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Based on current celebrity beauty standards, the goals are clear: you need to look like you’re in your twenties until you’re thirty-five, then look thirty-five until you’re dead. Also, regardless of age or retirement eligibility, all women should have supple, lineless skin with no evidence of sunspots, muscle movement, or laughter. The only indication that you’ve been on Earth long enough to outlive a household pet should be the look in your eyes, which peer wearily out of your flawless, youthful face like a haunted doll.

To get specific about various body parts: boobs, obviously, should be perpetually high and firm, lips full and plump, and your hair long and flowing with the aid of extensions, even as you enter an assisted living facility, where it will invariably get tangled with your breathing equipment and other life-prolonging devices, which would be annoying if you were not so successfully clutching to the hallmarks of youth with steadfast determination.

Contributors to the “War with China over Taiwan” horror show which began in the Nine newspapers this week assume that a war between China and the United States is likely, and some of them then explicitly say that Australia would be involved. Australia should instead regard the Taiwan issue as one for us to “sit Continue reading »

The idea that China is lusting after Australian territory is part of the fervid imagination of the worst China hawks. It simply isn’t true. On 7 March an article appeared jointly in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, under the headline “Red alert: war risk exposed”. At the head of the story was a map Continue reading »

Embedded within the foreign policy debate in Australia is the claim that an epochal shift of Copernican significance is underway. So disturbing is this transformation in world politics – seemingly from light to darkness, from joy to woe – that its troubling possibilities have dissolved the sense of national self. The consequence: an almost medieval Continue reading »

What’s worse? Misleading the House (of Parliament)? Or lying to Australian voters? The former can get you sacked if you are a Minister – and has on quite a few occasions. The latter, even if you are caught out, will likely go unpunished – could even help you keep your job. It’s not supposed to Continue reading »

Ukraine was the first purported reason that I should be disinvited or canceled. Although I know the real reason is that Zionists fear our voices, as all colonisers fear native agency. Editor’s Note: The following is the transcript of a message that author Susan Abulhawa published on Twitter on March 4, 2023. The statement comes in response Continue reading »

The integrity of the ecology of the Lake Eyre Basin and its water supply from the Great Artesian Basin are threatened by oil and gas development and by ineffective state and federal administration. A letter from 1000 Australian scientists calling on the Australian Government to follow the advice of the world’s scientists and prevent any Continue reading »

What is the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), what are its sources of funding, and why does it so consistently advocate for positions favourable to the United States and the weapons industry? Follow the money trail. Editor’s note: Jocelyn Chey argued in Pearls and Irritations yesterday that hysteria over a supposed immediate China threat is Continue reading »

The mass media in Australia have been churning out brazen propaganda pieces to manufacture consent for war with China, and what’s interesting is that they’re basically admitting to doing this deliberately. Australians are uniquely susceptible to propaganda because we have the most concentrated media ownership in the western world, dominated by a powerful duopoly of Nine Entertainment and the Continue reading »

“It should not melt in yo’ mouth” And Bootycandy, at the Gate Theatre, London, certainly does not. Just when it seems the flavour of this play will settle into something recognisable and palatable, then some new wig, or trapdoor, or officiant in a rubber suit and gimp mask starts a non-commitment ceremony, and we choke […]

What the government has done to NHS Dentistry is what it wants to do to the rest of our public services. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 2nd March 2023 Every child in the UK is entitled to free treatment by a nonexistent dentist. Some people on benefits, pregnant women and those who have […]

INET Grantee & Academic Advisor Perry Mehrling talks about his new book "Money and Empire: Charles P. Kindleberger and the Dollar System"

[attention conservation notice: this post consists of lengthy opinionating with a smattering of thinly sketched arguments from psychological research, and a now-obscure science fiction novel. Also – if you really disliked M Night Shyamalan movies, even before the shtick became a shtick, you’re likely to be annoyed]. So Jonathan Chait wasn’t happy with the side-comment […]

During the recent wave of strike action across the NHS, I reflected on pivotal moments in my healthcare career that made it clear things were going disastrously wrong in terms of staffing and patient safety. After graduating with a nursing degree, I started out in a Mental Health Trust in London. It was there that […]

In April, the government plans to push millions more into fuel poverty by hiking energy bills — it shows just how much suffering the political elite is prepared to accept to prop up the privatised energy fiasco. As I write this article, we have just finished a Power to the People protest outside the offices of […]

When Enough is Enough rallies swept through the country last autumn, there was a feeling among those of us organising the Luton launch event that we were punching above our weight. We had formed our Luton Tribune Club only a few weeks prior. We lacked the established activist networks and student populations that characterised many […]

No Labels joins the Republicans They say they are going to do a “unity” ticket but in fact it is a third party ticket that will put Trump back in the White House. They aren’t idiots. I have to assume they know this. Here’s Tim Miller from a few months ago on this topic: Starting a new third party is all the rage these days, especially out here in Never Trumpistan. The Yang Gang is teaming up with some future former Republicans for the Forward Party. Rich people have burned given power couple Mark Penn and Nancy Jacobson $50 million to try and make a No Labels ticket happen. My friend Juleanna Glover made a (fairly serious) case for a Jon Stewart candidacy. Say the phrase “unity ticket” and clap three times and Bill Kristol might show up in your living room. The third party question is raised at all my book-tour stops. (Coming to a city near you!) And it is the subtext of every conversation with a lonely, politically homeless soul wondering What Are We Going to Do.

‘Is austerity over?’ the Times asked the current Chancellor Jeremy Hunt in 2019, when he was running to replace Theresa May as Tory Party leader. ‘I think austerity is coming to a close,’ he replied, ‘but the need for financial discipline is never over.’ Three years later, Hunt was the hatchet-man for what has widely […]

Medical school is widely regarded as one of the most difficult paths for a young person. Applicants require exceptional academic qualifications and, even then, medical school acceptance rates are extremely low. Public perception has always been that once you have got into medical school, life would get easier. The medical profession is, after all, a […]

Jeff Bezos is one of the celebrity capitalists of the twenty-first century. Alongside Elon Musk, he is arguably as well known in the public sphere for his yacht collection and his contributions to the billionaire space race. With a net worth of over £104 billion as of February 2023, he’s the third wealthiest person in […]

Last month saw the first national teachers’ strike across England and Wales in seven years. On 1 February itself, thousands turned out across both nations to support teachers — as well as university workers and civil servants — in the largest mass demonstrations of the strike wave so far. These National Education Union (NEU) strikes together with […]

As Europe was ravaged by austerity policies in the past decade, numerous left-wing insurgencies emerged to challenge for government: Syriza in Greece, Podemos in Spain, La France Insoumise and, from 2015 to 2019, the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn. Each came from outside the traditional centre-left and learned, to some degree, from the others. They […]

Every liberal democracy recognises, to some degree, that workers have a right to strike. That right is protected in law, sometimes in the constitution itself. Strikes are also one of the most common forms of disruptive collective protest. After a long decline in the number of strike days, many countries in the West have seen […]

Over the last decade, economic debate in Britain has been dominated by one subject: austerity. The size of a government’s budget deficit and total public debt have always been hot topics among economists, but since the financial crisis these metrics have acquired greater popular significance. Mentions of the word ‘austerity’ in books and articles, for […]