Who needs a dog whistle? Some of you may not be fully aware of who Charlie Kirk is and how influential he has become in the Republican Party. He originally started as a right wing youth organizer but in recent years has evolved into a major organizer of right wing activism across the board. Hit Turning Point USA conferences, which are held throughout the year, are major events that attract all the big names in the MAGA word as well as many “establishment” types. His organization is the heir to CPAC which has been losing steam for some time. Here’s a recent dispatch from Dave Weigel at Kirk’s latest gathering: LAS VEGAS – In a Planet Hollywood hotel ballroom, a few steps away from the Criss Angel Theater, around 200 Republican Party activists worked on their battle plans. The Republican National Committee would not save them. They would save themselves. “No more culture of losing,” Turning Point USA CEO and co-founder Charlie Kirk told an audience of RNC members, GOP county chairs, and plugged-in activists. “Embrace Donald Trump. Don’t fight Donald Trump. Embrace what he’s brought to the party.
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Australia’s parrots are increasingly threatened. Coal, gas, wind and solar supply the world’s surging demand for electricity. Methane emissions must be reduced rapidly. Parrots in peril In 2010, the Action Plan for Australian Birds identified twelve parrots as Endangered or Critically Endangered. In 2013, Australia’s favourite birdwatcher, Sean Dooley, and Samantha Vine reviewed the state Continue reading »
What to do if morality and loyalty pull in opposite directions: A review of Nicholas Jose, The Idealist The 2023 blockbuster movie Oppenheimer broke box office records in Australia and garnered many Academy Awards. The biographical thriller features a conflicted hero, physicist Robert Oppenheimer. At the first atomic bomb explosion in the American desert, Oppenheimer Continue reading »
In one of the world’s poorest countries, Yemen, there is a tribe called the Houthis. Emanating from that tribe to lead a larger coalition of other tribes is a group which does not want to be ruled by a Western or Saudi backed puppet government, they are called Ansar Allah, which means Supporters of god. Continue reading »
The recent Statement from former Australian Foreign Ministers Gareth Evans and Bob Carr calling for Australia to play a role in seeking detente between the US and China in Asia is worthy. But is it realistic? It tells us that the Australia-Japan initiated International Commission on Nuclear Non- Proliferation and Disarmament of 2009, is a Continue reading »
Waiting for the restoration of devolved government in Northern Ireland (NI) has been like watching the grass grow as the paint dries on a slow boat to China. But I am pleased to report that the wait is now over, though my backyard resembles a jungle and the paint on the boat is cracking again. Continue reading »
Around two decades ago, the Swedish writer, Henning Mankell, took an increasingly close interest in the wretched condition of Palestinians living under punishing Israeli domination. What he saw convinced him that Israel was maintaining an apartheid state very like those he had previously visited, at length, in Southern Africa. Readers may be familiar, from television, Continue reading »
The biggest problem with Artificial Intelligence will be the way we use it, writes Dr Richard Hil. We’ve long been in a “mirror world” of hyper-reality, in which those old stalwarts of truth and reason have been mired in an algorithmic quagmire. This began well before the onset of generative AI. The internet, once quaintly Continue reading »
Consider an ant nest in far flung outer Siberia. The significance of that nest to people walking the streets of Sydney is virtually nil. Multiply that level of insignificance a trillion times, as in almost infinitesimally insignificant. That, we know today, is a true indicator of planet Earth’s place in the universe. If the ant Continue reading »
“We are called to live ‘in the virtue of that life and power that takes away the occasion of all wars’. Do you faithfully maintain our testimony that war and the preparation for war are inconsistent with the spirit of Christ? Search out whatever in your own way of life may contain the seeds of Continue reading »
“This is precisely why Israel was taken to the International Court of Justice with the accusation that it is committing genocide,” said one legal expert. Palestinian officials on Wednesday demanded an international inquiry after the decomposing remains of dozens of blindfolded and handcuffed bodies were found at a northern Gaza school following the withdrawal of Continue reading »
There was a time when the right wing railed against Michelle Obama for encouraging kids to eat their vegetables and go outside to play and had a complete meltdown over governments trying to stop kids from drinking so much sugary soda that there is now an epidemic of obesity among children. How dare the government deign to advise Americans about healthy eating. Just a couple of months ago there was a story that health experts were considering telling people that they should cut down on beer consumption and it resulted in this lovely retort: Needless to say, nobody is talking about shutting down the beer or soda pop industry or limiting Ted Cruz from drinking as much as he wants to. Get a load of what the freedom loving right is up to now. Yes, Florida is leading the way, once again: Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a press conference Friday that he opposes the promulgation of lab-grown meat in Florida. Discussing his opposition to implanting an environmental agenda on farmers, the governor noted that lawmakers are working through legislation to ban lab-grown meat production. “You need meat. OK?” the governor said.
