Reading

Created
Wed, 03/05/2023 - 09:30
While he’s running for president It appears that they also tried to recreate the fiction that Scotland is thrilled to have Trump visiting. He said “It’s good to be home” when he arrived which is a very weird thing to say when you’re running for president of the United States. But whatever. The fact that he’s still doing business abroad and has no plans to divest if he were to win another term gets no coverage in the media. It’s just a given that he’ll run his business from the White House as he did before. This is just sad: He’s going to Ireland next. I think he’s expecting a big welcome like Biden received when he was there a couple of weeks ago. Not gonna happen. This pathetic little display is about the best he can hope for.
Created
Wed, 03/05/2023 - 07:30
I don’t know how many of you remember the resignation of NY Times reporter Donald MacNeil during the height of the COVID pandemic and if you don’t, the details are all right here. Without taking a position on the merits of the pressure he was under, I do think it was unfortunate that he had to leave at the time he did because he was a great science reporter in the middle of a once in a century pandemic. We lost something valuable. His newsletter today shows just what we lost. He takes on the NY Times’ truly shitty treatment of Dr. Anthony Fauci at the hands of Benjamim Wallace-Wells the other day. This is just the opening. I urge you to read the whole thing: I love science-fiction series like “The Man in the High Castle” because they force us to question our ingrained assumption that history was always ordained to turn out as it did. It was set in 1950’s America after the Allies lost World War II. Germany had beaten us to The Bomb, vaporized Washington and stormed ashore at Virginia Beach. Berlin and Tokyo had divided the U.S. between them. Most Americans were cowed but prospering under the new regime.
Created
Wed, 03/05/2023 - 05:30
They’re coming for no-fault divorce I saw this news making the rounds on twitter a few days ago and was astonished at the response. There seems to be quite a few pissed off men about this. I had no idea it was on the menu but it stands to reason that it would be. Ban abortion and birth control and end no-fault divorce. Family values, macho style: STEVEN CROWDER, THE right-wing podcaster, is getting a divorce. “No, this was not my choice,” Crowder told his online audience last week. “My then-wife decided that she didn’t want to be married anymore — and in the state of Texas, that is completely permitted.”  Crowder’s emphasis on “the state of Texas” makes it sound like the Lone Star State is an outlier, but all 50 states and the District of Columbia have no-fault divorce laws on the books — laws that allow either party to walk away from an unhappy marriage without having to prove abuse, infidelity, or other misconduct in court.  It was a hard-fought journey to get there.
Created
Wed, 03/05/2023 - 04:57
In the Sydney Morning Herald of 2 May, Matthew Knott, foreign affairs and national security writer, has written an alarmist piece on the inability of the Australian defence force to respond to alarming but plausible scenarios such as China establishing a military base in a nearby Pacific nation. Were I reading this on the train going Continue reading »
Created
Wed, 03/05/2023 - 04:56
The nation is bracing for austere budgets. Grim foreshadowing has prepared us for a challenging federal budget. The Victorian Premier has warned of “very difficult measures” in his state’s budget, and NSW has delayed its budget while the new cabinet grapples with “tough choices”. Budget expectation management is a perennial rite of autumn. But with Continue reading »
Created
Wed, 03/05/2023 - 04:55

Days before a failed drone assassination targeting Putin, Ukrainian banking baron Volodymyr Yatsenko offered a $500,000 bounty to any weapons maker able to land a drone in Red Square during Moscow’s upcoming Victory Day parade.  On April 23, a Ukrainian drone laden with 30 Canadian-made C4 explosive blocks crashed near Rudnevo Industrial Park in Moscow. Ukraine-based operators deployed the 37 LB arsenal in a failed bid to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was scheduled to visit Rudnevo that day.  […]

The post Ukrainian banker offers cash for drone terror in Russia appeared first on The Grayzone.

