How to pick a lock
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"Guantánamo Diary, Mohamedou Ould Slahi’s extraordinary account of rendition, captivity and torture reveals, more vividly than any book in the previous decade of shock-and-awe ferocity, how he and countless other men became victims of a profound sense of individual and collective emasculation." Guardian
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Conditions of material scarcity promote poor decision-making (which it turn tends to lead to more material scarcity)
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April Brogan died from heroin withdrawal in a Florida jail cell. Staff were aware of her condition and failed to provide her with necessary medical attention. Make no mistake, the hatred that state officials have for sex workers and drug users kills people every day.
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I just watched "Top Five", the new Chris Rock movie. I have concerns with some of his politics around gender, as always, but this is a seriously funny film. Would recommend.
(And now I reflect on the fact that I feel the need to add the political caveat, which I wouldn't do for your standard action movie, however fascist its politics. Perhaps comedy is just inherently a more serious genre and so should be criticised more seriously, idk)
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SA government directing joint police/army raids for undocumented migrants. I can't even *quietly despairs*
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"Who is a foreigner? Certainly not Radovan Krejcir, the Czech fugitive who is suspected of running a vast criminal enterprise in South Africa and whom the authorities allowed to flourish here. A foreigner seems to be, once again, anyone who is dark-skinned, cannot speak Zulu and cannot produce some form of dompas." Times
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EU states are committed to migration policies that are essentially premised on keeping foreigners out by any means necessary, up to and including their deaths. UK government ministers, for instance, are on record opposing rescue operations in the Mediterranean on the grounds that people drowning will discourage other migrants. There is also an EU policy of confiscating migrant boats that are intercepted, essentially encouraging traffickers to move people on the least valuable, least seaworthy boats available.
On the other hand, while there are doubtless many unsavoury practices in the industry, people traffickers in the Mediterranean are fundamentally providing a service that migrants want and are willing to pay for. So the people who engage in voluntary transactions to help people migrate are framed as violent criminals, against whom military action is warranted, whereas the people who are willing to let migrants die in order to limit further migration are framed as having the moral high ground.
Recognise that this framing is the entire *purpose* of "anti-trafficking" rhetoric: to serve the interests of the powerful and amoral against those of the poor and desperate. Military action against "traffickers" is just the logical conclusion of this way of thinking
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More "anti-trafficking" nonsense. Probably not actually killing anyone this time, just making it extremely difficult for minors to travel into or out of South Africa.
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"Sociologists sometimes call the management of familial duties “worry work,” and the person who does it the “designated worrier,” because you need large reserves of emotional energy to stay on top of it all.
I wish I could say that fathers and mothers worry in equal measure. But they don’t. Disregard what your two-career couple friends say about going 50-50. Sociological studies of heterosexual couples from all strata of society confirm that, by and large, mothers draft the to-do lists while fathers pick and choose among the items." NY Times
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"Pre-crisis Britain wasn’t fiscally profligate. Debt and deficits were low, and at the time everyone expected them to stay that way; big deficits only arose as a result of the crisis. The crisis, which was a global phenomenon, was driven by runaway banks and private debt, not government deficits. There was no urgency about austerity: financial markets never showed any concern about British solvency. And Britain, which returned to growth only after a pause in the austerity drive, has made up none of the ground it lost during the coalition’s first two years." NY Times
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The Chinese government is engaged in a concerted campaign to eliminate the Cantonese language.