Insist it’s already bent Donald “91 Counts” Trump famously learned to attack, attack, attack from skeevy attorney Roy Cohn, and to worship himself from Norman Vincent Peale, the positive-thinking guru. Trump has navigated 77 years of his life and scammed his way to celebrity by demanding, whatever the truth of the fine mess he’s created, whatever the dirty deals he was involved in (look, here’s another), that reality bend to his will. He’s always the innocent, always the victim, always the victor. It’s not as if the Republican Party with the aid of its right-wing media allies wasn’t already far along the path to up-is-downism. It’s just that Trump’s natural flair for the scam fit so well with the party’s proclivities that he was able to wholly coopt the conservative movement. Now, with the U.S. economy firing on nearly all cylinders under Joe Biden in 2024, Trump will have to find another gear to sell his marks that it’s all going to shit. Have no doubt. He will. Politico: The U.S. economy just keeps getting better.
Plus, the EPA boosts lead screening, the government establishes workplace heat protections, and more cities wean off gas.
How does anyone take the right seriously? Somewhere on Friday a TikTok video went by (if I find it again, I’ll post it) with a woman complaining that football intruding on her Taylor Swift concert ruined the experience for her. Why, why, she was all about Taylor and yet the camera kept cutting away to shots of Travis Kelce the football player. That’s just wrong! FOUND IT (3 P.M. EDT): She was lampooning the “keep Taylor out of my football game” crowd, obviously. Fox News is having a time of it as well, in a different way. The conspiracy theories Fox is spinning about the power couple are truly something to behold (New York Times): Of course, people are entitled to their opinions on celebrity political speech or the possible existence of a secret Pentagon diva lab. But if Fox News’s hosts truly believe that it’s irresponsible and dangerous to invite celebrities to weigh in on politics, they might want to turn their attention to … Fox News. Over the years, Fox has invited Gene Simmons, the bassist of Kiss, to talk about the handling of an Ebola outbreak.
Proposed laws to curtail the use of PVC plastics have failed amid heavy lobbying.
The post Vinyl Chloride Industry Keeps Expanding Despite East Palestine Disaster appeared first on The Intercept.
Of all European politicians who never led their countries, Jacques Delors and Wolfgang Schäuble had the greatest impact on Europe. Between them, the two men, who passed away within a day of each other in December, shaped today’s European Union, warts and all. ATHENS – Of all European politicians who never led their countries, Jacques Delors and Wolfgang […]
The post The Two Faces of the Euro: Jacques Delors and Wolfgang Schäuble – Project Syndicate Long Read appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.
The cutest animal? Could be… A small mammal, native to the Eastern Himalayas and Southwestern China, has been born at Altina Wildlife Park in New South Wales Australia. Rani, Altina’s beautiful female red panda, at 9yrs of age, has proven to be an amazing and loving mother of her new little baby boy, born on the 17th December 2023! It’s unusual for an older inexperienced Red Panda to naturally be a good mother, so staff are excited and pleased with the progress. After three months gestation, cubs are born into a nest made of twigs and grass in the late spring and early summer. Newborn cubs are covered in thick grey fur and their eyes and ears are closed. Cubs will emerge from the nest at about three months of age but stay with their mother until the next breeding season starts. They are considered full-grown between 18 and 24 months and live on average, 8 to 10 years in the wild; up to 15 years in zoos. Red Pandas may live as long as 23 years. They show symptoms of age at around 12 to 14 years old and while females do not usually breed after age 12, males continue to be reproductively capable well into their later years.
You can see why the Evangelicals love Trump so much He’s such a Godly man. Biden, on the other hand, is a blood drinking satanist. By the way…
An exciting new theory reconciles gravity and quantum physics. I think it’s wrong. But I may be too.
The post What Physicists Have Been Missing appeared first on Nautilus.