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If your tree isn’t pre-lit, you might want to be.

Divide and conquer. One adult can dole out hot chocolate and cookies to keep the children occupied while the other adult unpacks the decorations that were crammed into boxes last February 23 without even a passing nod to organization.

If you are having a frustrating time untangling lights, you can lighten the mood by cursing festively in the style of the dad from A Christmas Story.

No matter how tempting, do not try to turn the fact that only half the lights aren’t working into a lesson on circuits unless you are 100 percent sure you know how circuits work.

The maximum amount of time you can spend searching for the C9 bulbs you bought on sale after Christmas last year and put god knows where is fifteen minutes. That’s how long it will take for the kids to eat the last of the cookies and begin wrapping the family pets in tinsel.

While your partner is busy unwrapping the dog, it’s the perfect moment to throw the creepy Santa ornament that came from their side of the family to the cat. If your partner notices, blame it on the children.

For Palestinians in Gaza, there is no room for death, as there is no room for life, due to Zionist crimes and Israeli savagery, writes Refaat Ibrahim from occupied Gaza. “Many die and are turned into body parts, their limbs mixed together and lost… They transport them into Israel, subject them to examination, sometimes steal Continue reading »

This is just another example of the exceptionalism that we have come to expect with Israel. That exceptionalism is the Zionist belief that Arab peoples are inferior to themselves — as former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has described them — “human animals”. Readers may find it difficult to assess just what is happening in Syria. Continue reading »

US diplomat Peter Galbraith insists the Australian Government and Opposition are exaggerating the dangers of even trying to bring 10 Australian women and 30 children home from Syrian camps. In an affidavit to the Australian High Court, Galbraith explained he had made 20 visits to camps in north-east Syria and had helped to extract several Continue reading »

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The coming month of January 2025 is shaping up as Australia Day month. The Coalition has signalled it will be making heavy weather of the weeks leading up to and following Sunday, 26 January. The hubbub will likely focus on Australian flags and an intense determination to stand by the 26th as the day in Continue reading »

If, as seems likely, Anthony Albanese and his government lose seats at next year’s federal election, one thing we can be certain of is that the nation’s economists and econocrats won’t be admitting to their not insignificant contribution to Labor’s setback. Economists have such a limited understanding of how the behaviour of the real-world economy Continue reading »

The BIOSECURE Act, recently passed by the US House of Representatives, seeks to decouple the US from China’s biotech ecosystem by restricting federal funding to US firms that collaborate with major Chinese biotech players like WuXi AppTec and BGI Genomics. This legislative push reflects growing concerns over national security, intellectual property (IP) protection, and supply Continue reading »

Wait, aren’t these the very same Uyghur separatists that the US State Department said they had “no credible evidence” existed, and that Mike Pompeo decided to remove from the US’s list of terrorist organisations in 2020? How bizarre that this non-existent group were key players in Assad’s fall and are now aiming their gunsights on Continue reading »

Nancy Mace says she is concerned that the drone sightings off NJ is either aliens from another planet or Russia/Iran/China searching for a missing nuclear warhead. pic.twitter.com/Uf6GiEm84v — Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) December 17, 2024 These are elected GOP officials. They are not fake tweets.

How many Democrats does it take to change a light bulb? Lefties’ fondness for novelty goes only so far. Democrats are policy liberals (sort of) and campaign conservatives. Party culture is built around seniority and whose “turn” it is to move up the organizational ladder. There is ageism in that, but also resistance to generational change. (I wrote about our local changing of the guard a few years back.) That’s visible in real time in the contest for ranking member of the House Oversight Committee between Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-N.Y.). Politico: House Democrats have solidified the generational shake-up at the top of their committees, after significant behind-the-scenes influence from both current and former leaders of the caucus. The caucus faced tough races for the Agriculture, Oversight and Natural Resources Committees. Rep. Angie Craig (Minn.) won the nod for the top party spot on Agriculture, beating incumbent Rep. David Scott (Ga.), who’d faced long-standing questions about his health, and Rep. Jim Costa (Calif.). Rep. Gerry Connolly (Va.) won the Oversight recommendation over Rep.

