“We must ask for no references to Gaza/Palestine/Israel as it’s a very sensitive topic in our area. If these topics are included it drastically changes our risk management plans for events. Thus for safety and harmony we kindly ask the guest speakers avoid these topics and any questions about it that come up.” – Sam Continue reading »
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There should be a Christmas truce/ceasefire (Orthodox Christmas or western doesn’t matter) in the war between Russia and Ukraine. Last Western AND Orthodox Christmas, there was discussion of the possibility of a truce or ceasefire over one of the Christmases. The precedent quoted was of course, the spontaneous ceasefire that took place over December 1914, Continue reading »
Is your local community, like mine, preparing for that enjoyable Christmas Carols event? Will there be a reference to the place where it all began and, if so, what will be said? Will there be any reference to the current plight of its citizens? Most of us attend our Christmas Carols event as an opportunity Continue reading »
Mohammed Salamat delivered this anguished poem about his detention on Nauru outside Federal Parliament last Tuesday November 19, 2024. The reality of ‘offshore processing’ by the Australian government is still very much a fact, in legislation and the news. Barn of Broken Doors Australia, is this the land you promised, Where hope once bloomed, now Continue reading »
Tricking people into seeing unexpected content and converting some of them into customers is a tale as old as the web. It was the perfect model for the takeover.
The post Domain harvesting and the Twitter long game in retrospect appeared first on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents.
. Une des erreurs fondamentales dans le débat actuel sur la dette publique et le déficit budgétaire est de ne pas distinguer entre différents types de dettes. Même s’il est vrai qu’à l’échelle macroéconomique, les dettes et les actifs s’équilibrent nécessairement, il est loin d’être insignifiant de savoir qui détient les actifs et qui supporte […]
As Syrian rebels retake major cities from Bashar al-Assad, many are celebrating a return home.
The post He Thought He Wouldn’t Live to See Aleppo Again. This Week, He Returned Home. appeared first on The Intercept.
As Syrian rebels retake major cities from Bashar al-Assad, many are celebrating a return home.
The post He Thought He Wouldn’t Live to See Aleppo Again. This Week, He Returned Home. appeared first on The Intercept.
An oil-backed justice bows out, location tracking gets turned off, Elon Musk loses a few bucks, Wisconsin public workers win big, and a controversial anesthesia policy is out cold.
As fans fret over the show's ratings and possible cancellation, Doctor Who writer and ex-showrunner Steven Moffat offers some perspective.
. Films can touch us in many different ways. Many are little more than pure time-fillers and escapism. But there are also a few — very few — films that truly mean something. The ones that deeply penetrate our souls and shake us to our core. Kjell-Åke Andersson’s adaptation of Göran Tunström’s masterpiece The Christmas […]
Yay! Christmas arrived early in the Kibwezi Forest: We just received the most beautiful gift, in the form of Lima Lima’s brand new baby boy! He is Lima Lima’s first child and our second Umani grandbaby. The story began on Tuesday, 3rd December 2024. That morning, Lima Lima and her fellow ‘nightclubbers’ linked up with the dependent orphans, as they always do. At the mud bath, we noticed Lima Lima rolling around on the dust pile, clearly trying to soothe her heavily pregnant belly. When she got to her feet, Keeper Evans put his ear to her side — as we joked, she was getting a house call from her personal obstetrician! The story began on Tuesday, 3rd December 2024. That morning, Lima Lima and her fellow ‘nightclubbers’ linked up with the dependent orphans, as they always do. At the mud bath, we noticed Lima Lima rolling around on the dust pile, clearly trying to soothe her heavily pregnant belly. When she got to her feet, Keeper Evans put his ear to her side — as we joked, she was getting a house call from her personal obstetrician! In hindsight, Lima Lima was in the early stages of labour.
In the Atlantic (gift link) Law professors Akhil Reed Amar, Josh Chafetz, and Thomas P. Schmidt analyze Trump and Co’s nefarious plan to circumvent the Senate’s advise and consent role: The Senate’s check on the president can of course lead to friction and frustration at the start of an administration, while a new president’s nominees are considered and sometimes even rejected by the Senate. Advice and consent takes time. But as Justice Louis Brandeis famously observed, checks and balances exist “not to promote efficiency but to preclude the exercise of arbitrary power.” The purpose of the Constitution “is not to avoid friction” but “to save the people from autocracy.” Trump would prefer that the Senate agree to recess so that he can install the rogues gallery of drunks, traitors, rapists and freaks to the cabinet positions he needs to wreak revenge on his enemies. So far, it doesn’t seem that the Senate is willing to go along, preferring to maintain their prerogatives. For now, at least. But Trump has a Plan B, which I’ve written about before.
The biggest question in the case against Asif Rahman, a CIA employee accused of leaking Israel’s battle plans, is motive.
The post Israel Delayed Its Attack on Iran Due to CIA Leak, Prosecutors Allege appeared first on The Intercept.
Plus, new data on Liz Cheney’s election effect, the connection between real estate and your insurance premium, and a hidden city discovered under the ice.
I wrote the other day about the Elon and Vivek show planning to cut the so-called “entitlements.” That plan is becoming clearer by the day. Philip Bump writes: Data from the White House Office of Management and Budget indicates that about 12 percent of federal spending this year will be on Medicare, about 1 in 8 dollars the government disburses. Spending on Medicare is equivalent to 95 percent of the amount spent on national defense. This means that those interested in cutting federal spending — like President-elect Donald Trump’s allies (and fellow billionaires) Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy — were almost necessarily going to eventually arrive at the idea that the government should spend less on programs such as Medicare and Medicare specifically. They like to talk about how they will trim federal spending by targeting the federal workforce, but firing every single nonmilitary employee would eliminate only about 4 percent of the budget. If your plan is to cut a third of the budget (as Musk has said he wants to do)? You’ve got to aim higher than that.
When art sparks outrage.
Syrian government forces are expected to: 1. Leave Al Bu Kamal, Deir-ezzour, Palmira and stop at al-Qaryateyn to protect Homs. 2. Leave Daraa and retract to the limits of Damascus rural area. That will limit the defence of a larger area to a smaller area, secure Latakia, Tartous, Damascus and Homs.
Meanwhile Israel is considering annexing southern Syria.
Apparently some Iraqi militias Hezbollah forces are at Homs to fight, but HTS is still strong and is very well equipped, including with plenty of drones.