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~ Today's Water Cooler ~

‘Humanity is dedicated to its own destruction’ – Noam Chomsky Noam Chomsky Interviewed by The Brussels Times January 5, 2023. The Brussels Times. On 20 January 2022, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set their infamous Doomsday Clock at 100 seconds to midnight for the third year running. Their accompanying report — entitled ‘At Doom’s Doorstep’ […]

You think he doesn’t mean it? As president, Donald Trump weighed bombing drug labs in Mexico after one of his leading public health officials came into the Oval Office, wearing a dress uniform, and said such facilities should be handled by putting “lead to target” to stop the flow of illicit substances across the border into the United States. “He raised it several times, eventually asking a stunned Defense Secretary Mark Esper whether the United States could indeed bomb the labs,” according to a new book by New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman. White House officials said the official, Assistant Secretary for Health Brett Giroir, an admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, often wore his dress uniform for meetings with Trump, which led him to falsely think Giroir was a member of the military. Sadly, I wouldn’t be all that surprised if Ron DeSantis and others agree with this one, at least in the campaign.

When bears are cooped up
While flu season is raging
Mama must find a way
To keep from premature aging

The fall started out okay for the Bear family.

Papa was back at work making custom-made furniture, and the cubs were back at school full-time. Even though Mama still did all the housework, she also found time to post on her successful blog, I Guess I’ll Just Do This All Myself.

“It’s so nice to have things back to normal,” she had thought.

But then the seasons started changing. Sister came down with a mysterious cold she just couldn’t shake. Brother had a hacking cough and a low-grade fever. As soon as one cub started to get better, the other one caught a new, different bug.

“Whew,” sighed Mama, “all these cubs stuck at home feels familiar somehow—OWW, MY BACK!” she yelped, frozen in a stoop as she picked up one of the hundred used tissues from the floor.

“Help?” she cried feebly, but Mama knew in her heart there was no one who would save her.

B-21s for Australia? Not on the basis of defending against a Chinese base in Australia’s nearer region. Defence policy often proceeds under a number of heroic and muddled assumptions. Most likely, the Defence Strategic Review (DSR) will also. These must be tested. Defence policymakers often make assumptions about potential adversaries that are convenient for their Continue reading »

When watching or listening to experts on international affairs—especially those speaking on China or Russia and the war in Ukraine — there’s one question you should keep asking yourself. How do they know? Take for example, an interview run on the ABC’s World Today on 28 December 2022. Rowan Callick, Industry fellow at Griffith University’s Continue reading »

“This is quite shocking,” declared South Australia’s Attorney-General and Aboriginal Affairs Minister, Kyam Maher. “These caves are some of the earliest evidence of Aboriginal occupation of that part of the country.” That evidence was subtracted this month by acts of vandalism inflicted on artwork in Koonalda Cave on the Nullarbor Plain, claimed to be the world’s largest Continue reading »

I wish to write here in a frank and open way about the way the progression of Friedreich’s Ataxia (FA) has severely impacted the proceedings of everyday life, I am now 60 years old and the progression is well advanced. I am writing from the standpoint of what those in my profession of sociology would Continue reading »

The Global Times released the second part of the annual survey that covered participants from 33 countries on 28 December, which showed that most participants from Western countries are unsatisfied with the current development of their countries while those from China and many non-Western countries or emerging economies are more satisfied and optimistic about their future, Continue reading »

In legal circles, outsiders who hold forth on legal issues without understanding the law or knowing the facts are held in particular contempt. They are known as “barrack-room lawyers”, a term that originally derived from military slang. According to the Collins Dictionary, a barrack-room lawyer is “a person who freely offers opinions, especially in legal Continue reading »

Western analysts spent years warning that western actions would provoke a war in Ukraine, westerners spent four years being propagandised into hating Russia, then Russia invades and now western imperialists say the war is advancing US interests. But remember: it was an “unprovoked invasion”. The official narrative is that western aggressions played no role in Continue reading »

I like to eat, but still think it's weird we have to do it so often.

Jennifer Frey and Christopher Frey, both currently associate professors of philosophy at the University of South Carolina, will be moving to the University of Tulsa. Jennifer Frey is known for her work in moral philosophy, particularly moral psychology and virtue. In addition to her academic work, she also has written for various popular media and is the creator and host of the philosophy, theology, and literature podcast, Sacred and Profane Love. At the University of Tulsa, she will be the inaugural dean of the university’s new Honors College, which will have a general education curriculum that is focused on philosophical texts and questions. Regarding the Honors College, she says: By studying classical texts of the liberal arts tradition within a community of learners who seek truth as a common end, TU Honors College students will confront the most profound and enduring questions of human existence, as explored by some of the most influential thinkers in our inherited intellectual tradition.

There are a few take-aways from this topic on how to respond....

Bond Economics
Yield Curve Control Sustainability
Brian Romanchuk

This country is currently in the midst of the biggest wave of strikes since the 1980s, with a resurgent labour movement leading the struggle against a system that demands working-class people get pushed ever deeper into poverty. But now, with new laws announced by Rishi Sunak set to be introduced to Parliament in the coming […]

Richard Spence -- The Dissenter -- January 5, 2023 Ministers and security officials in Australia, Sweden, and the United Kingdom have coordinated with the United States to develop new espionage laws.

This will be especially welcome to Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss who Trump has inexplicably decided to target again just this week in his usual grotesque fashion. This is from Tuesday: Around midnight last night, for reasons that aren’t yet clear, Donald Trump used his social media platform to launch a new offensive against an old perceived foe. It started with this unfortunate missive: Soon after, the former president published another item, accusing Freeman of election crimes, followed by a third missive, in which the Republican asked, “What will the Great State of Georgia do with the Ruby Freeman MESS?” Trump concluded that he’s battling “the evils and treachery of the Radical Left monsters who want to see America die.” Both items referred to “suitcases” filled with ballots that Trump believes Freeman opened, all as part of the crime that was committed only in his imagination. In case anyone needs a refresher, it wasn’t long after the 2020 elections when the nightmare began for a clerical worker in a county election office in Georgia and her mother.

 The Fed and "inflation."

The Lens

Thin response but at least something of an antidote to the venom that is spewing.

The Globe and Mail
Was our experiment with modern monetary theory a colossal failure? Not so fast
David Parkinson

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Later, Batman disappears shortly after Bruce Wayne is discovered to have been running a cryptocurrency ponzi scheme.

Today's News:

I can't find it now but there was a piece a few years back about how all the Rock Gods from the 60s/70s are going to die fairly soon.  The ones who are still alive, anyway.   Maybe there's too much emphasis placed on that cultural moment, though I still hear that stuff in the hipster coffee shop.  Getting older provides a lot of perspective (too much fucking perspective) on ageing, and it's "funny" realizing these guys were barely older than my parents('38, '39), and not even boomers in some cases.  The other funny thing is realizing how young many were when they became big.

Fed officials pledge higher for longer, but