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A whole lotta unitin’ goin’ on … or something Amidst the chaos of the first days of Republican “control” in the House, none of the members have yet been sworn into office. Rep.-elect Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) appeared last night with Stephanie Ruhle on MSNBC’s 11th Hour. Boebert and her fringiest Republican pals want Rep.-elect Kevin McCarthy to withdraw from the Speaker’s race. Who would she accept instead? Who would her faction accept who could possibly win the support of 218 Republicans? She can’t say. Boebert insists she and her bloc want to unite the American people, etc., etc., and address the border, energy, and inflation, but not until they get their way first, whatever that is. “We will handle these issues and conduct real oversight real soon …” The line recalls a motivational speech from The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984). John Lithgow plays a Mussolini-esque “Red Lectroid” from another dimension. Lord John Whorfin: Where are we going? Red Lectroids: Planet Ten. Lord John Whorfin: When? Red Lectroids: Real soon. They might as well be from another dimension.

Tapper has his very bad sides but he does occasionally let out some truths that his colleagues are desperate to overlook.

The clip in question for people asking pic.twitter.com/CnvvP3x5ca

— jannat m. (@jannatesq) January 4, 2023

Essentially (these are not quotes): 

CINEMA Under the Stars, a favourite community event, returns to Coffs Harbour Showground on Saturday 21 January 2023. The outdoor cinema event takes the format of an evening of family-friendly activities starting at 5.30pm, and a night-time film once the sun goes down. Advertise with News of The Area today. It’s worth it for your...

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ALMOST 50 people gathered in Sawtell recently for the first meeting of Sawtell 2030, an inclusive, grassroots network to connect, share knowledge and inspire local actions on major issues. The initial focus area for the group is ‘Small Steps Together to address the climate crisis’. Advertise with News of The Area today. It’s worth it...

The post Sawtell 2030 Urges Individual And Collective Climate Action Now appeared first on News Of The Area.

Sometimes my Twitter timeline is me thinking out loud. These posts were me thinking about how Labour's 'big idea' on localism might impact the way
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by Gary Gardner

The recent news that scientists moved a step closer to fusion energy was greeted with enthusiasm and awe in much of the media, a bright spot of cheer amid the ongoing drumbeat of existential global threats. Only the most cynical of curmudgeons could pooh-pooh this hopeful development—right?

After all, energy is the foundation of human development. Civilizational advance is a tale of ongoing successes in shaping energy for human ends.

The post Fusion Energy: A Different Take appeared first on Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy.

I enjoyed this mere two minute critique of Sunak’s recent speech – and every bit is true:... Read more

Last month, something unusual happened to an academic philosophy article. The news media reported on it. Shortly after the article was published in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, stories about it showed up in variety of venues, including: The Guardian The Telegraph The Times The Age The South China Morning Post The Independent (picked up by Yahoo News) Japan Today Radio France Internationale France 24 Barron’s Fatherly (picked up by MSN) The Swaddle  Al Arabiya News Stylist Báo Hải Dương The Financial The Daily Mail The Philippine Star among others. How did this happen? It’s no mystery: Cambridge University’s Office of External Affairs and Communication wrote and distributed a press release for it. Granted, the article, “Gendered Affordance Perception and Unequal Domestic Labour” by Tom McClelland (Cambridge) and Paulina Sliwa (Vienna) seems more likely to hook a broader audience than the typical PPR output. Here’s the abstract: The inequitable distribution of domestic and caring labour in different-sex couples has been a longstanding feminist concern.

Sam Bright examines the contribution of Brexit to our current healthcare crisis

Was a recent comment from Russell T. Davies in a Doctor Who Instagram post a signal that Carole Ann Ford's Susan will be making a return?

Nettel is a mother, and she seems to be saying that ‘normal mothers’ do think ugly thoughts – or rather, that there is no such thing as a ‘normal mother’. There is a strong tradition of works that connect maternal ambivalence to horror tropes – Rosemary’s Baby, The Fifth Child, We Need to Talk about Kevin – but Still Born is different.

