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Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – September 15 2024

by Tony Wikrent

Russia / Ukraine

Russia will be ‘at war’ with NATO if Ukraine long-range missile restrictions lifted, Putin warns

Avery Schmitz and Michael Conte, September 13, 2024 [CNN]

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned NATO alliance leaders that a move to lift restrictions on Ukraine’s use of longer-range Western missiles to strike deep inside his country would be considered an act of war.

Doctor Who understands one of the fundamental rules of good genre storytelling: snarky, sassy "Big Bads" are ALWAYS fun to watch.

GOWER INITIATIVE FOR MODERN MONEY STUDIES – WRITTEN EVIDENCE SND0019 – SUSTAINABILITY OF THE UK’S NATIONAL DEBT INQUIRY   Introduction 1.1    The national debt has been a recurring topic …

The post Submission to the “Sustainability of the UK’s national debt” Inquiry appeared first on The Gower Initiative for Modern Money Studies.

Schulden abzubauen gilt als generationengerecht. Schließlich, so das Argument, reduziere das die Zinslast zukünftiger Generationen. Das klingt nachvollziehbar, in der Realität ist es aber etwas komplizierter. Weniger Schulden sind nicht gleichbedeutend mit einer geringeren Zinslast. Denn zum einen genießt der Bund zeitweise ein ganz besonderes Privileg: Er zahlt nicht für seine Schulden, sondern wird dafür […]

Dear ES/PE community members, find below an abundant and excellent list of great academic opportunities: 25 calls for papers for conferences (some are partly funded) and special issues, 18 postdoc positions, 14 job openings, 7 PhD scholarships, 3 summer schools, and 2 visiting positions in economic sociology, political economy, and broadly related fields, with deadlines from September […]

'It’s estimated that ghost gear makes up at least 10% of marine litter. This roughly translates to between 500,000 and 1 million tons of fishing gear abandoned in the ocean each year.'

STUDENTS from five Northern Beaches schools have hit the stage for the first “Gawbarri garluguna – Gather become one” creative arts showcase. More than 500 public school student performers, and many more helping behind the scenes, worked incredibly hard to perform before a sold-out audience at the Wiigulga Sports Complex on Wednesday, 4 September. Advertise...

The post Creative Arts Showcase Brings Schools Together appeared first on News Of The Area.

TOORMINA Public School’s trivia team has done it again, winning the Rotary Club of Sawtell’s “famous” annual fundraiser. The Toormi Tropics were presented with the Highgrove Bathroom Cup for the highest scoring team as well as the third overall trivia prize. Advertise with News of The Area today. It’s worth it for your business. Message...

The post Toormina Public School team wins Sawtell Rotary’s trivia, again appeared first on News Of The Area.

THE Great Southern BioBlitz (GSBB) citizen science nature project is back and Coffs Harbour is looking to retain its place as one of the top regions in the Southern Hemisphere. In 2023, the area had the highest number of identified species uploaded to the iNaturalist app. Advertise with News of The Area today. It’s worth...

The post Coffs gears up for Great Southern Bioblitz appeared first on News Of The Area.

A COMMUNITY of surfers in Sawtell has staged a “sit-in” after Council stopped them relocating a picnic table from the top of Boambee Headland to a nearby site with special meaning. Their preferred location is 200 metres away on the edge of the footpath from Boambee Creek to Sawtell Beach. Advertise with News of The...

The post Surfers in wrangle with Council over bench move appeared first on News Of The Area.

Like most academics these days, I spend a lot of time filling in online forms. Mostly, this is just an annoyance but occasionally I get something out of it. A recent survey in which the higher-ups tried to get an idea of how the workforce was feeling, asked the question “Do you think of the […]

MACQUARIE University’s Widening Participation Unit (WPU) is hosting a Community Science Night in Coffs Harbour on Thursday, 19 September. This free event is for all local schools, students of all ages and their parents/carers, and is aimed at anyone interested in science. Advertise with News of The Area today. It’s worth it for your business....

