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notices and features - Date published:
6:00 pm, March 22nd, 2016 - 19 comments
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The current rise of populism challenges the way we think about people’s relationship to the economy.We seem to be entering an era of populism, in which leadership in a democracy is based on preferences of the population which do not seem entirely rational nor serving their longer interests. ...
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The Donald goes one better than Canadian Ted, engaging an actual religious extremist.
Donald Trump has finally announced the names of five of his foreign policy advisers, and at least one member of his new team is sure to raise eyebrows.
Walid Phares, a Lebanese academic who advised Mitt Romney’s campaign in 2012, is one of the five names Trump gave to the Washington Post during a meeting with the paper’s editorial board on Monday.
[…]
“[Samir Geagea] wanted to change them from a normal militia to a Christian army,” Nissi said. “Walid Phares was responsible for training the lead officers in the ideology of the Lebanese Forces.”
The Lebanese Forces are now just one of Lebanon’s many political parties, but the group was responsible for one of the war’s most notorious incidents, the massacre of hundreds of Palestinians in Lebanon’s Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in 1982.
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2016/03/walid-phares-makes-comeback-trumps-campaign-team
Wasn’t Sharon also involved in those events?
A facebook post by Elizabeth Warren about Donald Trump:
“Let’s be honest – Donald Trump is a loser. Count all his failed businesses. See how he kept his father’s empire afloat by cheating people with scams like Trump University and by using strategic corporate bankruptcy (excuse me, bankruptcies) to skip out on debt. Listen to the experts who’ve concluded he’s so bad at business that he might have more money today if he’d put his entire inheritance into an index fund and just left it alone.
Trump seems to know he’s a loser. His embarrassing insecurities are on parade: petty bullying, attacks on women, cheap racism, and flagrant narcissism. But just because Trump is a loser everywhere else doesn’t mean he’ll lose this election. People have been underestimating his campaign for nearly a year – and it’s time to wake up.
People talk about how “this is the most important election” in our lifetime every four years, and it gets stale. But consider what hangs in the balance. Affordable college. Accountability for Wall Street. Healthcare for millions of Americans. The Supreme Court. Big corporations and billionaires paying their fair share of taxes. Expanded Social Security. Investments in infrastructure and medical research and jobs right here in America. The chance to turn our back on the ugliness of hatred, sexism, racism and xenophobia. The chance to be a better people.
More than anyone we’ve seen before come within reach of the presidency, Donald Trump stands ready to tear apart an America that was built on values like decency, community, and concern for our neighbors. Many of history’s worst authoritarians started out as losers – and Trump is a serious threat. The way I see it, it’s our job to make sure he ends this campaign every bit the loser that he started it.”
explosions in Brussels Airport.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/03/explosions-hit-brussels-zaventem-airport-160322072734305.html
not good. not good at all.
No, a civilised country. No doubt ISIS is responding to the arrest of one of the Paris suspects.
Wow, congrats NZ and Auckland. Where 493 in 500 people see a boy eating out of a rubbish bin… and continue to walk on by.
Guardian article on NZ police social experiment.
Not surprising to see members of a lower socio-economic group among the first to help out too.
No doubt the police would respond immediately on being alerted to someone eating out of a bin.
I take it you live in the provences?
It’s actually very common to see people going through a rubbish bin in Auckland city, especially in the upper Queen st, K-road area. I’d say its not a case of heartlessness but more desensitization, you can thank our lack of govt services for that.
Outskirts of Auckland. Do get into Auckland now and then (mostly for protests nowadays). I usually try to speak or make eye contact with those on the streets, and give some of them money, food or drink if I have any. I remember being appalled as a young adult at the number of homeless on the streets of London, and the (misplaced?) pride I felt that it didn’t happen “back home”.
But Auckland city centre is not the same as when I was younger. Much more soulless, despite all the hyped up planning and “community building” going on there.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/business/the-rebuild/78154050/southern-response-earthquake-claims-settlement-could-take-until-2019
so nine years after the initial quake…..and bearing in mind they have not met any of their self imposed targets yet!
Don’t worry cause we are all going to get $200.00 a week extra under Labour. Andy just bought my vote.
Labour is not going to implement a UBI. It’s just talk.
I rather expect they are testing the water for one – they’re pretty agnostic themselves but they’ll run with it if it would float.
The CGT they’ve largely talked themselves out of is more important than ever – but they’re not going to risk any vote losers. If they can generate public discussion outside the hostile MSM the desirability of a CGT and significant tax reform will gather more popular support.
Some progress toward a UBI might be made. But the crisis isn’t scraping back bench MPs yet, so no heroic solutions are wired in. The global situation is not promising however, any set of failures could cascade into a depression or war.
Historically Germany is the one to watch. If Soros is correct that Russia is playing EU instability against its maturing debt positions neither of the two obvious outcomes (EU destabilises, or Russia defaults) are particularly positive events.
2016 may be a good time to buy a big bag of rice, and learn to cook possum.
Agree. And have alternative ways to heat your home and cook food. Plus a backup stash of good water.
You must be poor, then.
I would like some clarity from Labour on whether this proposed $200 free per week is for everyone no matter how rich, or is targeted to specific incomes.
Good one Dale – you could leave you employment, live on the $200 a week, then someone else with an equally low IQ could take your place in the workforce.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/25/fossil-fuel-use-must-fall-twice-fast-thought-contain-global-warming
but….
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/25/oil-industry-must-thwart-misguided-divestment-campaign-says-saudi-minister-ali-al-naimi
and then…
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/299495/government-to-continue-with-oil-exploration