Reading

Created
Wed, 13/03/2024 - 04:51
The Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip announced that 2,000 healthcare workers in the northern Gaza Strip will begin the month of Ramadan without suhoor (the pre-dawn) or iftar (breakfast) meals.  Ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qudra said in a statement: “Medical teams are working around the clock in northern Gaza and have nothing to eat.” Continue reading »
Created
Wed, 13/03/2024 - 04:30
Brian Beutler had a keen insight in his newsletter today (you can subscribe here) into what’s driving some of Trump’s decisions right now and it seems pretty obvious to me that he is right. Trump is desperate for money and he is open for business, even on Social Security and Medicare which is extremely risky for him: Trump appeared on CNBC Monday—his first mainstream or quasi-mainstream interview in many weeks—and, when prodded over whether he’d reconsidered his position on entitlements, said he will indeed consider cutting the country’s two big retirement programs for seniors. Just like a fusty old Republican. “So first of all, there is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements in terms of cutting and in terms of also the theft and the bad management of entitlements,” Trump said. “There’s tremendous amounts of things and numbers of things you can do,” he added, before lapsing into blather. If you’re deep in the weeds on this stuff or a certain kind of know-it-all you can argue there’s nothing new here.
Created
Wed, 13/03/2024 - 04:00

Hey, thanks for coming out here. Yeah, we’ve been having trouble with this bathroom sink. So, uh, you know, have at it.

I’m still here, by the way. Not, like, here here—I’ve backed up enough to give you what feels like a healthy amount of personal space. But I am still close enough to watch you work on the sink. Not because I think you need supervision or because I don’t trust you or anything. I guess because you might have questions? Although if I was the type of person who could provide intelligent answers to questions about sinks, I probably would not have needed to call you in the first place.

So, yeah, I guess I have no idea why I’m still standing here, but for some reason it feels like it would be ruder to leave, especially now that I’ve already stayed here for what feels like between six seconds and an hour. So I’ll stick around.

Created
Wed, 13/03/2024 - 03:22
My Lords, it is a rare privilege for us to have the Foreign Secretary wind up a debate on foreign policy in this House. Such are the quirks of politics, I suppose. I shall concentrate on one topic, and that is economic sanctions. The sanctions regime has emerged as one of the most important tools … Continue reading Speech at the Foreign Affairs debate – Tuesday 5th March 2024
Created
Wed, 13/03/2024 - 03:17
In this briefing, we explain how the proposed changes to the UK data protection framework that would be introduced by the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill would weaken legal safeguards around the use of personal data for political purposes. What’s wrong with the DPDI Bill? WHY DATA PROTECTION MATTERS The use of personal data […]
Created
Wed, 13/03/2024 - 03:11
Dear Commissioner Reynders, The LIBE Committee closely follows the matters linked to the United Kingdom’s data protectionregime and adequacy findings granted to the UK by the European Commission. On 23 May 2023,LIBE committee Members exchanged views with the UK Information Commissioner, Mr JohnEdwards. The exchange constituted a follow-up to the LIBE committee’s mission to the […]
Created
Wed, 13/03/2024 - 03:07
Honourable Chair, dear Juan, Thank you for your letter of 13 June 2023, in which you ask the Commission about its assessmentof the UK’s Data Protection and Digital Information Bill that is currently before the UK Parliament.Let me start by recalling that, as regards adequacy decisions adopted by the EU, the Court of Justicehas clarified […]
Created
Wed, 13/03/2024 - 02:31
Dear Commissioner Reynders, On 23 May 2023, LIBE committee Members held an exchange of views with the UK InformationCommissioner, Mr John Edwards, which was organised as follow-up to the LIBE committee’smission to the United Kingdom in November 2022. During the exchange of views in the LIBE committee, Members raised their concerns with regardto draft Data […]
Created
Wed, 13/03/2024 - 01:30
Trump starts eating his own First they came for, etc. (Politico): Donald Trump’s newly installed leadership team at the Republican National Committee on Monday began the process of pushing out dozens of officials, according to two people close to the Trump campaign and the RNC. All told, the expectation is that more than 60 RNC staffers who work across the political, communications and data departments will be let go. Those being asked to resign include five members of the senior staff, though the names were not made public. Additionally, some vendor contracts are expected to be cut. In a letter to some political and data staff, Sean Cairncross, the RNC’s new chief operating officer, said that the new committee leadership was “in the process of evaluating the organization and staff to ensure the building is aligned” with its vision. “During this process, certain staff are being asked to resign and reapply for a position on the team.” The overhaul is aimed at cutting, what one of the people described as, “bureaucracy” at the RNC.
Created
Wed, 13/03/2024 - 01:00

Network, Learn, and Collaborate - The three key motivations for individuals and organizations to participate in conferences. Every regular conference has a theme or niche that serves as a focal point for discussions and advancement. These events serve as stages for personal branding and business promotion, with attendees aiming to gain insights and contacts that directly benefit their individual goals and organizational interests. 

Although open-source events rely on these key motivations too, they have a unique flavor of community spirit and collaboration that’s not found in traditional conferences. Open source events like DrupalCons thrive on shared knowledge, transparent innovation, and a sense of collective growth.

Created
Wed, 13/03/2024 - 00:32

Empires don’t just fall like toppled trees. Instead, they weaken slowly as a succession of crises drain their strength and confidence until they suddenly begin to disintegrate. So it was with the British, French, and Soviet empires; so it now is with imperial America. Great Britain confronted serious colonial crises in India, Iran, and Palestine before plunging headlong into the Suez Canal and imperial collapse in 1956. In the later years of the Cold War, the Soviet Union faced its own challenges in Czechoslovakia, Egypt, and Ethiopia before crashing into a brick wall in its war in Afghanistan. America’s post-Cold War victory lap suffered its own crisis early in this century with disastrous invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Now, looming... Read more

Created
Wed, 13/03/2024 - 00:00

- - -

Masters of the Nefarious is a cult classic comic by the pseudonymous French artist Pierre La Police. It’s being published for the first time in English by New York Review Comics in a translation from the French by Luke Burns.

In this excerpt from the book, Chris, Montgomery, and Fongor, the paranormal investigators known as the Masters of the Nefarious, arrive on an island they believe may hold the key to solving their latest case. Can our heroes follow the clues without getting sidetracked?

Created
Wed, 13/03/2024 - 00:00
“Journalists seem bored by the biggest story of our lifetimes” Donald “91 Counts” Trump hopes to be reelected president so he can prevent himself from facing justice. Meanwhile, he misuses the justice system’s very due-process features intended to prevent an innocent person from being wrongly convicted to stave off facing a jury of his peers, journalist Mark Jacob tells Greg Sargent. “These are not the actions of an innocent man,” says Jacob, criticizing the press for whitewashing this as politics as usual. Sargent writes: Over the weekend, The New York Times published a news analysis titled, “The Biden-Trump rerun: A nation craving change gets more of the same.” This has become a constant refrain in the press: One of the candidates is running on an explicit set of promises to destroy American democracy, yet the press keeps calling this a “rematch” of 2020, almost as if it’s all a sporting event.  Trump “wants to be a fascist dictator of the United States,” and the press treats it like old news, Jacob complains.