Reading

“President-elect Donald Trump is building his team, naming Cabinet members and key advisers after having been elected to a second presidential term.” — NPR

Listen. There’s a reason I wanted to meet with you. It wasn’t just so we could order a couple of rounds, play some blackjack, and catch up on old times. I’ve got a favor to ask. A big one. I wanna do one last job, and I’m putting together a team. The worst fucking team of all time. Are you in?

The details. Sure. First, I need a partner-in-crime. A real leader. I wanna hit the three biggest casinos on the strip, so I need a crew as nuts as I am—and that means I need you. Completely unqualified. No experience. A total fucking idiot. There’s nobody else who can’t do this as much as you can’t.

Josh Marshall has an insightful piece up today called “Reckonings of Contempt” in which he discusses how so many people, including many liberals, hold the Democrats. He looks at some of the many pieces that are offering up criticism of the Harris campaign and the Democrats’ failure in general starting off with a piece by Eric Levitz at Vox which, as I have done here as have many others, looks at the global anti-incumbency mood as well as the more ominous implication of rightward move among the working class of all races and ethnicities. Pretty standard stuff and I think probably correct. However: Then there’s this piece in Axios. It probably won’t surprise you that I wasn’t terribly impressed with it. It starts … Democrats are a lost party.

True or False: No one is above the law. How many times have we heard, “no one is above the law”. Well…it’s a lie. We have seen clear evidence over the past year that Netanyahu is above the law. We hear, “He thinks he is above the law”. So far, it’s true. He is above Continue reading »

Australia is continuing to expand its relationships with Israel’s defence sector, defying the UN’s International Court of Justice. Republished from DECLASSIFIED AUSTRALIA, November 05, 2024 Australia is yet to give effect to urgings of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to suspend all military trade with Israel until a review is completed of the exports. Continue reading »

Sometimes a single event can throw global problems into sharp relief. The recent flood in Spain is one such phenomenon. If past experience is anything to go by, however, the implications of this catastrophic ‘weather event’ are likely to be studiously ignored by those in a position to do something about them. Even by the Continue reading »

Is our dependence on mining a sign of economic weakness? Is Australia suffering from the “resource curse”? This idea is a strong theme in Ken Henry’s address to the Royal Society of New South Wales: Inequality in Australia. The mining industry is “the basis of our strong economy”. That’s hardly a contentious assertion: many would see Continue reading »

How would it be to walk into a general practice with a toothache and be triaged to see the oral health therapist, who assesses and then develops an oral health care plan? They are then qualified to provide dental treatment but may also involve a GP or dentist across the corridor for further assessment. It Continue reading »

It was supposed to be the Tour Triumphant, showing that Indonesia – the globe’s fourth-most populous nation – has a cosmopolitan new boss who can stride the world stage with panache. But cashiered former general Prabowo Subianto has tripped badly. Indonesia’s eighth President has flunked his first test at high-stakes bargaining in China, while in Continue reading »

The outcome in the recent US presidential election may yet push Taiwan in directions at variance with those advocated in a new article published in the America journal Foreign Affairs, which argues that: “China’s Gray-Zone Offensive Against Taiwan is Backfiring”. David Sacks provides an up-to-date review of the highly significant relationship between the US and Continue reading »

It didn’t take long after Donald Trump and the Republicans swept the polls in the US elections for the Australian fossil fuel industry and its political enablers to do what they like to do best: Celebrate a victory at the expense of the rest of the world. Members of the federal Coalition – in sync Continue reading »

In this exclusive interview with Alexey Pavlovsky, the Ambassador of the Russian Federation to Australia since 2019, he shares his insights on the complex dynamics between Russia, Ukraine, and the West, as well as his reflections on Australia’s stance in the ongoing conflict. You have been Ambassador to Australia since 2019. What interested you about Continue reading »

O’Reilly Media asked me to collect expressions of interest for a print version of the ActivityPub book I wrote. I’ve added a form to the ActivityPub book page at https://evanp.me/activitypub-book/#print that you can use to let me know that you’re interested. Even if you’ve told me before in person, over email, or on the Fediverse … Continue reading Print Version of ActivityPub Book →

And Russia gets Tulsi!

The year 2010 was a good one for Michel Houellebecq. As food riots broke out across North Africa and spread into southern Europe in November, his novel The Map and the Territory won the Prix Goncourt, the most prestigious of all French literary prizes. In the following months, his satire of the contemporary art world […]

Britain is a sick society. The riots that raged across the UK over August have provided ample evidence for this observation. But far-right violence is simply the most extreme manifestation of a deeper underlying trend: the rise of mistrust, insecurity, and despair. According to the National Centre for Social Research, trust and confidence in the […]

The scene on the terrace bar of the House of Commons was enough to chill the blood of any watching democrat. Here was Nigel Farage’s threatened ‘bridgehead into Parliament’, the Reform UK leader and his four-strong band of newly elected MPs quaffing pints and joshing, as comfortably at home as though they belonged in the […]

On the night of 18 January 1981, 16-year-old Yvonne Ruddock and 18-year-old Angela Jackson celebrated their birthdays at 439 New Cross Road in South London. What should have been a night of celebration would end in horror: a sudden blaze swept through the residence, killing Yvonne, her brother Paul, and a further eleven young black partygoers. Many […]

Germany’s die linke was once the shining light of the European left. Created in 2007 as a merger between the post–Communist Party of Germany and a pro-labour breakaway from the Social Democratic Party (SPD), in its first decade Die Linke became a major force in national politics. In the East it represented left-behind young people […]

Since February 2023, artist, university lecturer, and internet culture writer Joshua Citarella has been conducting interviews with a wide array of subjects who have formed their politics out of internet subcultures. It would be a crude oversimplification to say their so-called ‘e-deologies’ range far and wide across ‘the political spectrum’, as the real hallmark of […]

‘He may be a liar, even a crook, but I’m voting for him because he’s smart. He’s like our own Elon Musk.’ This comment was made to me on a sunny Saturday in a São Paulo favela, on a small bridge spanning an open sewage stream, the day before the city’s municipal election on 6 October. […]

A figure that has long spelled fear, resentment, and rage on a personal level has more recently acquired literary status. Of course, landlords have featured in novels and plays for as long as either form has existed. Pick a stupid but obvious example: Mr Toad is a character that most of us encounter in early […]