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It pains us to admit that in today’s fast-paced world, there is constant pressure to be stylish and relevant. Take blue jeans for instance - the never-ending list of new trends or the infinite number colours, cuts and styles seem to justify our temptation. We are pressured to be new and different, yet forced to conform.

Amidst this desire, many of us are aware that the costs of our purchases are much more than the dollar sum at the check-out. The thought that our new pair of jeans is likely produced by an impoverished, underpaid labourer in South-East Asia lies dormant at the back of our minds, as does the knowledge that its production will emit somewhere between 33 and 80 kilograms of CO2 into the atmosphere. However, the vast distance between our everyday lives and the reality of hot sweaty factories and smoggy skies renders the gravity of our purchase insignificant. After all, what’s the hurt in just one more pair?

The post Blue Jeans appeared first on Progress in Political Economy (PPE).

Peter Jukes draws out the connections between the violence on Britain's streets and the Capitol Insurrection

Over at Responsible Statecraft there is a symposium on the Ukraine’s Kursk Incursion and what it means down the road. I read all the entries and there is a general consensus that in the long run the incursion is more likely than not a strategic mistake. And then every single on of the commenters adds their “but” to the conversation. Obviosuly, I tend to see the world as John Mearsheimer does, but found the symposium a useful tool to gauge the thoughts of International Relations scholars across the spectrum. As I said, there is a general consensus. Give it a read, it’ll only cost you 15 minutes, tops.

I’ve been pointing this out for a while, but now the media is noticing: Trump is relying on his “election integrity” goons to intimidate voters.. And if that doesn’t work, they’ll use the chaos they create to contest the election. They aren’t even trying to legitimately win. Some Republicans worry that Trump’s focus on preventing a “rigged” election has hurt the party’s ground game, the get-out-the-vote operations that can be crucial in an election as close as this one. Trump’s “election integrity” team also has raised concerns among Democrats about potential voter intimidation at the polls. If Trump loses on Nov. 5, the election teams would be his evidence collectors for what almost certainly would be a barrage of legal challenges — and calls for state officials not to certify the election results.  Early on, Trump told his team to pour its resources into “election integrity” efforts, saying that he’d take care of generating excitement and turning out voters for his campaign against President Biden.

Resolution of the tension between President Biden’s policy of strengthening America’s position through allies and partners, and the US Navy’s (USN) mission requirements, will come to a head in the next president’s term. The AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines will be at the centre. Biden has stressed American leadership in mobilising allies and partners to address global Continue reading »

Australia has a long and proud history of assisting people fleeing war and conflict. The degree and type of assistance we have provided has varied considerably but we have never applied a blanket ban on helping people fleeing war and conflict. Not until Peter Dutton. While the precise details of his policy position are sparse Continue reading »

Many are disillusioned by the uncaring policies and actions of the two old parties, Labor and the LNP, to the real needs of the Australian public today. Greens believe everyone should be given ‘a fair go’, not just fussing over a pandered elite and multinational corporation lobbies. Read exclusive AMUST interview with Max Chandler-Mather opening Continue reading »

Karen Iles, lawyer and founder of the Make Police Investigate Campaign, has called for extensive reform to justice and policing systems across Australia in evidence provided to the Federal Inquiry into Missing and Murdered First Nations Women and Children. Ms Iles said that while the increased national focus on the death of women at the Continue reading »

Iran made two attempts to free its oil fields from Western domination. Since the Islamic revolution of Ayatollah Komeini in 1979, Iran has kept Western companies out. They paid a huge price, a trade embargo lasting some 40 years. Is a new attack on Iran in the offing [read more] Continue reading »

Long may P & I continue to add its perceptive voice to our national debate. For years now, Kristin and I have been the grateful recipients of John and Susie Menadue’s daily online bulletin of informed and expert opinion, Pearls and Irritations. In a media dominated increasingly by one strident ideological viewpoint, that of neo-liberalism, Continue reading »

Major international media outlets face a dilemma over whether to adapt newsroom practices to the World Court’s judgment last month on Israel’s illegal occupation. Major international media outlets face a dilemma over whether to adapt reporting to the World Court’s judgment last month that Israel is an apartheid state illegally occupying Palestinian territory or continue to Continue reading »

Fear of China is often used to explain NATO’s desire to expand into Asia. The headline reason masks a longing to restore a romanticised empire. Continue reading »

According to one book, both a lot and very little has changed in the last 100 years.

As Israel intensifies its brutal assault on Gaza, the systematic use of rape, torture, and psychological warfare seeks to break Palestinian resistance.

The post Why Israeli Soldiers Rape appeared first on MintPress News.