Gaza, Haiti, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Russia, Syria, Ukraine, and Venezuela: President-elect Donald Trump will face no shortage of foreign-policy challenges when he assumes office in January. None, however, comes close to China in scope, scale, or complexity. No other country has the capacity to resist his predictable antagonism with the same degree of strength and tenacity, and none arouses more hostility and outrage among MAGA Republicans. In short, China is guaranteed to put President Trump in a difficult bind the second time around: he can either choose to cut deals with Beijing and risk being branded an appeaser by the China hawks in his party, or he can punish and further encircle Beijing, risking a potentially violent clash and possibly... Read more

Source: Trump Confronts a Rising China appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

They obey the call How many times have “Twilight Zone” references popped into your head lately? These times are as surreal as they are threatening. Except there’s no Rod Serling to offer a pithy observation on the human condition or to offer a moral coda to each day’s news. For those among the uninfected, there is only a collective shaking of heads, a silent prayer, at the behavior of MAGA millions, titans of industry, and newsies genuflecting before the Great Orange Oz. Witnessing this “Great Capitulation,” Michelle Goldberg writes: Different people have different reasons for falling in line. Some may simply lack the stomach for a fight or feel, not unreasonably, that it’s futile. Our tech overlords, however liberal they once appeared, seem to welcome the new order. Many hated wokeness, resented the demands of newly uppity employees and chafed at attempts by Joe Biden’s administration to regulate crypto and A.I., two industries with the potential to cause deep and lasting social harm.

Contrary to what many economists will claim, we’re going to move into a resource constrained era. This is a combination of climate change, environmental collapse and civilization decline.

Simply put, per capita, there’s going to be less stuff. As Gibson line runs, the future will be unevenly distributed. This will hit some places harder and sooner. Germany and Europe are in decline already. China is actually increasing production and availability of most products. The US is in decline, but actively cannibalizing its allies, especially Europe, but also Taiwan, so the stuff shortage will be slower and there may be short to medium term increase.

They are also seeking to overturn workplace protections from sexual harassment, calling them an attack on "free speech"

We listen and we don’t judge.

LADY MACBETH: I hate it when you introduce me as your “Dearest partner of greatness.” What’s wrong with “wife”?

We listen and we don’t judge.

MACBETH: I know I said, “Bring forth men-children only,” but I’ve always dreamed of being a Girl Dad.

We listen and we don’t judge.

LADY MACBETH: If you invite overnight guests to stay with us again without checking with me first, I will kill you them.

We listen and we don’t judge.

MACBETH: I don’t know what the poor cat does in the adage, okay? Every time you bring it up, I just nod.

We listen and we don’t judge.

LADY MACBETH: Sometimes, when you’re about to confess to murder, I pretend to faint so everyone pays attention to me instead.

We listen and we don’t judge.

Metamorphic rocks are our emissaries from the deep, travelling to alien realms and revealing the restless nature of Earth

- by Marcia Bjornerud

Read at Aeon

Our culture is routinely diagnosed with an excessive fear of mortality. A calm look at the evidence tells a different story

- by Ingemar Patrick Linden

Read at Psyche

In the last decade, constant headlines have made reference to the ‘Bank of Mum and Dad’. This phrase is now synonymous with the fact that millennials and younger generations depend on their parents for financial support when buying their first home. These conversations tend to come in two flavours. The first tastes of avocado toast […]

Failure to block the insurance giant’s market consolidation, including by a judge with a potential conflict of interest, has led to worse care, higher prices, and a mounting human toll.

As the diplomatic row over the embargo escalates, the U.S. sent Israel millions of pounds of ammunition through Spanish territory.

The post U.S. Defied Spanish Embargo on Arms Bound for Israel by Making Enforcement More Difficult appeared first on The Intercept.