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In the near future, it may be the other way around.

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From Scott Rosenberg’s Hopium Chronicles (to which you should subscribe for a little bit of political positivity.) As we often discuss here the central dynamic in American politics since Dobbs in the spring of 2022 has been Dem overperformance, Republican struggle in race after race, all across the country. We saw it in the battlegrounds in 2022, as we improved our standing over 2020 in AZ, CO, GA, MI, MN, NH, PA; and got all the way up to 59% in CO, 57& in PA, 55% in MI, 54% in NH. We saw it all throughout 2023 as we took away Colorado Springs and Jacksonville, two of the largest GOP held cities; the Supreme Court seat and rancid gerrymandering in WI; the six week abortion ban in OH; the Virginia Assembly and the fantasy that the 15 week abortion ban would be a safe haven for Republicans; and so much more, all across the country. When I started Hopium in early 2023 I wondered whether this dynamic that we saw in 2022 would continue in 2023, and it did. 2023 was really a blue wave year across the US. And here in early 2024 we’ve been wondering would this same dynamic carry over to this year?

The Secretary of State previously advised the airline manufacturer; on his return from the World Economic Forum, he ran into one of its troubled 737 planes.

Trump is acting like a juvenile delinquent in the federal courthouse today. His lawyer is too. Is there anyone else on earth who would be allowed to do this? Millions of people want this monster to be president of the United States. This is a very, very sick political culture.

Really? He’s got a lot of nerve… I carry no brief for Nikki Haley. She would be an awful president but not because she’s not “tough” enough. This is reminiscent of his fatuous claims against Hillary Clinton that she didn’t have the “strength and the stamina” to be president. He thinks all women are weak. But as he proved when he was president nobody is a bigger patsy than he is. By the way, he’s also going after her for her ethnicity: In case you were wondering: Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday went after Nikki Haley while referring to her by her first name, Nimarata, in the latest example of Trump using racist dog whistles to attack his GOP presidential rival. Haley is the daughter of Indian immigrants and was born Nimarata Nikki Randhawa. She took her husband Michael Haley’s last name after they married. Trump misspelled Nimarata as “Nimrada” as he attacked her in a new post on his social media platform Truth Social. The MAGA crowd has been calling her “Nimroda” (nimrod, get it?) for months. naturally he’s doing it now too. Most Republicans don’t care.

Following the introduction of the model-based inferential framework by Fisher and the introduction of the design-based inferential framework by Neyman [and Pearson], survey sampling statisticians began to identify their respective weaknesses. With regard to the model-based framework, sampling statisticians found that conditioning on all stratification and selection/recruitment variables, and allowing for their potential interactions with […]

I love writing. The medium is excellent for communicating ideas, or a narrative history. But writing is one-dimensional, and it’s much worse at communicating the history of ideas in higher dimensions. My meta-scientific interest in understanding how ideas travel, how their fate waxes and wanes, has frequently pushed me beyond my preferred medium. Traditional historiography is extremely […]

First things first, I’m the only one in this class allowed to fart. If any of you sods break wind, I’ll break your finger and ship you back to Pilates, where you bloody belong.

All right, fine print’s out the way, let’s dive in. Why don’t we start with a downward dog, yeah? Jesus! I said “downward,” not “put-down.” You want to make sort of an A shape, not fully fellate yourselves.

For the sake of my eyes, let’s move on. Standard forward fold. Just bend over and grab the backs of your knees, the way I do when I meet with the Director General. Brilliant.

Now how ’bout a mountain? Pretend you’ve got a spine, yeah, and stand up real straight and reach way up high—like there’s some actual human potential for you dangling from the ceiling. Fantastic.

Mm, this is a good ice cream cone. Tasty little treat, this.

Where was I? Right, step into a Warrior I. Steady! Looks like I’m not the only one who added a bit of Irish to his coffee this morning. I’m astonished that none of you broke an ankle executing that exceptionally simple maneuver. Bravo.

The transcript of the detailed and moving closing arguments for the South African case against Israel to the International Court of Justice by London-based human rights barrister Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh KC, in the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel) Continue reading »

The Lattouf story shows that the same level of white colonial supremacist attitudes that have forged the bond of western leaders on the Middle East issue permeates the leadership of public broadcasting. Antoinette Lattouf should be reinstated by the ABC. Her case goes before the Fair Work Commission today. For good reason, her sacking by Continue reading »

To initiate a war of aggression has been described as the supreme international crime. If a regional war breaks out in the Middle East, triggered by the illegal recent strikes by the USA and UK against the Houthis, Australia could well be complicit in the commission of the supreme international crime. The United Nations Security Continue reading »

The January release of the Cabinet papers for 2003 reminds us of the failure of the second attempt to introduce an economy wide carbon price in Australia through an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). It marks the ascendancy of the energy and resource sectors in influencing the Coalitions climate change policies. This decision to reject emission Continue reading »

Gaza is surely now among the internet’s most recognisable words, for obvious reasons. It used to be far less familiar to Australians. Up to about 1948, if they knew it at all it was as the place where the Biblical blinded Samson pulled down the temple, or where the Light Horse fought in 1917 to Continue reading »

The founding secretary of the Department of Home Affairs, Mike Pezzullo, was dismissed late last year for egregiously breaching the public service code of conduct. The man who lectured public servants they should live by that code, broke it in a manner no previous secretary in living memory had done. While that should have provided an Continue reading »

We should be concerned about conditions for prisoners. Why? The obvious answer is that if the recidivism rate is high then the system is not working. A young unkempt man presented to the community centre at which I worked as a volunteer Chaplain. Struggling to make conversation, wanting to be left alone yet attending because Continue reading »

Australia’s assistance in striking targets in Yemen, obediently abiding by the direction of the United States and United Kingdom, had a certain curious resonance to another event that involved foreign shipping, the wounded pride of imperial powers, and meddling Arabs. From November 2023, the Houthis initiated a number of measures against Israeli shipping and vessels Continue reading »

Australia’s reluctance from afar to recognise Israel’s genocide in Gaza is being challenged by the genocide case against Israel in the World Court. Australia has finally made clear its official position on the genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese Continue reading »

From politicised phone hacking to aiding and abetting insurrection, the lawless threat of Murdoch’s organisations to democracy is only now becoming clear

Trump’s win in Iowa showed his weakness The Trump juggernaut rolled into Iowa on Monday and won what the media is calling a “historic” victory. He won 51% of the vote while his closest rival Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis only won 21% and Former S. Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, 19%. Obviously, it was a tremendous victory for the former president, demonstrating his massive strength going into the 2024 election. Or was it? First of all, this was no surprise. Donald Trump has been destined to win this caucus and frankly, every primary from the moment he announced he was running. Unlike in 2016, he reportedly had a very professional campaign in the state and was polling over 50% throughout the race. It is very probable that he will be the de facto nominee within the next month and will have it all wrapped up by Super Tuesday. However, taking a closer look at those Iowa numbers shows some of the pit falls awaiting him in the general election. If there’s one state in the nation you can call MAGA country, it’s Iowa. It’s something like 95% white, older than most states, extremely rural and the Republican Party there is as conservative as it gets.