Jill Filipovic analyzes the latest JD Vance atrocity: The latest unearthed audio has him agreeing with a conservative podcast host on what women are for once we hit menopause: Helping to raise children is “the whole purpose of the postmenopausal female.” The whole purpose. Vance has opinions about many different kinds of women. Those who don’t have kids are “childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too” and lack “a direct stake in the future of the country.” Women who care about their work and plan their families are suckers: “If your worldview tells you that it’s bad for women to become mothers but liberating for them to work 90 hours a week in a cubicle at the New York Times or Goldman Sachs, you’ve been had,” he tweeted after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Step mothers (and step parents generally), he has suggested, are not real parents.

Oh my god, hi!! I am SO sorry to do this, but we have your wife Jenna, and if you don’t pay us $20 million in unmarked bills by tomorrow night, we are gonna have to kill her. So sorry about this!!

We are a group of private individuals who disagree with your amoral business practices and have kidnapped your wife, because four of us are Scorpios, and you know how we are when we get together—you better be glad we didn’t make a worse mess of this, LOL. We follow your public stock holdings and know you have the money. Please follow our instructions to the letter if you want to see your wife again, and I know you do because she is super pretty!!

Just to say it again: SO sorry about this, I know this is annoying, ugh.

To prove that we have her, we’ve enclosed some hair—that’s right, we gave her bangs. She is going through a tough time right now because she is kidnapped, and everyone agreed that letting her get bangs would make her feel free and in control of her own future. She looks SO cute!!!! You should absolutely pay us so you can see the bangs.

Many of these highly skilled former soldiers, including a former major general, are now working in low-wage jobs such as cleaners or delivery drivers due to current rules

Donald Trump is all too literally the candidate from hell and, yes, he’s threatening to take the United States and the world to — no place else! — hell and back. He’s the greatest danger to this planet imaginable. And I’m not even thinking about what else he’d do, were he to win election 2024 and return to the Oval Office, having reassured his religious voters that, should they opt for him this November, they’ll never have to do so again. (“Get out and vote, just this time… You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what? It’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians.”) Forget all of that,... Read more

Source: The Candidate from Hell appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

Last week’s far-right riots brought chaos to communities across the country, perhaps most notably in parts of the North East. The pattern of locations might initially have seemed random, but it quickly became clear that there was a concerted effort to seize upon some of the country’s most deprived areas to drive a racist agenda. […]

The post Doctor Who Magazine 606 winners appeared first on Doctor Who Magazine.

Reproductive justice advocates warn that stopping at enshrining Roe’s protections would allow abortion bans and restrictions to flourish.

The post By Vowing to Codify Roe, Kamala Harris Ensures Continued Government Meddling in Abortion Care appeared first on The Intercept.

. Einer der grundlegenden Denkfehler in der heutigen Diskussion über Staatsverschuldung und Haushaltsdefizite ist, dass man nicht zwischen verschiedenen Arten von Schulden unterscheidet. Auch wenn es auf makroökonomischer Ebene zwangsläufig so ist, dass Schulden und Vermögen einander ausgleichen, ist es keineswegs unerheblich, wer die Vermögen besitzt und wer die Schulden trägt. Lange Zeit war man […]

Tim Walz is America’s dad.

George Washington is America’s father.

Pedro Pascal is America’s daddy.

Jimmy Carter is America’s “one that got away.”

Stanley Tucci is America’s second husband who breathed new life into America as America was picking up the pieces after America’s divorce.

Kamala Harris is America’s cool aunt who gets called in the middle of the night to come to the rescue and pick America up because America is stuck at a keg party with a bunch of weird townies in the middle of a field and no ride home. And while she’ll be disappointed, she’ll be cool and not tell America’s parents.

Kathryn Hahn is America’s other cool aunt who would also come pick America up, but she will stay at the townie party for an hour and shoot some bottles off the hood of a Chevy Silverado.

Betty White is forever America’s favorite grandmother—the good one who tells you stories about getting zooted on quaaludes in the ’50s and not the one on the other side of the family who says “oriental” when describing people and not rugs.

Dolly Parton is America’s mom.

RuPaul is Mother.

I was busy working (scrolling Instagram) when an ad for this product caught my eye. The promo page contained an alarming amount of content about a fictional merger (“THE MERGER”) between Peanut Butter Group and Chocolatey Corp to create a company playfully nicknamed “PBC.”

The website included a timeline of the two businesses, bios about the CEOs (one of whom was played by Gerri from Succession in a tiny movie that accompanied the text), even a twenty-three-slide PowerPoint presentation, which I admit I downloaded but only glanced at, because I draw the line at performing labor for peanut butter under late capitalism.

Clearly, Jif’s marketing department understood the assignment and really, really committed to the bit. But corporations skew evil and the characters on Succession were soulless greed goblins. And while that made for some excellent prestige TV, why would comparing the creation of choco-fied peanut butter to a corporate acquisition make me want to eat it?

As the climate changes, how much should we intervene to save species?