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Some commentary on the political calculations surrounding (and thus the likelihood) of another indy ref in Scotland
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"In the past four years, Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams, one of India’s richest temples in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, has deposited more than five tons in a state-run bank in a “gold for gold” program where the goods are melted down and held and the interest is paid back to the temple in gold." Washington Post
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Loving this
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Elon Musk is obviously cool and successful and stuff, but damn he sounds like a creepy guy
>>><<<
"Guantánamo Diary, Mohamedou Ould Slahi’s extraordinary account of rendition, captivity and torture reveals, more vividly than any book in the previous decade of shock-and-awe ferocity, how he and countless other men became victims of a profound sense of individual and collective emasculation." Guardian
>>><<<
Conditions of material scarcity promote poor decision-making (which it turn tends to lead to more material scarcity)
>>><<<
April Brogan died from heroin withdrawal in a Florida jail cell. Staff were aware of her condition and failed to provide her with necessary medical attention. Make no mistake, the hatred that state officials have for sex workers and drug users kills people every day.
>>><<<
I just watched "Top Five", the new Chris Rock movie. I have concerns with some of his politics around gender, as always, but this is a seriously funny film. Would recommend.
(And now I reflect on the fact that I feel the need to add the political caveat, which I wouldn't do for your standard action movie, however fascist its politics. Perhaps comedy is just inherently a more serious genre and so should be criticised more seriously, idk)
>>><<<
SA government directing joint police/army raids for undocumented migrants. I can't even *quietly despairs*
>>><<<
"Who is a foreigner? Certainly not Radovan Krejcir, the Czech fugitive who is suspected of running a vast criminal enterprise in South Africa and whom the authorities allowed to flourish here. A foreigner seems to be, once again, anyone who is dark-skinned, cannot speak Zulu and cannot produce some form of dompas." Times
>>><<<
EU states are committed to migration policies that are essentially premised on keeping foreigners out by any means necessary, up to and including their deaths. UK government ministers, for instance, are on record opposing rescue operations in the Mediterranean on the grounds that people drowning will discourage other migrants. There is also an EU policy of confiscating migrant boats that are intercepted, essentially encouraging traffickers to move people on the least valuable, least seaworthy boats available.
On the other hand, while there are doubtless many unsavoury practices in the industry, people traffickers in the Mediterranean are fundamentally providing a service that migrants want and are willing to pay for. So the people who engage in voluntary transactions to help people migrate are framed as violent criminals, against whom military action is warranted, whereas the people who are willing to let migrants die in order to limit further migration are framed as having the moral high ground.
Recognise that this framing is the entire *purpose* of "anti-trafficking" rhetoric: to serve the interests of the powerful and amoral against those of the poor and desperate. Military action against "traffickers" is just the logical conclusion of this way of thinking
>>><<<
More "anti-trafficking" nonsense. Probably not actually killing anyone this time, just making it extremely difficult for minors to travel into or out of South Africa.
>>><<<
"Sociologists sometimes call the management of familial duties “worry work,” and the person who does it the “designated worrier,” because you need large reserves of emotional energy to stay on top of it all.
I wish I could say that fathers and mothers worry in equal measure. But they don’t. Disregard what your two-career couple friends say about going 50-50. Sociological studies of heterosexual couples from all strata of society confirm that, by and large, mothers draft the to-do lists while fathers pick and choose among the items." NY Times
>>><<<
"Pre-crisis Britain wasn’t fiscally profligate. Debt and deficits were low, and at the time everyone expected them to stay that way; big deficits only arose as a result of the crisis. The crisis, which was a global phenomenon, was driven by runaway banks and private debt, not government deficits. There was no urgency about austerity: financial markets never showed any concern about British solvency. And Britain, which returned to growth only after a pause in the austerity drive, has made up none of the ground it lost during the coalition’s first two years." NY Times
>>><<<
The Chinese government is engaged in a concerted campaign to eliminate the Cantonese language.
>>><<<
Some commentary on the political calculations surrounding (and thus the likelihood) of another indy ref in Scotland
>>><<<
"In the past four years, Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams, one of India’s richest temples in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, has deposited more than five tons in a state-run bank in a “gold for gold” program where the goods are melted down and held and the interest is paid back to the temple in gold." Washington Post
>>><<<
Loving this
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Elon Musk is obviously cool and successful and stuff, but damn he sounds like a creepy guy
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