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I have this friend. A mountain of unexpected medical debt buried his family at the start of last year. At the same time, the closing of his business stuck him with six figures of personal debt. Liquidating a retirement account and maxing out credit cards bought him short-term breathing room. Mostly, though, it added interest […]

The post The Valley of Hidden Sorrows appeared first on Zeldman on Web and Interaction Design.

On March 22, Wyoming became the 24th state to pass legislation restricting gender affirming care...

Rubio, desperate for the VP nod, attempts a full Pence It wasn’t pretty: Can Trump forgive him for this? Marco Rubio, the Florida senator who once suggested the size of Donald Trump’s hands indicated smaller-than-average reproductive anatomy when he and the future president both ran for president eight years ago, has indicated a willingness to serve as Mr Trump’s vice president should the 45th president succeed in becoming the 47th after the November presidential election. During one March 2016 primary debate, Mr Rubio responded to Mr Trump calling him “little Marco” by suggesting that Mr Trump’s genitals were undersized by remarking on the size of the New Yorker’s hands. “And you know what they say about guys with small hands,” said Mr Rubio, who was then a sitting senator while Mr Trump was merely a real estate developer turned reality television host. The future president defended his manhood shortly thereafter, falsely claiming that no one had ever commented on his hand size before even though the now-defunct Spy magazine had routinely referred to him as a “short-fingered vulgarian”.

Why it's time for new ways of naming life.

The post The End of Species appeared first on Nautilus.

In my new book Animals and Capital, I follow through the implications of Marx’s value theory for thinking about capitalist animal agriculture. One important argument of the book is that animal labour power can be understood from the perspective of value, and this provides a fresh way to look at the factory farm.

The post What is the Factory Farm? Notes from Animals and Capital appeared first on Progress in Political Economy (PPE).

Jonathan Chait with an elegant analysis of what Trump’s doing with his valoriztion of the insurrectionists: “Joe Biden’s team has elevated the ‘threat to democracy’ posed by Trump and his movement to a place of prominence in its appeals to voters,” complained National Review’s Noah Rothman, who has written elsewhere that Trump is no more a threat to democracy than Biden. “Making the cause of the January 6 rioters into a central feature of Trump’s campaign plays directly into Biden’s hands.” This is the extent of the Republican concern: Trump is alienating swing voters who might be receptive to messages about high grocery prices but respond nervously to blood-soaked vows to redeem his martyrs and purify the fatherland. But there is a perfectly cogent reason why Trump continues to press his most extreme demands, even at the cost of repulsing potential voters. He is no longer willing to accept the alliance of convenience with reluctant partners that held traditional Republicans like Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, and Reince Priebus by his side during his first term.

Faced with war across Europe, nineteenth century poet William Wordsworth asked, ‘What a fair world were ours for verse to paint, if Power could live at ease with self-restraint?’ He was following sixteenth century John Donne’s recognition of human interdependence, ‘No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continue reading »

For China these days it doesn’t get much easier to pursue it geostrategic objectives. With the US distracted on two fronts in Europe and the Middle East, and Russia mired in its intractable invasion of Ukraine, among the great powers, China is largely free to advance its interests on an increasingly global scale. Sabre rattling Continue reading »

Countless numbers of Gazans are facing or dying from famine, while Israel continues to make extreme statements and settler violence against Palestinians continues. There is outrage in the Australian community about Israel’s actions. It is time for Australia to act on its severe concerns. The AJDS calls for the Australian Government to ban the importation Continue reading »

US lawmakers have introduced a bill that would bar US mutual funds from investing in indexes that track Chinese stocks (Bloomberg). According to Bloomberg “The legislation targets mutual funds that invest in indexes tracking primarily Chinese stocks, rather than those investing in indexes that only include some Chinese companies, according to Sherman’s office. However, the Continue reading »

Of course, at this time of rising living costs, economic uncertainty, and impending climate disaster, subsidising the British and American submarine construction industrial bases is the obvious priority. At least it seems that way to the Albanese government. The lack of a convincing strategic justification for the AUKUS-SSNs is a separate matter from the approach Continue reading »

The best argument against having an explicit legislated or constitutional right of freedom of religion in Australia comes right out of the playbook of the No campaign during the referendum on a constitutional Voice for Indigenous Australians. There’s no particular problem of giving expression to one’s beliefs in this country, and almost any attempt to Continue reading »

Downplaying the seriousness of the Covid-19 sequelae known as “Long Covid” is a serious mistake. Last week much publicity was given to the suggestion from one team of researchers that the symptoms of “Long-Covid” were not significantly different from those that followed many viral infections and the term should be dropped. Long-Covid was just another Continue reading »

The recent decision by PM Albanese not to proceed with an important ALP election promise unless the Opposition supports the proposal surely runs counter to the two-party culture often claimed to be a holy aspect of the Westminster political system. At issue is the ALP’s promise to protect the right of religious schools to practice Continue reading »

On Palm Sunday, diverse refugee activists were literally running rings around reflexive fear mongering politicians. Palm Sunday rallies bring together Jew and Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist, many varieties of Christian, humanists and atheists to share a vision of ecumenical cooperation and tolerance. The rallies traditionally promote human rights and equity while also condemning war. Thinkers, believers Continue reading »

Saul Eslake, the renowned and independent economist, has updated his China chart pack which was last prepared in January 2023. The chart pack gives a bird’s eye view of the economic challenges China needs to address. By using the term ‘Peak China’, he does not mean that China will collapse, but that its future economic Continue reading »

By Kathleen McClellan - Jesselyn Radack: Salon.com It happened under Trump — and under Obama: The U.S. is using bad law to crack down on investigative journalism

Though utilizing it recently to promote the long-running show, BBC says that it will no longer use AI to promote Doctor Who moving forward.

Trump gets another break: A New York appeals court agreed to slash millions off of the bond Donald Trump must post to cover a $454 million civil fraud verdict while he appeals it, reducing it to $175 million after the real estate mogul claimed he’d have to sell properties at a loss to raise cash. The ruling Monday comes on the day Trump faced a deadline to either pay the fine or post a bond for 120% of the judgment to put it on hold while he appeals. That would have amounted to nearly $545 million dollars. He has 10 days to post the bond, the court ruled. The decision means Trump may be able to push ahead with his appeal without the risk of his assets being seized by New York Attorney General Letitia James for lack of payment. The appeals court did not offer any explanation behind their decision. Read the order. There’s more. This is a huge win for Trump. They don’t call him Teflon Don for nothing.

Hey there, it’s me. The CamelBak you bought in 2012 before a post-grad backpacking adventure. Remember that? You used to show me off to all your friends. I was a twenty-five-ounce, dishwasher-safe piece of proof of your commitment to the environment. You used to take me on trips. You even took me to work. We were inseparable.

Sure, I’ve been languishing in the back of your cupboard for the better part of a decade, but every relationship has its peaks and troughs, and I figured we’d get through the dry spell eventually. So imagine my surprise when I discovered that there was someone else—a pastel-colored interloper by the name of Stanley. A real blow to my confidence, that was.

We’ve been through a lot together, so I’m giving you an opportunity to be honest: Are you breaking up with me? I just need to know.