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Created
Sat, 09/12/2023 - 04:52
On 23 November, a boatload of asylum seekers was dispatched to Nauru for offshore detention. They were found wandering the coast of Western Australia by Aboriginal people, three days earlier. This has been Australian policy for unauthorised boat arrivals since 2013; 10 arrivals in the past year. But there was a time when asylum seekers Continue reading »
Created
Sat, 09/12/2023 - 04:51
Why the RBA Board should enjoy the break on a houseboat ride, the ABC gives selected politicians licence to spread fear, bullshit, lies and division just because they are called “the opposition”, sex and the cost of living, immigrants’ kids do better at school than Australian-born kids, cleaning up the mess of another failed privatisation. Continue reading »
Created
Sat, 09/12/2023 - 04:50
The US has been ruthlessly militarising what some Pentagon strategists have called the island chains of defence in the Indo-Pacific with quiet ‘Five Eyes’ help. There are many straits and passages with unfamiliar names across the Indo-Pacific. Some are potential flashpoints in the event of a regional war. The Taiwan Strait is the best known. Continue reading »
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Sat, 09/12/2023 - 04:02

Lenny Moskalyk headshot

We're thrilled to introduce Lenny Moskalyk, one of the newest members on the Drupal Association Board. Lenny is a Senior Project Manager at Cocomore and is involved in organizing DrupalCamp Kyiv. She's actively engaged in the Ukrainian Drupal Community and serves as an Advisory Board Member of DrupalCon Europe, among other contributions to various Drupal events. Recently, Lenny received the Women in Drupal 2023 award in the ‘Scale’ category, given to those who boost growth in Drupal—her accomplishments that led to this award represent the value of growth within the Drupal Community. 

Lenny recently joined the Drupal Association Board, and she shares her insights on this exciting journey:

Created
Sat, 09/12/2023 - 04:00
Oh my God Many breathless headlines have appeared in the mainstream media over the past few weeks about the impending dictatorship of Donald Trump if he were to win the election next fall. All the major newspapers and magazines have finally begun to delve into exactly what Trump and his henchmen have in store in order to exact his revenge and enact the white nationalist agenda of the MAGA far right. It’s about time. Let’s hope they keep it up. Here are just a few of the proposals that we know about. He plans to gut the EPA, and drill in Alaska to under the illusion that somehow the “profits” will pay for Social Security and medicare (a totally absurd proposal.) He’s going to use the Insurrection Act to deploy the military to quell domestic dissent and he’ll ban homeless camps in cities and put the unhoused in camps as well. And there are very detailed plans to round up millions of migrants and put them in detention camps prior to mass deportation.
Created
Sat, 09/12/2023 - 03:25
Apokalypsens fyra ryttare är här – för att dra ned brallorna på de neoklassiska ekonomerna. I det tysta pågår en revolution inom det ekonomiska fältet, och längst fram på barrikaderna står en grupp kvinnliga forskare. Det kan vara svårt att känna hopp när både höstens och den reaktionära samtidens mörker lägger sig över oss. Därför […]
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Sat, 09/12/2023 - 03:14

During the 1980 us presidential election Ronald Reagan asked a rhetorical question of his audience: ‘Are you better off now than you were four years ago?’ Reagan as Republican candidate went on to win a landslide victory against the Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter. The Labour Party has recently adopted this rhetorical tactic. ‘Ask yourself this,’ […]

Created
Sat, 09/12/2023 - 03:13

The era of easy money is officially over. Central banks around the world have spent the last two years steadily raising interest rates, making borrowing more expensive for everyone — including governments — in an effort to bring down inflation. After a decade of low interest rates, during which time we were told there was no money […]

Created
Sat, 09/12/2023 - 03:12

In Victorian London, King’s Cross was a crucial industrial hub. At one point, the former coal depot along Regent’s Canal handled 1,000 tons of coal a day. But, like many parts of the country, the area was hit hard by deindustrialisation. Warehouses handling coal and goods that were once transported by trains from the North […]

Created
Sat, 09/12/2023 - 03:02

After several previous abortive attempts at ‘retirement’, Ken Loach announced earlier this year that he would be retiring from cinema. The 87-year-old’s latest release, The Old Oak — said to be his last — brings to a close a career spanning seven decades and dozens of films, documentaries, and television dramas. In 1966, Loach’s breakthrough came with […]

Created
Sat, 09/12/2023 - 02:30
A Texas Tornado of it “Telegraphing” is a euphemism for unconsciously signalling your intentions. Telegraphing a punch in the boxing ring. Like a player’s “tell” in poker. Donald Trump must be the worst player in either arena. Arrogance works like that. Where once he spoke in code like a mob boss, now Trump speaks like an aspiring dictator. When Trump promised Waco, Texas rallygoers in March, “I am your retribution,” collaborators began singing his song like a Greek chorus (ABC News): “We will go out and find the conspirators not just in government, but in the media,” said former Defense Department official Kash Patel during an appearance on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast. Patel, who served as chief of staff in the Department of Defense during the Trump administration and Trump’s counterterrorism adviser on the National Security Council, was asked by Bannon if he would be able to deliver “serious prosecution and accountability” against their political opponents during a second Trump presidency.
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Sat, 09/12/2023 - 02:09

During the general election campaign of 1997, Tony Blair, in an article in The Times titled ‘We Won’t Look Back to the 1970s’, reassured readers that the changes to trade union laws being proposed by New Labour would ‘leave British law the most restrictive on trade unions in the Western world’. The opinion piece was […]

Created
Sat, 09/12/2023 - 02:09

‘Where is Ahmad?’ Israeli military forces demanded after boarding a bus from Ramallah headed towards Jerusalem. They were looking for me. I was on a religious pilgrimage to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, but as a Palestinian dual national with a Palestinian ID, I cannot visit areas of occupied Palestine without a special permit called […]

Created
Sat, 09/12/2023 - 02:09

‘My biggest worry is where my next job will come from,’ says Antonio, a fast-food delivery driver. He is one of the millions of workers in the UK in what has become known as the ‘gig economy’: a form of work based on short-term and temporary jobs, particularly those accessed through digital platforms which connect […]

Created
Sat, 09/12/2023 - 02:08

When we go for drinks with friends, we don’t always think about the work that makes this possible. Often that’s the point. Hospitality workers are encouraged to make customers’ experiences smooth, with smiles and nods. But our good nights out can also be someone else’s thirteen-hour shift, their aching feet and lower backs, their time […]

Created
Sat, 09/12/2023 - 02:08

In 2021, Spain passed pioneering legislation against the use of bogus self-employment in on-demand delivery work. The Riders’ Law took aim at the gig economy model of hiring couriers as freelancers for per-delivery pay — a practice which had allowed digital platforms like Deliveroo and Uber Eats to massively drive down labour costs but left workers […]

Created
Sat, 09/12/2023 - 02:08

‘This international gay and lesbian solidarity represents the recognition that the equality we are fighting for is a universal human right — the right to sexual choice and self-determination — which overrides national boundaries, political systems, and cultural traditions.’ Writing for Tribune on the twentieth anniversary of the Stonewall riots of June 1969, gay rights […]

Created
Sat, 09/12/2023 - 02:08

Anthony Minghella’s sumptuous drama The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), based on the 1955 psychological thriller by Patricia Highsmith, scans almost as a manual for faking your way into the upper echelons of the American elite. Tom Ripley (Matt Damon), a lowly Manhattan piano tuner, dons a borrowed Princeton jacket at a black-tie fundraiser and convinces […]