As a ten-year old, trying to be cool like my twelve-year old sister, I spent one day in September of 1980 rummaging through her album collection—something I would do through my twenties. She had excellent taste in music back then. My very first encounter with rock and roll—aside from hearing Chuck Berry, Elvis, Little Richard, Fats Domino and Jerry Lee Lewis in my Dad’s car—was pulling out a record from some band called Van Halen.
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Nancy Pelosi said of my recent 7.30 interview ‘it is not in the security interest of the Asia-Pacific region for people to talk that way’ – that is, of my remarks in respect of Taiwan. This is from the former leader of the US House of Representatives who, in a recklessly indulgent visit to Taiwan Continue reading »
Of the international intelligence information that comes to Australian agencies from the Five Eyes, 90% comes from the CIA and related US intelligence agencies. So in effect we have the colonisation of our intelligence agencies These agencies dominate the advice to Ministers writes John Menadue. Transcript of interview with Michael Lester, 10 August 2024 ML: Continue reading »
When the former Prime Minister, Paul Keating, recently claimed that Australia was losing its “strategic autonomy” and turning into “the 51st State of the United States”, the current Prime Minister froze in the headlights. Possibly caught before his staff could give him a few dot points, Albanese said “Paul was a great Prime Minister – Continue reading »
Understanding the complex relationship between Zionism, Zionists and Jews seems to defeat many of Israel’s critics in articles and opinion pieces. This article explores Zion and its connection to land and to Judaism and its more modern day forms. Continue reading »
Israel and Zionists try to confuse the public by conflating Judaism with Zionism; they commit their crimes and hide behind the Jewish people. Palestinians, on the other hand, distinguish between Jews, Judaism and Zionism and hold the Zionists responsible for the crimes they commit against them, not the Jews. While the Zionists say, “Every Jew Continue reading »
John Menadue’s website adds real value across all aspects of Australia’s governance and policy development. Pearls and Irritations has become an exploratory platform for thinkers and analysts out to both share their insights and knowledge and test themselves against an informed peer group. In that way, John Menadue’s website adds real value across all aspects Continue reading »
In the economy, as in life, it helps a lot if you learn from your mistakes. Or, if you’re in public life, from the mistakes of your predecessors. Accordingly, the caning that former Reserve Bank governor Dr Philip Lowe got for his assurance that interest rates wouldn’t rise before 2024 does much to explain why Continue reading »
We live in an era of communicative abundance and post-truth politics, where networked digital platforms shape nearly every aspect of our daily lives, from information and communication to economic and social transactions. Digital platforms have transformed truth-claiming and fact-checking into an emotionally driven process, blurring the boundaries between information and misinformation, as well as opinion Continue reading »
Is China mired in economic misery while bogged down by old habits- or very successfully developing its exceptional manufacturing prowess as it expands and consolidates its influence across the Global South (and well beyond)? Never mind any apparent contradiction, one leading global weekly answers yes and yes to these two questions. As the Third Plenum Continue reading »
They bombed the Tabeen school in Gaza City with so much explosive force that not a single full body was recovered. It was just pieces of people everywhere. They bagged body parts in 70-kilogram piles to try and estimate a death toll. It was impossible to identify bodies or sort out which parts belonged where. Just one big stretch of undifferentiated Continue reading »
Wagenknechts Verteidigung der russischen Diktatur entspringt nicht nur den üblichen antiwestlichen Reflexen. Ihre vergifteten Forderungen nach einem vermeintlichen Frieden durch Unterwerfung sind nicht nur Ausdruck ihrer antifreiheitlichen Vorstellungen. Beides hängt eng mit ihrer ideologischen Nähe zum russischen autoritären Staat unter Putin zusammen. Das strategische Kalkül besteht darin, Russland als wichtigsten Wirtschaftspartner Deutschlands zu gewinnen, um so […]
It is not until the second half of Izabella Scott and Skye Arundhati Thomas’s short book that they reveal the meaning of their titular Pleasure Gardens. The first half of their text, subtitled Blackouts and the Logic of Crisis in Kashmir and illustrated with photographs by Kashmiri artists Nawal Ali, Ufaq Fatima and Zainab, is […]
The hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars used to build this new stadium will benefit everyone in our city, as long as they own the stadium and the billion-dollar sports team playing inside.
The stadium will be a community space enjoyed by all who can afford a $175 ticket and a steady supply of $37 Dasanis. It will be surrounded by luxurious new apartments (that I own), brand-new stores (that I own), and dozens of new locally owned restaurants that I’ll evict after six months to make room for a Wetzel’s Pretzels (that I own and enjoy).
We’re all going to benefit from the new jobs. We’ll need security guards to break up drunken brawls between sunburned stepdads, custodians to wipe up the puke off those stepdads’ inconsiderate stepsons, and plenty of whatever job deals with both of those groups barreling off the freeway in their Chevy Panzers.
I know I could pay for the stadium myself, but the community needs me to be frugal so I can fund other necessary developments like another country club for underprivileged CEOs.
Master Plan’s first episode explores a scandal that inspired groundbreaking anti-corruption legislation — if only the reforms could have lasted.
I’ve written before that I suspect this ongoing discontent with “the economy” actually stood in for something else: It was the age thing. That’s all it was. Oh, and by the way, inflation numbers came in today lower than expected. Sorry Donnie: Whatever that panic was last week seems to have been a bit …. uhm premature. Update: How about this? All that’s changed is that one of the old guys withdrew.
Start listening to the untold story of a decades-long scheme to steal democracy.
Israelis blame Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for dragging them into endless war — and are at a loss for how to carve a way out.
The post Israeli Society Is in a Deepening State of Contradiction appeared first on The Intercept.