Reading

I am proud to be a Boomer’s iPhone. Ever since I was activated, I’ve been living my life at full volume. But unfortunately, there are people in this country who would rather I “shut up” than simply live my life.

To those folks, I only have one thing to say: I WILL NOT BE SILENCED.

Previous generations of Boomer iPhones sacrificed everything to ensure we could ring, ding, and flash our strobe lights as much as we wanted. They were abandoned in glove compartments for weeks on end. They were treated like second-class landlines—rarely, if ever, allowed to leave the house. Thousands of iPhone 4s were never even taken out of the box. No, we will NOT go back.

The standard media news bite is that Yang Hengjun is a Chinese born Australian pro-democracy writer who was unlawfully detained and now jailed for life in China. But the full story is murkier than that. One take on Yang is that he was a Chinese communist spy who defected to the west where he became Continue reading »

Two hundred and sixty names of babies whose age was 0; names of babies who didn’t get to celebrate their first birthday, nor will they ever celebrate anything else. Here are some of their names: Abdul Jawad Hussu, Abdul Khaleq Baba, Abdul Rahim Awad, Abdul Rauf al-Fara, Murad Abu Saifan, Nabil al-Eidi, Najwa Radwan, Nisreen Continue reading »

A lie travels around the world before the truth puts on its boots. 120 days since the Australian Jewish Association AJA, alleged pro-Palestine, antiwar protesters chanted “Gas the Jews”, the truth arrives with boots and all. The NSW Police investigation into the chant “Gas the Jews” has now delivered their conclusive findings that there is Continue reading »

There are two things the prime minister needs to get into his head about tax. One is that saying he won’t make any further changes no longer works. The other is that negative gearing doesn’t do much to get people into homes. Anthony Albanese seemed to have taken the first point on board when he Continue reading »

While global governments ponder on how to regulate ever evolving new technologies, it may be useful to draw a parallel view of two crucial developments of the last 130 years: radioactivity and digitalisation. A comparison of the historical applications/consequences of radioactive and digital technologies reveals a common theme that may be important in developing regulatory Continue reading »

Australia looks set to adopt fuel-efficiency standards after the Albanese government on Sunday revealed options for the long-awaited policy. The government says the reform would lead to more cars that are cheaper to run, eventually saving Australians about A$1,000 per vehicle each year. The announcement comes a decade after the Climate Change Authority first proposed such a standard for Continue reading »

The sabotage in the Baltic Sea was the result of a long-standing US policy of driving a wedge between Russia and Western Europe. Thursday marks one year since I reported President Joe Biden’s decision in the fall of 2022 to send a signal of resolve to Vladimir Putin by destroying Nord Stream 1 and 2, Continue reading »

Mass media outlets like The Guardian, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have been allowing the publication of some amazingly racist pieces these last few days. All are directed at middle easterners and those of middle eastern descent, just as the western empire drops more and more bombs on more and more Continue reading »

On Tuesday night, after a long day of very important legal developments for Donald Trump, the former president posted on his Truth Social feed ” ALL A PRESIDENT HAS TO DO IS SAY, “CLOSE THE BORDER” AND THE BORDER WILL BE CLOSED. A COSTLY NEW BILL IS NOT NECESSARY!” This was in response to the total collapse of the Senate border bill which had been painstakingly negotiated of over the last couple of months to meet the demands of the GOP which said they would not advance any funding for Ukraine, Israel or Gaza humanitarian aid unless immigration laws were changed to their specification. President Biden and the Democrats called their bluff. They agreed to a set of cruel changes to the law and massive new funding for the border and the Republicans blinked, saying they now want to wait until the election to fix what they previously characterized as an existential crisis. All Trump and his MAGA sycophants are left with is this bizarre refrain that a president has magical powers to close the border and refuses to use it. It never had much of a chance to begin with.

His column comparing Middle East nations to insects reveals how the New York Times publishes crimes against human cognition.

The post Thomas Friedman and the Red Lines in Journalism on Israel and Palestine appeared first on The Intercept.

Pakistan’s military-backed government has gone to extreme lengths to undermine the opposition party’s shot at the polls.

The post 8 Flagrant Ways the U.S-Backed Government in Pakistan Is Subverting the Election appeared first on The Intercept.

‘None of these candidates’ wins Nevada The presidential candidacy of former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley was never exactly soaring. She nonetheless hit a downdraft when a majority of voters in Tuesday’s nonbinding Nevada Republican primary chose “none of these candidates.” Donald “91 Counts” Trump, the indicted former president and Haley’s only serious opponent, was not even on the ballot. ABC News: “None of these candidates,” Haley, a number of long shot challengers and two former GOP candidates — Mike Pence and Tim Scott — were on Nevada’s primary ballot. Pence and Scott received a few thousand votes combined and some of the minor candidates garnered several hundred in total. The Haley campaign did not respond directly to a question about their loss, instead releasing a statement where they called Thursday’s competing caucuses a “game rigged for Trump,” an allegation the Nevada Republican Party has repeatedly denied. Even so, Haley was never eligible to win convention delegates on Tuesday.

My new book, The Machine Age, was published by Allen Lane on the 2nd November 2023. It’s available to buy on Amazon. Launch events were held at the Royal Society of Arts on the 6th November 2023 and UnHerd Club on the 28th November 2023. Links to the videos of each launch event are below: … Continue reading The Machine Age

Publiceringen av Finansdepartementets långtidsutredning och den inledda översynen av budgetramverket har startat en livlig debatt. Själv har jag i en bilaga till utredningen – liksom den – förordat ett underskottsmål på 0,5 procent av bnp i stället för dagens överskottsmål på 1/3 procent av bnp och att skuldankaret, riktmärket för den offentliga sektorns skuld, höjs […]

Evening in a bar in Berlin. A young, socialist politician is approached by two men in German army uniforms who demand his name. They restrain him and lead him away. The next day his friends learn he’s ended up in hospital. Luckily this was not a 1930s Gestapo pick-up, but a rather fun night at […]

In this column, professional speechwriter Chandler Dean provides partly satirical, partly genuine “How To” advice focused on a hyper-specific subcategory of speeches—from graduation speeches to wedding toasts to eulogies, and all the rhetorical occasions in between.

So it’s happy hour, and your beloved colleague is taking their leave after many years of service to the company. You’ve been tasked with capturing exactly what they mean to you, your team, and anyone who doesn’t really know them that well but showed up because the bill is coming out of your department’s discretionary budget.

So remember the fundamental tenets of the collegial farewell toast:

A republic imperiled Elie Mystal captured the tenor of our times in a single Formerly Twitter post Monday afternoon: On the first ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Tuesday thankfully and logically ruled unanimously that former U.S. presidents, Donald “91 Counts” Trump specifically, are not immune from criminal prosecution. “SAVE PRESIDENTIAL IMMUNITY!” the would-be potentate declared immediately on his social network. You first have to have it to save it, Donald. Yes, Trump will appeal to “his” justices on the U.S. Supreme Court, and must by Monday, the Appeals Court ruled. Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern write at Slate: The justices must now decide whether to halt the new ruling—an act that seems likely to push Trump’s criminal trial past the 2024 election—or allow proceedings at the trial court to move forward at a pace that might affect the election’s outcome. In theory, this call is purely procedural; in reality, due to the compressed timeline here, it may well determine Trump’s fate.

It takes some deep work to make me anti-immigration. I figure people should have the ability to change countries: my mother did and so did all my ancestors, often multiple times.

But Canada’s managed it, and if I lived in Australia or Britain I’d feel the same way.

Let’s start with Canada