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It looks like he’s going to try Elon Musk has more than 250 Billion (with a B) dollars. He could spend a hundred billion of it on this election and still be the richest man in the world. Anything he spends in these last couple of weeks amounts to the change you or I might find in the couch cushions. His fortune is essentially infinite. He’s all in on Donald Trump and he’s not trying to hide it. Here’s a gift link to the NY Times article. I think you need to read it: In the final weeks of the presidential campaign, the richest man in the world has involved himself in the U.S. election in a manner unparalleled in modern history. Elon Musk, seen over the weekend jumping for joy alongside former President Donald J. Trump at a rally in Butler, Pa., is now talking to the Republican candidate multiple times a week. He has effectively moved his base of operations to Pennsylvania, the place that he has recently told confidants he believes is the linchpin to Mr. Trump’s re-election. He has relentlessly promoted Mr.

If the US were to go to war with Iran, it wouldn’t be a 2003 Iraq scenario. From Iran’s vast missile capabilities to its battle-hardened regional allies, a conflict would be far more complex and dangerous for US forces.

The post A US-Iran War: What the Battlefield Could Actually Look Like appeared first on MintPress News.

Scientists have created a magnificent portrait of every connection among neurons in a fruit fly’s brain.

The post The Most Detailed Brain Map Ever appeared first on Nautilus.

Vance is interviewed by the NY Times and he will still not say if the 2020 election was stolen. Instead he carries on about censorship again. Even the dumbest cultist can see that this weird dodge doesn’t make sense. But he’s committed. I wish they would have asked him about this, however. It’s in their own paper: After a reporter’s publication of hacked Trump campaign information last month, the campaign connected with X to prevent the circulation of links to the material on the platform, according to two people with knowledge of the events. X eventually blocked links to the material and suspended the reporter’s account. That’s right. Elon Musk censored material about Trump in coordination with the Trump campaign. You can’t make this stuff up.

Shahawar Matin Siraj is one of many Muslim men convicted in informant-related terrorism cases. Now he’s seeking compassionate release.

The post An Informant Pushed Him to Plot a Subway Bombing. After 20 Years Behind Bars, He Has a Chance at Freedom. appeared first on The Intercept.

A wild tale of how scientists unraveled embryology's most fascinating mystery.

The post The Anatomical Quirk That Saved Dr. No appeared first on Nautilus.

In 1949 Australia’s Dr H.V. Evatt was described as: “The most brilliant and effective voice of Small Powers – a leading statesman for the world’s conscience.” When will another Australian voice speak up in the name of humanity at the United Nations? If the Australian Government valued its historic role in the establishment of the Continue reading »

Australia wants to constrain China, but without tying itself to America’s own ambitions and all that might mean. The central strategic axis of the Indo-Pacific region is – and for the foreseeable future, will remain – bipolar: a competition for primacy between the US and China. And while Australia has chosen where it sits, most Continue reading »

A monumental transformation: There has been a great deal of public criticism of Australia’s decision to acquire a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines (SSNs) via the AUKUS security partnership. The criticism has been both broad and deep, spanning political and industrial challenges, budgetary consequences, safety and environmental concerns, strategic risks, and the erosion of national sovereignty. Continue reading »

In Asian media this week: Europe’s China business chief says conflict unavoidable. Plus: US lacks strategy for China confrontation; Japan’s new PM calls snap election; Junta’s election “census” a counter-insurgency ploy; America’s Gaza failure shakes confidence in rules-based order; Seoul has no answer for Pyongyang’s dirty campaign. China and the EU are shaping up for Continue reading »

Reports of malfeasance involving staff at the Alexander Maconochie Centre, the ACT’s supposedly human-rights-compliant prison, are now too numerous and too frequent to lack substantial veracity. Yet, even in the very teeth of the ACT election campaign, it seems they can be virtually ignored. There’s no votes, it seems, in the treatment of our most Continue reading »

Are people talking about it much? Not really. But the good news does seem to have caught up with some voters at least. Cathrine Rampell at the Washington Post writes: How good is the U.S. economy these days? So good that Republicans are pretending the numbers are fake. GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump has long held a lead over his Democratic rival on economic issues, but lately the gap has narrowed. In the spring, when President Joe Biden was still on the ticket, Trump held a roughly 12-point edge on the economy. Today, Trump remains ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris, but she’s cut that margin in half. Some recent surveys have even found the candidates in a dead heat on economic issues. A recent Cook Political Report poll of swing state voters, for instance, found Trump’s advantage on “inflation and the cost of living” had evaporated completely. This is remarkable. For most of the past decade, voters overwhelmingly trusted Republicans more on economic issues.

“‘We will each write a ghost story,’ said Lord Byron; and his proposition was acceded to. There were four of us.” – Mary Shelley, in the introduction to Frankenstein.

Wow, Mary! Wow. Dr. Frankenstein and his monster. I can’t imagine anything more chilling. In fact, it’s so chilling that I think we should probably call off the rest of the storytelling contest right now. I don’t even need to take my turn.

Oh, are you sure?

Still?

Because I kind of wish I had gone first. My thing isn’t even that scary. Or about humankind. It’s just, well, did everyone else do this overnight? Because I feel like Mary Shelley may have pre-written her idea. All I’m saying is it feels pretty fleshed out already. I’m not trying to accuse anyone of anything. It’s just, I thought we were telling stories we came up with in the last twenty-four hours and not workshopping full novel ideas.

In every losing campaign’s postmortem the analysts insist that the candidate should have gone where he or she did not. There were many complaints about Vice President Al Gore spending time in California late in the race when he should have been stumping in Florida and I’m sure everyone recalls that Hillary Clinton was excoriated for taking Wisconsin and Michigan for granted in 2016 by failing to hold events there in the closing days of the campaign. Certainly, it’s a general rule of thumb that in close elections, the candidates are supposed to live in the battleground states, especially in the final weeks to eke out every last vote in the electoral college. So why in the world is Donald Trump holding rallies in the blue enclaves of California, New York and Colorado in the month of October? As far as we can tell, the swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada are all close and various combinations of those states will be required to get to 270 electoral votes. And yet Trump will be wasting time in these other states for reasons that are obscure.

“It was not random, but direct targeting on purpose. Fadi was wearing his press uniform.”

The post Four Days in Gaza: Five Journalists Killed or Wounded appeared first on The Intercept.

The criminal case against the American reporter fell apart after an Israeli journalist testified that his own article containing Loffredo’s full video report had cleared military censorship. Yet Israel refuses to let Loffredo leave the country. On October 11, journalist Jeremy Loffredo was ordered released from Israeli jail. Israeli soldiers arrested the Jewish-American reporter and three other journalists at a checkpoint in the West Bank on October 8. According to one of the jailed reporters, @the_andrey_x, the soldiers blindfolded them […]

The post Israel jails Grayzone’s Jeremy Loffredo, releases him pending investigation first appeared on The Grayzone.

The post Israel jails Grayzone’s Jeremy Loffredo, releases him pending investigation appeared first on The Grayzone.

Jeremy Loffredo was taken into custody on suspicion of “assisting an enemy in war” for his reporting on Iran’s missile attack. 

The post U.S. Journalist Jeremy Loffredo Released After Being Detained by Israel for Four Days  appeared first on The Intercept.