The post Community Science Night in Coffs appeared first on News Of The Area.

Source - Patreon

Source - Patreon

Source - Patreon

Sadly, I can’t say that I was completely surprised by this: Bomb threats on Friday forced the evacuation and closure of public schools and municipal buildings [in Springfield, Ohio] for a second consecutive day, as the city continues to deal with sudden national attention due to false claims involving its Haitian population. Students at Perrin Woods and Snowhill Elementary Schools in Springfield “were evacuated from their buildings to an alternate district location,” school district spokesperson Jenna Leinasars said. […] In addition to those school evacuations, several city commissioners and a municipal employee were the target of an emailed bomb threat, city spokesperson Karen Graves said. […] Local police and FBI agents based in Dayton are working “to determine the origin of these email threats,” the city official said. The city just west of Columbus has been the focal point of a national political firestorm that has included false rumors that Haitian immigrants have been stealing and eating household pets. City officials and police have said there is no credible information to support those outlandish claims.

I thought I would share some good stuff I read this morning with gift links. This article in the NY Times is well worth reading in full. In fact, it’s delicious: Late in the summer of 2003, a team of television producers stepped off the elevator on the 26th floor of Trump Tower eager to survey the set of their next reality show. After years filming “Survivor” in jungles around the world, training cameras on exotic spiders and deadly snakes to evoke danger, they came looking for a different set of sensory clues, the tiny details that would convey wealth and power. Right away, they knew they had a problem. The first thing they noticed was the stench, a musty carpet odor that followed them like an invisible cloud. Then they spotted scores of chips in the finish of the wooden desks and credenzas. The décor felt long out of date, making the space seem like a time capsule from when Donald J. Trump opened the building early in his first rise to fame. The place did not exactly buzz with energy either. Fewer than 50 people worked at Trump Organization headquarters in midtown Manhattan. At the office’s spiritual center, Mr.

The husband had been a conspiracy theorist even before COVID came along. His wife described him as almost “cultlike” in his anti-vax beliefs. It’s clear he had untreated mental illness but the anti-Vax movement sent him into a spiral that resulted in this terrible tragedy. Via The Atavist: Over the course of their marriage, Hu had watched as her now ex-husband, Stephen O’Loughlin, became obsessed with pseudoscience, self-help gurus, and conspiracy theories, spending long nights watching videos online, then sharing the details of fantastical plots with Hu, their friends, and people he barely knew. The COVID-19 pandemic had only made things worse. O’Loughlin huddled for hours at his computer streaming YouTube clips and poring over right-wing websites—what he called “doing research.” One of O’Loughlin’s fixations was vaccines. He believed that Pierce had been damaged by the routine inoculations he received as a baby. O’Loughlin was adamant that the boy be given no more shots—not for COVID-19, when a vaccine was eventually authorized for kids, nor for any other disease.

1. How many of you think the Atlantic Alliance (NATO) needs reformation in some way?

2. How many of you think it is just fine the way it is?

3. How many of you think it should just be abolished?

If you could please limit your answer in the comments to 1, 2 or 3 I would be very appreciative. There will be a ful post for a full discussion of the issue soon. I want to get a sense of how everyone is thinking on this issue before I complete to essay.

Last night, Bill Maher made a joke about Trump and Laura Loomer having an affair. (It was cruder than that but basically that was it.) That theme was all over social media yesterday, starting with the big kahuna. above. Loomer was very, very upset about it: She should know about defamation and character assassination. It’s her entire brand: Uh huh:

Ok. It’s Donald Trump who believes he can change reality simply by saying something over and over again. And for about 46% of voters, it appears that he can. Not even a 3 point lead. Yes, I still think Harris will pull out a narrow win. But what do we do about the 46% of our fellow Americans who think that bigoted conman should run the country? Their willingness to believe his lies (or rationalize them) makes them monsters too, doesn’t it? (Or dangerous fools, if we want to be generous about it.) I knew we had been a racist, violent people. But I thought we had progressed further than this, I really did.

How can people vote again for this clown?