Created
Wed, 03/05/2023 - 04:55
There is a growing divide between voters, who according to the polls are increasingly favourable to the Albanese Labor Government, and media commentators, who are increasingly expressing disillusionment with that government. Next week’s budget may bring their sentiments closer together, though probably not. The Government is now well beyond its honeymoon period. Almost a year Continue reading »
Created
Wed, 03/05/2023 - 04:54
One of the many appalling consequences of establishing the Department of Home Affairs (DHA), and transfer of immigration compliance functions to Australian Border Force (ABF), was an extraordinary cut back in immigration compliance activity. While many will celebrate the reduction in immigration compliance activity, this fails to recognise the purpose of immigration compliance is to Continue reading »
Created
Wed, 03/05/2023 - 04:52
It may not be widely appreciated that door knocking religious proselytisers can be kept at bay by insisting they partake in discussions on public administration in exchange for whatever divine light is being diffused. It’s not that religion and public administration don’t mix; it’s that public administration is so tedious for all but those triple Continue reading »
Created
Wed, 03/05/2023 - 04:51
It seems the automatic go to for the ABC on matters military is Major-General Mick Ryan. His opinion is usually presented as unbiased fact. Is that the case? Mick Ryan, retired from active service, graduated Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, the U.S. Marine Corps University Command and Staff College and School of Continue reading »
Created
Wed, 03/05/2023 - 03:30
The NY Times reports: The only clue to the gambit was in the title of the otherwise obscure hodgepodge of a bill: “The Breaking the Gridlock Act.” But the 45-page legislation, introduced without fanfare in January by a little-known Democrat, Representative Mark DeSaulnier of California, is part of a confidential, previously unreported, strategy Democrats have been plotting for months to quietly smooth the way for action by Congress to avert a devastating federal default if debt ceiling talks remain deadlocked. With the possibility of a default now projected as soon as June 1, Democrats on Tuesday began taking steps to deploy the secret weapon they have been holding in reserve. They started the process of trying to force a debt-limit increase bill to the floor through a so-called discharge petition that could bypass Republican leaders who have refused to raise the ceiling unless President Biden agrees to spending cuts and policy changes.
Created
Wed, 03/05/2023 - 03:00

6:00 a.m. I awake in the dark, heart pounding. My raven black hair is damp with sweat. I was having the Visions again. I hoped for relief the night before the Big Teen Fighting Test, but it’s never that easy for a poor, bullied girl at Magic Private School. Luckily, I live upstairs from a café where the owner’s son is in love with me, so I get my usual cheese sandwich and try to calm my racing thoughts. Café Boy watches me while I eat it. His gentle face is especially ordinary today.

8:00 a.m. I head to school to meet up with my best friend, Givenchy Von Crystal. The Von Crystal’s are the most powerful family in the realm, but Givenchy is really nice, even though her whole family wants her dead. I don’t get why. She’s the only person who’s nice to me here (if I didn’t already mention it, I get mistreated by all the rich kids because I’m poor but powerful and have hypnotic ice-blue eyes). Givenchy’s biggest flaw is she isn’t very good at returning stuff when she borrows it. Also, I think she’s gay, but it’s not narratively clear.

Created
Wed, 03/05/2023 - 02:30
All Disney had to do was read Ron’s book to make their case: When the Walt Disney Co. went looking for evidence to feature in its new lawsuit against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, its lawyers found much of what they needed in DeSantis’s own recently published memoir. Buried in Disney’s complaint against DeSantis is something surprising. Numerous quotes taken from “The Courage to be Free” appear to support the company’s central allegation: that the Republican governor improperly wielded state power to punish Disney’s speech criticizing his policies, violating the First Amendment. Memoirs by presidential aspirants often lay out a blueprint for their coming candidacies. DeSantis’s does, too. It boasts extensively about his war on Disney to advertise how he would marshal the powers of the presidency against so-called woke elites. Disney’s lawsuit cites exactly these passages.