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Created
Sat, 02/11/2024 - 07:00
I know that some of you don’t listen to podcasts and I’d guess that most of you have never listened to Joe Rogan, the man who runs the most popular podcast in the world (making hundreds of millions of dollars at it.) Trump appeared on his show last week and it’s been dowloaded 35 million times. Anyway, here’s a taste of the kind of thing this superstar is selling to his massive audience: He is very stupid and he makes everyone who listens to him stupid. A case in point: his interview with JD Vance who is not as stupid as Rogan but knows the audience will believe anything: During a prolonged discussion about the environment, Vance asserted that he “didn’t have a strong view about what the carbon footprint ultimately does,” appearing to waffle about whether human-caused climate change exists.  “It’s interesting that the environmental movement in America, the only thing that it talks about is the carbon footprint, and it never talks about . . . why do we have the highest rates of obesity in the world right now,” Vance said.
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Sat, 02/11/2024 - 06:00
I know we shouldn’t pay too much attention to the early vote and this might not mean anything. But if it holds up it’s big. Old people vote: Donald Trump is lagging Kamala Harris in Pennsylvania early voting with a critical and once-reliably Republican constituency: seniors. It’s a warning sign for the former president that reflects early vote data and polling across the battlegrounds, after Republicans won the senior vote in each of the last five presidential elections. In Pennsylvania, where voters over the age of 65 have cast nearly half of the early ballots, registered Democrats account for about 58 percent of votes cast by seniors, compared to 35 percent for Republicans. That’s despite both parties having roughly equal numbers of registered voters aged 65 and older. The partisan gap is narrower than it was in 2020, when views of early voting were more partisan, and Republicans take that as a good sign. But the GOP still is counting on more of its older voters to show up on Election Day, while Democrats have more votes in the bank. The data is in line with polling in the state that has shown Trump shedding support among older voters.
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Sat, 02/11/2024 - 04:58
Three years on, there is still no compelling argument, strategic or otherwise, for Australia’s acquiring eight Virginia-class nuclear-­propelled submarines (SSNs). Nor is there any compelling calculation of the large lick of funding – $368bn and more – that the program will soak up. Only Defence seems able to command such stupendous outlays when childcare, aged Continue reading »
Created
Sat, 02/11/2024 - 04:57
The primary focus of the Zionist movement and the Israeli lobby is not combating anti-Semitism but rather combating critics of Israel’s colonial apartheid regime and the crimes it is perpetrating against the Palestinian people. Zionists deliberately conflate Judaism with Zionism and assert every Jew is a Zionist, while Israel, on the other hand, calls itself Continue reading »
Created
Sat, 02/11/2024 - 04:54
Some events of recent weeks have been a reminder of the phenomenon the ancient Greeks called hubris. The Greeks thought of hubris as a character flaw in a leader that led to delusional overconfidence and complacency that blinds a leader and results in a tragic fall. Anthony Albanese does not present himself publicly as the Continue reading »
Created
Sat, 02/11/2024 - 04:52
The nation’s public hospital system is sicker than it looks. There are practical, affordable ways to make it better — but not if governments go on doing the same things. Public hospitals all over the country are overcrowded, inefficient, bad for staff and worse for patients. They badly need more space, more staff. But why, Continue reading »
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Sat, 02/11/2024 - 04:51
Leading international relations scholar Wang Jisi from Peking University, who just met Kurt Campbell, urges Beijing not to make new enemies, focus on domestic affairs, & maintain confidence in peaceful reunification. The Institute of International and Strategic Studies (IISS), Peking University, reported on October 25 that Wang Jisi, its Founding President and a PKU professor, visited the U.S. Continue reading »
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Sat, 02/11/2024 - 04:50
A United Nations report, published on Monday, lays out in chilling detail the advances made by Israel in Gaza as it seeks to eradicate “the very existence of the Palestinian people in Palestine.” This genocidal project, the report ominously warns, “is now metastasizing to the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.” The Nakba or “catastrophe,” which Continue reading »
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Sat, 02/11/2024 - 04:30
The bros are getting hysterical: Two of former president Donald Trump’s most prominent backers in the right wing influencer sphere fretted Wednesday after early voting numbers showed massive early turnout among women that could imperil their candidate’s path to victory. “Male turnout in Pennsylvania for Trump has been a disaster,” tweeted Mike Cernovich on Wednesday. “Unless this changes, Kamala Harris takes PA and it’s over.” Cernovich is a longtime far right gadfly and commentator with a massive online following He’s been around long enough to have played a role in the anti-feminist Gamergate harassment campaign and to have helped spread the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, though has disavowed the alt-right and drifted closer to the mainstream conservative movement in recent years. (Trump’s eldest child, Donald Jr., once said he deserved a Pulitzer Prize).
Created
Sat, 02/11/2024 - 04:00
In the spring, I’ll be teaching the second semester of our philosophy grad program’s first-year seminar. This is the seminar all PhD students in the philosophy department take together as a cohort during their first year in the program. The fall semester of the seminar typically leans towards the metaphysics and epistemology side of philosophy, […]
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Sat, 02/11/2024 - 04:00

Thank you for your email. This is an automated response to let you know that I will be away from my desk on Wednesday, November 6.

As you may be aware, the presidential election in the United States could be decided by the evening of November 5, and I will be up all night either panicking or celebrating, depending on which way it goes.

Or the election will not be decided by the evening of November 5, and I will be up all night panicking.

If the election is decided by the morning of November 6, I will not be at my desk, because I will be curled up on the floor weeping. I am not sure whether my tears will be tears of joy or tears of terror, but they are almost guaranteed to flow, and therefore, I will not be at my desk. Maybe I will be under my desk, but I definitely won’t be at it.