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Before the murders, work was going well. My last novel, In the Dying Light, remained on the Times’ Best Seller list for 248 weeks. Everything you see on screen, from our seaside mansion filled with framed copies of my book covers, to our antique letter opener collection, I owe to my readers. I’m also devoted to my three suspicious children and grizzled husband with a substance abuse issue. His name is Keith, and he’s very unemployed. It hasn’t been easy getting here, but I’m proud to have built this life, page by gripping page.

Then the bodies started washing ashore. First was my son’s fiancée, who also turned out to be Keith’s mistress. Next came our maid’s uncle, known in the credits as Mobster #2—he seemed so dear but evidently got tangled up with the wrong crowd. Now, a network of scandals threatens to tear apart our bucolic town. Worst of all? I’m on deadline to deliver a manuscript that is, at the moment, a total mess. I haven’t strung together a decent sentence in eight episodes. Mitzi Dixon, my hotshot agent, is barking up my ass, and Hulu has just ordered another two seasons.

Trump campaigned on mass deportations. Now he’s threatening to use the U.S. military to carry them out.

The post “Absolutely Insane”: Pentagon Officials on Trump’s Military Deportation Plan appeared first on The Intercept.

How many Schindlers will there be in Trump’s new America?

In new videos, Vice editor-in-chief Shane Smith treats immigrants as a problem and apologizes to Elon Musk for past coverage.

The post Vice’s Hard-Right Turn to Trumpism appeared first on The Intercept.

At a major fossil fuel summit, Chris Wright, Trump’s choice to run the Energy Department, declared, “There Is No Climate Crisis.”

At its core, MARTI is a bridge. It harmonizes with existing metadata standards like the Content Authenticity Initiative, Anthropic’s Responsible Scaling Policy, and the W3C’s PROV. It anticipates the needs of future standards, laws and practices, such as those proposed by the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI), The EU Artificial Intelligence Act, and Making Data FAIR.—Carrie Bickner As I study Carrie […]

The post Understanding MARTI: A New Metadata Framework for AI appeared first on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents.

You asked for it, America President-elect Donald Trump signaled in a Truth Social post on Monday that he means to declare a national emergency as a component of his plans for mass deportations (CNN): CNN reported over the weekend that Trump’s team is evaluating a national emergency declaration to unlock Pentagon resources and tailoring that declaration to pave the way for expanding detention space. In his first term, Trump declared a national emergency on the border with Mexico to circumvent Congress and use Pentagon funds for his border wall—a move that was faced with numerous lawsuits. The incoming administration’s sweeping immigration plans are beginning to come into focus, sources previously told CNN, including implementing strict border measures, striking down Biden-era policies and kicking off the detention and deportation of migrants at large scale. People close to the president-elect and his aides are laying the groundwork for expanding detention facilities to fulfill his mass deportation campaign promise, including reviewing metropolitan areas where capabilities exist.

Some 15 years ago, on December 5, 2010, a historian writing for TomDispatch made a prediction that may yet prove prescient. Rejecting the consensus of that moment that U.S. global hegemony would persist to 2040 or 2050, he argued that “the demise of the United States as the global superpower could come… in 2025, just 15 years from now.” To make that forecast, the historian conducted what he called “a more realistic assessment of domestic and global trends.” Starting with the global context, he argued that, “faced with a fading superpower,” China, India, Iran, and Russia would all start to “provocatively challenge U.S. dominion over the oceans, space, and cyberspace.” At home in the United States, domestic divisions would “widen... Read more

Source: Requiem for an Empire appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

In this episode of State of Play: Russia, Ukraine, NATO and the US, cloak and dagger drama - leaked intelligence, NATO stay-behind operations, nuclear brinkmanship and how the Biden Administration will be remembered as one of the most reckless, violent, and foolhardy in US history.

The post Escalation Flashpoint: Biden Approves Ukrainian Strikes Inside Russian Heartland appeared first on MintPress News.

Capitalism’s race to the bottom There is an interesting story about how the chicken of the 1930s (on the left) became the chicken of the 21st century (on the right). It’s not just a tale about how antibiotics created bigger chickens (presumably even your organic, no-antibiotics, free-rangers are a product of that selective breeding), but about how monopsony makes prices higher by eliminating competition, not among manufacturers but among buyers upstream of consumers (the Tysons and Perdues, and the ADMs and Walmarts, etc.) Bloomberg’s three-part “Beak Capitalism” podcast explains how chicken farmers became Uber-style independent contractors before there was an Uber, and how Big Chicken learned to outsource its risk. Uber was late to that party. Consolidation among chicken processors meant farmers had fewer places to sell their birds (um, the processors’ birds, actually) and had to become all-but employees of Big Chicken. Chicken farmers these days raise the birds as contractors.

There’s been a lot of attention, much of it apocalyptic, paid to Trump’s election, but Trump is just a symptom of one of our three main issues.

In order of importance, they are:

1. Climate Change and Ecological Collapse;
2. Mass disabling, largely due to Covid; and,
3. The End of the Western Era, and the collapse of American hegemony.

If we manage a nuclear during the collapse of American hegemony, it’ll turn out to have been the most important issue, but I’m betting we’ll avoid it. If I’m wrong, you won’t be able to tell me so.

Warming continues:

Nine health care workers at UCSF report censorship or punishment for speaking out about human rights for Palestinians — or simply wearing a pin.

The post San Francisco’s Biggest Hospital System: Don’t Talk About Palestine appeared first on The Intercept.

I was about to grab a handful of almonds as a snack when you told me to proceed with caution, because the serving size is ten almonds. But I won’t let this impact me. I’ll eat as many almonds as I want, up to ten maximum.

It wouldn’t be mentally healthy to obsess over the idea that I am eating too many almonds, at least if I’m eating a helping that’s within reason, like ten or fewer. The fat in almonds is good fat. It’s not like I’m having greasy chips. And, after all, I’m hungry. So the only limit to my almond consumption is ten.

Everything in moderation, they say. Screw that. The only thing I’ll moderate is listening to you about how many almonds I can have. I listen to no one but me. I’m listening closely, and I’m hearing me say ten is an appropriate number.

“Be careful,” you said. That must mean too many almonds would be bad news. But, honestly, my attitude is “YOLO.” You’re Opulently Licensed to have One-to-ten-almonds. It’s risky, but the bigger risk is letting your life go by without knowing the indulgence of up to ten almonds and no more than that unless you want to go further, which I do not.

Millionaire landowners are using dubious statistics to campaign against the Government's inheritance tax reforms

THREE City of Coffs Harbour lifeguards have been honoured for their courageous actions at a tragic incident at Moonee Beach where six people were swept out to sea. Greg Hackfath, Hugo Craigan and Alex Swadling received Commendations at the Coffs/Clarence Police District Awards Ceremony at the Hub2 at Coffs Harbour on 14 November. Advertise with...

The post Lifeguards honoured for Moonee Beach heroics appeared first on News Of The Area.

The idea that we should all stand straight is widely accepted. But this modern obsession has dubious origins

- by Beth Linker

Read at Psyche

Yours truly har under några år hållit i en kurs för forskare på Malmö universitet kring kausalitet. Den som är intresserad kan ta del av kursens powerpoint här: Kausalitet — en crash course Många frågeställningar inom samhällsvetenskapen idag handlar i grunden om frågor angående kausalitet. Vad ligger bakom den ökade arbetslösheten? Vilka effekter har friskolorna […]

In his monthly column, John Mitchinson explores how a country house party in Oxfordshire helped invent democracy