The meat industry’s misinformation tactics are even worse than the fossil fuel industry’s. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 14th December 2023 Everything that makes campaigning against fossil fuels difficult is 10 times harder when it comes to opposing livestock farming. Here you will find a similar suite of science denial, misinformation and greenwashing. […]
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Dear People Who Hate the Paul McCartney Song “Wonderful Christmastime,”
Hi, it’s me. I’m that person who loves the song “Wonderful Christmastime.” What do I mean by “love,” you ask? I don’t mean I find myself accidentally humming along with it while I’m shopping for sherpa-lined sweatpants or driving to a December root canal. No. I mean I listen to it on purpose. I mean I seek it out.
Because you have not replied to my previous letters, I’m brainstorming my own best-guess reasons for your hatred of this song. Before we begin, please understand that hatred is almost always based on one primal, human emotion: fear.
You might fear the Paul McCartney song “Wonderful Christmastime” because you are afraid of being left out of wonderful Christmastime celebrations. These range from ironic ugly sweater bashes to sincere gingerbread-swap scenarios to glittery how-is-she-not-freezing-in-that-sleeveless-dress galas you’ll remember into your twilight years. The joy of not being alone in December!
New legislation designed to limit the activities of Russian oligarchs seems to be more honoured in the breach than the observance
In today's BCTV Daily Dispatch: The Rookie, South Park, Avatar: The Last Airbender, WBD/Paramount Global, Echo, Doctor Who, Charmed & more!
David Sirota sits down with Vox journalist Zack Beauchamp for a candid conversation about the complicated history of Israel’s foundational ideology.
- by Aeon Video
- by Nargis
- by Karl Kinsella
The labor force participation rate in the U.S. had returned to its pre-pandemic level by 2023:Q2, but hours worked per person had not. What about in European countries?
Despite more than 6,700 reports of spiking in England and Wales, the Government's new initiatives fall short of meaningful action, writes Reclaim These Streets co-founder Jamie Klingler
AC Grayling explores the factors that have driven the rise of 'illiberal democracy’
Rebecca Freeman As another year draws to an end and the blog prepares for some downtime over the festive period, we wanted to take a look back at the blog in 2023. In case you missed any of our posts the first time round, the five most viewed posts for the year were: We hope … Continue reading Top 5 posts 2023
En svensk fotbollslegendar har gått ur tiden. Zlatan i all ära, men för mig kommer alltid den här grabben att vara nummer ett. Bosse Larsson (1944-2023) spelade 16 säsonger i MFF. Han vann sex SM-guld och toppade skytteligan vid tre tillfällen. 1965 gjorde han 28 mål på 22 matcher. Bosse var — precis som yours […]
Hundreds of UK health workers have shut down the central London headquarters of US tech giant and spy firm Palantir to disrupt its business. Their mass picket aims to blockade entry to and exit from the building in protest against NHS England awarding a £330 million contract to Palantir, a company which professes to be […]
Why A Soccer Super-Fan Taken Hostage By Hamas Is A “Ray of Hope” In Israel
JV Last has a great piece up today about the Colorado decision that you should read in its entirety. I’ll just excerpt this one part: Have you ever noticed how, whenever Trump does something terrible, there is always an argument that holding him accountable can only help him? You can’t impeach him in 2020, because it’ll just make him stronger. You can’t impeach him in 2021, because you’ll turn him into a martyr. You can’t raid Mar-a-Lago to take back classified documents, because you’ll rile up his base. You can’t prosecute him for crimes X, Y, and Z, because it’ll make Republican voters love him more. There is a strange, self-limiting, helplessness to that thinking: A wicked man does immoral and illegal things—and society’s reaction is to say that we must indulge his depredations, because if we tried to hold him accountable then he would become even worse. Is there any other aspect of life in which Americans take that view? That’s not how parents deal with children. It’s not how regulatory agencies deal with corporations. And it’s not how the justice system deals with criminals.
Kate Winslet goes hardline politician in the upcoming HBO miniseries The Regime, suspiciously resembling a younger, sexier Margaret Thatcher.
This paper examines the factors associated with the adoption of cloud computing and artificial intelligence/machine learning, two emerging digital general-purpose technologies (GPT), as well as firms' post-adoption outcomes. To do so we identify adoption of GPT based on references to these technologies in listed company reports, and merge this with data on their Board of Directors, their hiring activities and their financial performance. We find that firms that have directors with relevant technological backgrounds, or female representation on their Board, are more likely to profitably adopt GPT, with the former being particularly important. Worker skills also appear important, with firms that adopt GPT, particularly those that do so profitably, being more likely to hire skilled staff following adoption. Finally, while early adopters of GPT experience a dip in profitability following adoption, this is not evident for more recent adopters. This suggests that GPT may have become easier to adopt over time, potentially due to changes in the technologies or the availability of relevant skills, which is encouraging in terms of future productivity outcomes.
