The kind of strategic study Australia needs, to preside over this kind of defence staff college scribble, is one which gives a sense of our civil society’s capacities, needs, aspirations — and our neighbourhood. The Flippingbook is an entirely inappropriate, narrow minded, chauvinistic, militaristic thing that belongs in a country practising for fascism, the submergence Continue reading »
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The Albanese government wouldn’t be able buy nuclear attack submarines from the US without agreeing to let them keep performing all their core roles in our region. One key role is to follow Chinese nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines to be in a position to sink them if a US president wants to launch a nuclear Continue reading »
Failure to adequately tax mining super profits has greatly damaged the Australian economy. Living standards have stagnated in the last decade or so, while inequality has increased. This article argues that the two are related and that the concentration of profit growth in the mining sector is an obvious reason why the increase in inequality Continue reading »
Anthony Albanese has in essence reversed the Howard Government’s 2001 changes to rules around NZ citizens living in Australia and their access to Australian citizenship. For such a major change, it is surprising it will be brought in quickly from 1 July 2023. Usually, major immigration policy changes take at least 9-12 months to design Continue reading »
The new NSW Government is riding its luck with quiet little piecemeal reviews of Sydney transport crises. Transport challenge A recent post pointed to formidable transport challenges facing Labor if it took office after the NSW election. It said the best, perhaps only, chance was a tough public inquiry into transport, as recommended by John Continue reading »
In a positive development, the University of Adelaide has rejected the adoption of the controversial IHRA definition of antisemitism, because to adopt it would have been potentially counter to “the principles of academic freedom and freedom of speech”, according to the University Council. This topic has been addressed twice in Pearls and Irritations over the Continue reading »
An invitation to visit Beijing was issued late last year to Stephen Chow, Sau-yan, the Catholic Bishop of Hong Kong. His recently completed visit is the first by a Catholic Bishop of Hong Kong to the Mainland since the recovery of Hong Kong by China in July, 1997. It may help provide a strengthened framework Continue reading »
I get emails and letters from right wingers fairly frequently and they’re mostly insulting rants against me personally. (I get some of those from the left too. This one I thought was interesting because he doesn’t call me any names and seems to be so earnest. You can see the extent of the brainwashing: I don’t think I need to tell you that virtually everything he says is not true. Nobody is supportive of abortion”up to the minute of birth and after birth.” That’s just not on the agenda and nobody is doing that. Children are not deciding to “attempt to change their sex.” That’s not legal. Their parents are making these decisions on their behalf in consultation with experts and doctors. The seriousness of crimes in our cities is vastly overstated and the three cities he mentions aren’t even in the top ten. There is much more gun violence in red states than blue states. And I suppose it’s irritating that people get shouted down on college campuses but I wouldn’t call it fascist. (At least not in comparison to storming the US Capitol to stop the peaceful transfer of power…) He seems like a decent person.
Whatever Jack Teixeira’s motives, he's accused of sharing documents that have underpinned major stories in the same outlets that helped hunt him down.
The post With Pentagon Leak, the Press Had Their Source and Ate Him Too appeared first on The Intercept.
Hey, just so you know, Andrew’s coming tonight. Before he gets here, we should probably go over a few things about him.
Andrew is a bit of an enigma. He’s not someone you can “take at face value.” He never really got over the 2000 presidential election, if you know what I mean. Now’s a good time to google that.
Honestly, to understand Andrew, you have to meet his dad. But to understand his dad, you have to meet Andrew’s uncle. Not his dad’s brother—his mom’s brother. Andrew’s dad hates that guy. That hatred informs his worldview.
To understand Andrew, you have to have known him at Brown. If you didn’t get into Brown, it might suffice to have gone to a school in a bordering state. But not in Connecticut. And definitely not MIT. Andrew is anti-everyone in STEM. I recently switched career paths from my gig at SpaceX when he seemed provoked by my employment there—I’ve always wanted to try and hack it as a busker anyway.
