If you look at the roster of the Biden-Harris transition team, it’s quickly apparent that the incoming administration is tech-forward. Given the systematic dismantlement of the federal government over the last four years, and the significant logistical and scientific needs underpinning a large-scale vaccine roll-out, it is unsurprising to hear that the new team is […]
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I’ve just written a report for Employment and Social Development Canada on the current recession’s likely long-term impact on homelessness in Canada. An overview of the report can be found here.
Those who claim a ‘win for Britain’ want to distract us from the government’s incompetence and cronyism
They had to go and ruin it, didn’t they? Here is a great moment for humanity: lovely people getting a vaccination against a deadly virus that has been developed with breathtaking rapidity. And what is the image that has been injected into our brains where it will lodge like a parasite? Matt Hancock pretend-crying on Good Morning Britain like a no-hoper auditioning for clown school.
The health secretary staged his bizarre pantomime presumably because the simple emotions that any sane person might be feeling – relief, hope, a tinge of wonder at the extraordinary ingenuity of which our species is capable – are not enough. Another layer of sentiment must be slathered on.
Fintan O’Toole is a columnist with the Irish Times
The Calgary Homeless Foundation has just released a 12-city scan of homelessness planning during COVID. It’s a national study (which I authored). My ‘top 10’ overview of the study can be found here.
‘Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds With Shane MacGowan’ explores the life and career of The Pogues’ frontman. Magonlia Pictures... Read more »
The post WATCH THE TRAILER FOR ‘CROCK OF GOLD: A FEW ROUNDS WITH SHANE MACGOWAN’ appeared first on Shane MacGowan.
This food timeline started as a way to explore the revolution in Australian food that has occurred during the baby-boomers’ lifetime, but has since expanded to include more about the previous decades (and century) as well. Also included are overseas events and trends that had an impact here. The entries are brief, but there are lots of links if you want more information.
Page 221 of the Department for Education’s 2019/20 financial statement contains the note reproduced above. The sale programme for “pre-2012” student loans was cancelled in March. But DfE looks like it will be paying out over £30million per year for the next few years to financiers anyway. Total liabilities are booked above at over £220million.
I’ve written a report for the Institute for Research on Public Policy about social assistance—specifically, about social assistance for employable single adults without dependants. A ‘top 10’ overview of the report can be found here.
Today I shall listen to the news and the football scores and the tally of the dead. Intermittently, I shall pick at the crossword and the biscuit tin, and stare out of my back window at a squirrel as he scurries along my fence. Later, there may be a film to watch. But for now…
By Crikey, it is a warm day here in Broken Hill today. We have the evaporative cooler ducting it’s breeze through the house but it’s still pretty warm. Outside the ground is too hot to walk on and the corrugated iron that encases everything in this town sizzles …
Given the relative absence of higher education from yesterday’s Autumn Statement, I turned my attention to the Department for Education’s 2019/20 annual accounts, which were published earlier this month. Regarding student loans, we have been in something of a hiatus since 2018, when Theresa May announced an review of post-18 funding and commissioned the Augar […]
Running an external surplus requires exporters to export. The right to export more than you import has a price. What does that mean on the other side of the trade?
Last month my laptop became unstable. I had been trying to do something which I began to regret. Losing patience I reinstalled the operating system. Unfortunately on my previous installation I had negligently chosen to set up my hard-drives as a striped array. This meant despite days of recovery attempts …
The Resources you are looking for are in the Unemployment Queue
The long-rumoured report on Australian military atrocities in the Afghanistan war has just been released (and immediately kicked down the road by the national government). I have been thinking about why the Australian military were there in the first place. It's a familiar story: "forward defence", stop-them-over-there, Defend Democracy, our government's need for some violence to scare the voters with, and the same government's habit of doing whatever the American government wants done... But then, why do we have wars anyway?
One of the goals of a new World Wide Web: the Decentralized Web was to help people make money by publishing on the web. There are approaches to this such as Coil, but the vision in the paper has not … Continue reading
This short piece by Tam Hunt in Nautilus asks whether the brain’s electromagnetic fields could be the seat of consciousness. What does that even mean? Let’s start with a sensible answer. It could just mean that electromagnetic effects are an … Continue reading
Looking back from here and now 1980 seems like another world. The Rubik’s Cube was launched, the Voyager 1 probe investigated Janus – a moon of Saturn, Pac-Man was released in video arcades, The Empire Strikes Back was released in theatres, Tom Baker resigned from the role of the Doctor, and Data Extract launched its first issue! “This will be my first and probably last editorial.” Not exactly the words you’d expect to launch a publication that would still be going strong 40 years later, but that’s exactly how editor Dallas Jones chose to launch the first issue of Data… Continue reading
How the central bank setting interest rates above zero forces banks to pay interest on deposits
Another neoliberal throws in the towel in the face of unassailable facts and logic
It seems being a Doctor Who fan makes you a hot commodity. Not only are “nerds” trendy and Geek is the new cool these days but it seems our members are in demand particularly if you are a putting together a television series. In the space of just a few days the Doctor Who Club of Australia received two requests from production companies looking for people to take part in their programs. And they were polar opposites with the first request coming from Endemol Shine – who were casting Beauty and The Beast and just a few days later the… Continue reading