The government recognises the possibility of persecution by a foreign state, organised criminal groups or people traffickers. But for the many people let down and mistreated by institutions of the British state – social services, education authorities, police officers, prison guards, health officials – redress is elusive.

Motion pictures – 24 projected frames a second which gave the illusion of movement – were a wonder whose spell was cast by speed; and speed was what the slapstick cinematic chase both celebrated and satirised. Of all the great silent clowns, no one was swifter than Buster Keaton.

The letters page from London Review of Books Vol. 45 No. 2 (Friday 06 January 2023)

An armchair has been placed by the window where the woman prefers to spend her holidays. By the way, she plays the tuba. When she was a young woman she dedicated herself to the tuba.

Table of contents from London Review of Books Vol. 45 No. 2 (Friday 06 January 2023)

The realisation that one might be show-offy in a good way is among Donne’s chief bequests to English literature, a salutary corrective to the 16th-century cult of Sidneian sprezzatura. The embrace of effort – the wish to impress, to delight, to dazzle, to convince or convert, and the willingness to be seen working at it – is the secret to the deathless charm of ‘The Flea’ and the pathos of the ‘Holy Sonnets’.

Q: Can we get ice cream? (Age 2)
A: Sure, honey! But the word “cream” incorrectly suggests that this is a dairy product. In reality, it’s a congealed mass of artificial gums and pastes that are almost certainly not permitted for human consumption in any other major democracy. Enjoy!

Q: What happened to Mufasa? (Age 3)
A: He’s sleeping.

Q: Can we get a puppy? (Age 4)
A: Maybe in a few years, when Daddy’s ability to say no—along with his overall sense of self—has been sufficiently worn down.

Q: Where does rain come from? (Age 5)
A: Good question. First, water on the ground evaporates up into the sky. There, it collects in clouds until it falls to the ground as rain, and the whole pattern starts over again. It’s called the water cycle, the only thing I learned as a child that I still remember. Seriously. I don’t know the different types of triangles or how to write in cursive or what hopscotch even is, but the water cycle? I could write a dissertation on it, baby.

Who or what was Rimbaud? What is the relation of a historical person to a work that scarcely ever seems straight – that seeks to ‘strain meaning to the very limits’? Can history live by metaphors alone?

To accuse Henry ‘Chips’ Channon of snobbery or social climbing is almost absurd: society was what gave his life meaning, and it’s thanks to his fascination with the rich and the grand that he left such an intimate record. The life Channon describes with such loving relish now seems as remote as Saint-Simon’s Versailles.

Generating the electricity to get just one ad to appear on your screen can produce a puff of carbon dioxide sufficiently large that, if it were cigarette smoke, you would be able to see it. Showing a single digital ad to a single user involves, on average, emitting between roughly a tenth and a whole pint of carbon dioxide. And the digital ad business puffs on quite a scale.

What is going to happen – it is indelicate to ask, but we need to know – to all that shit? The torrents of water from simultaneous ablutions, micturitions, power showers? And the steady autumn downpours of our rainy season.

No American reporter had been expelled from the Reich until Thompson received a hand-delivered letter from the Gestapo that accused her of offending ‘national self-respect’, rendering them unable to extend a ‘further right of hospitality’. The international press corps saw her off at the train station the next morning, her arms full of the roses they had given her.

On BookTok the cycle goes: rating books, simping over them, bringing ‘overrated’ books down a peg, and then rehabilitating them when the backlash goes too far. But there is a worry that we’re all being taken for a ride.

Secrets tucked into trench coats miss the point of the Five Eyes and obscure its political implications. The history of Anglo-American surveillance matters, from its late imperial beginnings to the contemporary needs of American power. The idea that the existence of a vast system of global surveillance might be problematic doesn’t have much purchase in any of the Five Eyes countries.