Take a few minutes and listen to this if you missed it last night. Puts it all in perspective:
Anxiety does not inspire Millennials are not as bad off as advertised, Jean M. Twenge writes in The Atlantic. Reports that they were the first generation not to be better off than their parents was a premature take, post-Great Recession. “By 2019,” Twenge writes, “households headed by Millennials were making considerably more money than those headed by the Silent Generation, Baby Boomers, and Generation X at the same age, after adjusting for inflation.” But shaped by their rough start, they are not feeling it. John Della Volpe, who heads up the latest Harvard Youth Poll, studies Gen Z (born since ~1997). The latest data shows that three quarters of 18-29 year-olds worry about being homeless, he told The 11th Hour Monday night. A third think it could happen to them, and that’s almost 50 percent among people of color. Check out a quick Twitter thread here. A sampling: Fewer than half (42%) of young Americans who grew up in conservative households call themselves Republicans today. Among those who grew up in liberal households, 60% are Democrats. But left-leaning is not the same as voting. People need motivation to get off their couches.
PORTLAND, Ore., 25 April, 2023 – The Drupal Association is thrilled to announce that Drupal, the most powerful open source content management system in the world, has been approved as a Digital Public Good (DPG) by the Digital Public Good Alliance (DPGA). Drupal's registration as a DPG is a recognition of the positive global impact that Drupal has had in promoting equity as an open source technology.
“Registration as a Digital Public Good is an acknowledgment of the important role that Drupal and the Drupal Community plays in advancing the Open Web.” commented Tim Doyle, CEO of the Drupal Association. “We are proud to be a part of the registry and support the efforts of the Alliance in prioritizing open source digitalisation for the improvement of public service delivery.”
It’s not often that conservative lobbyists beat the drum for increased environmental oversight and regulation. But that’s what happened this month when the far-right Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), through its legal arm, filed a brief in federal court demanding that the Department of Homeland Security conduct an extensive environmental impact study examining, of all things, immigration policy. In a press release, the group laid out its reasoning: “Clearly, DHS desperately wants to avoid the impossible task of explaining, in detail, why adding millions of illegal aliens to our population does not harm the environment, or why the harm it does cause is somehow ‘worth it.’” Ostensibly green rationales for ever harsher immigration policies are hardly a new phenomenon.... Read more
A last-minute rush is unlikely to be enough to prevent large numbers of people being effectively disenfranchised on 4 May, Josiah Mortimer reports
Begins with securing freedoms now under attack President Joe Biden released his opening reelection ad early this morning. First word: Freedom. That’s an excellent start. Personal freedom is a sacred value Democrats must hammer and reclaim from a movement bent on unmaking America. MAGA extremists’ twisted idea of freedom is standing athwart history, yelling “Stop, or I’ll shoot!” Without the “stop.” “We are in a battle for the soul of America,” Biden said four years ago. “And we still are.” Our freedoms are under attack from the right (if you haven’t noticed). Elections are about choices, not poll numbers. So amid Politico’s recent pronouncement that President Biden’s poll numbers are “grim” and NBC’s reminder that Biden is still more popular than Donald Trump, remember that election outcomes hinge on turnout. Voters need a reason to. Michael Tomasky believes Biden has to go for broke. “What can he and the Democrats do to energize people about the 2024 election?” (The New Republic): Biden should do something bigger and bolder.
“Public schools in Texas would have to prominently display the Ten Commandments in every classroom starting next school year under a bill the Texas Senate approved Thursday… the Senate also gave final passage to Senate Bill 1396, which would allow public and charter schools to adopt a policy requiring every campus to set aside a time for students and employees to read the Bible or other religious texts and to pray.” — The Texas Tribune
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Members of the school board, I’m here to voice my outrage about a disgusting book I found in my child’s backpack. The book contained graphic violence, prostitution, sodomy, and perhaps worst of all, a woke agenda that promotes loving your neighbor instead of passing laws to control their access to healthcare. I’m talking, of course, about the Holy Bible.
The Duke of Sussex claims secret deal included ‘very large’ payout for his brother Prince William
On April 25, 1974, soldiers from the dissident Armed Forces Movement (MFA) removed dictator Marcelo Caetano, demanding that Portugal abandon its failed colonial wars in Africa. A regime dating back to the age of Mussolini and Hitler had finally met its end, along with Europe’s last old-style empire. The revolt within the army was the […]