense Continue reading »
Created
Wed, 08/03/2023 - 04:51
The unilateral coercive sanctions Australia and its allies impose on Syria make us complicit in a war on the people of Syria, and arguably complicit in policide, if not genocide. To lift the cruel sanctions, we must come to the realisation that Syrians are human, like us.   In 1998, the United Nation’s humanitarian coordinator in Continue reading »
Created
Wed, 08/03/2023 - 04:50
In the latest instance of the Australian media’s deluge of propaganda geared toward manufacturing consent for war with China, Nine Entertainment-owned newspapers The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age have brought together a panel of “experts” to assess how well-prepared Australia is for a hot war with its primary trading partner. The question of if Continue reading »