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After 21 years at Swinburne University of Technology, APO will be joining the Susan McKinnon Foundation to continue it’s vital … More

I am offering this thoughtful piece on the sexual violence of October 7th by Jill Filipovic with a gift link because I really want you to be able to read the whole thing. There’s so much sturm und drang around this topic that it’s hard to ever find clarity. This is one of the rare articles that provides it without pandering, excusing or obfuscating the reality. She discusses in detail how difficult it was to get reliable forensic evidence in the aftermath of the attack and explains why it was important, as a journalist, to wait for the facts. Reporting of sexual violence is war is always fraught and with all discussions of rape it’s important to be precise because so often the reflexive response is to dismiss it. But that’s not the whole story here: But soon after the attacks, the evidence started to come in, and it took the form that evidence of wartime rape often does: accounts from survivors of the attacks, emergency responders, medical personnel, those who examined the bodies and journalists who were permitted to see some attack footage.

“Wings Over the World.” That was the proclamation I quite thoughtfully had inscribed beneath my high school graduation yearbook photo. Because “Wings Over America” seemed a bit understated for how I truly felt about that band during those musically formative … Continue reading →

Talking politics in a polarized society can get heated fast. Chatbots could help us keep our cool.

The post AI Can Help Democracy appeared first on Nautilus.

I suspect you haven’t heard about this. The only hysterical headlines are the ones that show Biden losing. Ok, so what about those battleground states everyone was shrieking about the other day based on one poll? Oh. And then there’s this: This is good too: I’m not saying these things mean any more than anything else going into the election year. We don’t know what is really going to motivate people next November. But there’s no reason to discount them either. Let’s just say that there is a lot of information out there and there’s no reason to fall into a doom spiral just because the media likes to play up the negative Biden stories. It’s Happy Hollandaise Time! If you’ve of a mind…

Anthony Albanese has shifted his position on a ceasefire under pressure from sustained protests at Israel’s genocidal onslaught on Gaza—but still won’t demand Israel stop the bombing.

The post Albanese still backing Israel’s onslaught despite ceasefire gesture first appeared on Solidarity Online.

Owen Jones kindly invited me back to his show to discuss, what else, Gaza. We talk about the peculiarity of this genocide (i.e., that its perpetrators do not even care to hide their intent), the forgotten readiness of Western governments to brutalise not only foreign peoples (like the Palestinians) but also their own working classes, […]

The post Working toward snatching humanist hope from the jaws of the unfolding genocide in Gaza. In conversation with Owen Jones appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.

Earlier this year, before Hamas’ attack and Israel’s siege of Gaza, and before the House...

Christopher Eccleston wouldn't consider an on-screen return to Doctor Who as the Ninth Doctor unless Russell T. Davies & others were fired.

The transformative power of seeing your life as a hero’s journey. A reporter’s eyewitness account.

The post We Can Be Heroes appeared first on Nautilus.

As John F. Kennedy warned in 1960, Israel has become a "garrison state" surrounded by "hate and fear." The assassination of John F Kennedy ensured Zionist control of Israel, suffering for Palestinians, and permanent instability.

The post From Dallas to Gaza: The JFK Assassination was Good for Zionist Israel appeared first on MintPress News.

It’s time for my annual-ish reading round-up. Record-keeping has many benefits, chief amongst them, counter-intuitive insights. This year’s book diary has revealed that in a year I’d have said was pretty so-so, it turns out the number of books I really loved was unexpectedly high, about three times that of the previous two years. The […]

An election year like no other If you hadn’t already had your mind blown by what these authoritarian MAGA monsters are capable of, all you had to do was observe the grotesque display that the Texas government put on this week. The despicable cruelty they dispensed upon a woman and her family enduring one of the worst crises of her life says it all. They didn’t care that she was carrying a fetus with anomalies so extreme that it would probably be stillborn or live for a very short time if it were brought to term. There was no hope. Nor did they care that her pregnancy was risky and dangerous to her and her ability to have more children in the future. Instead, they demanded that she endure the full length of that pregnancy anyway, no matter the price she and her family would have to pay and go through childbirth all in order to appease fundamentalist demands that essentially define pregnant women as incubators and nothing more. She finally had to flee to a civilized place that recognized her as a human being. This issue is not going away.

He’s right there. Why won’t they talk to him in public? Hunter Biden wants a public hearing for good reason! The Democrats are backing him: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., backed that call for a public hearing while speaking to reporters on Wednesday. She was one of multiple Democratic lawmakers to address Republicans’ impeachment inquiry of Biden, including Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., who described in the investigation as “more like a what-is-it, not a whodunnit.” “I won’t even call it an investigation, I’ll call it an exercise in futility,” Ocasio-Cortez said about the Hunter Biden investigation, describing it as “groundless and unsubstantiated.” The New York congresswoman said there is more pressing business than Hunter Biden. “We need to do far more than worry about baseless investigations that are conducted more on podcasts than, frankly, on a grounding of evidence,” she said. Aaaaand, needless to say, Republicans are having a hissy fit: Lol. Here’s how that ended: Hunter Biden did the right thing.

December 24

• Deck the halls, etc.
• Prep full turkey dinner
• Make sure Janie nails down “Hark!”
• TINSEL
• See if George remembers to pick up the Merry Christmas wreath
• The families are coming. Spike the eggnog

December 25

• Clean the house because of the “miracle” (I didn’t know the entire town was coming over and they were going to drag all the snow in and SING)
• Send thank you notes to everyone we’ve ever met, I guess. Even Sam “still-with-the-hee-haw?” Wainwright
• Have a heart-to-heart with George to see if he’s okay. Also talk to Pete, Janie, and Tommy. And whoever at the Building & Loan lets Uncle Billy keep a pet squirrel
• Prep another full turkey dinner. Apparently
• Make more cookies? Violet is still passed out in my mudroom
• It’s just—we live in upstate New York, and everyone forgot to stomp the snow off their boots before coming in?
• Who the heck is Clarence?

December 26

• Take a breath.

It is urgent to end the loss of life and destruction in Gaza, but as the joint Statement by the Prime Ministers of Australia, Canada and New Zealand recognises, a sustainable ceasefire will require agreement to a balanced set of conditions consistent with eventually achieving a lasting peace based on a two-State solution. This is Continue reading »

I do not believe that anything I say about what is happening in Gaza will affect Israeli or American policy in that conflict. But I want to be on record so that when historians look back on this moral calamity, they will see that some Americans were on the right side of history. What Israel Continue reading »

With some honourable exceptions, most of the media and the parliament enthusiastically support almost everything the Director General of the Australian Secret Intelligence Organisation Mike Burgess has to say. Although Burgess is not an extreme hardliner in the Australian intelligence world, many of his statements should not go unchallenged. Earlier this year, Burgess said foreign Continue reading »

Another year passes and Australian citizen, journalist and publisher, Julian Assange is still detained in the UK as the US continues its pursuit of extradition for publishing material over a decade ago which revealed war crimes committed by the US and its allies in Afghanistan and Iraq. The US’ blatant attack on freedom of speech Continue reading »