Regaining a sense of proportion in our universe
Music: Hocus Pocus — ‘Portrait’
The EU does not betray its members
Nick Cohen writes: Brexit is being defined by the inability of political leaders and much of the media to be honest with themselves – and indeed anyone else. The result is the greatest outbreak of political lying of my lifetime. You can compare it with Suez, but at least in 1956, Hugh Gaitskell and the Labour opposition clearly stated that Eden’s pretext for invading Egypt was false. Now government and opposition compete to see who can tell the greater lies….
I was a strong Brexiteer. Now we must swallow our pride and think again
Peter Oborne writes: It’s nearly three years since I, along with 17.4 million other Britons, voted for Brexit. Today I have to admit that the Brexit project has gone sour. Brexit has paralysed the system. It has turned Britain into a laughing stock. And it is certain to make us poorer and to lead to lower incomes and lost jobs. We Brexiteers would be wise to acknowledge all this. It’s past time we did. We need to acknowledge, too, that…
The world’s largest democratic exercise is a referendum on one man: Narendra Modi
WOW. WOW. President of the BJP vowing to cleanse the country of….Christians and Muslims? And presumably anyone else who is not Buddha (sic), Sikh or Hindu? https://t.co/6JSVdhdZ7Z — Priyamvada Gopal (@PriyamvadaGopal) April 11, 2019 Betwa Sharma writes: Nine hundred million people, just shy of the combined populations of Europe and America, will have the chance to vote as Indians line up to decide who will lead the country for the next five years. The phased polls begin on April 11…
Why giant statues of Hindu gods and leaders are making Muslims in India nervous
By Indulata Prasad, Arizona State University Statues – big statues, the largest in the world – are being built all across India. Like many public monuments, they attempt to convey history in a concrete form. But India’s new statues convey something else, too: the power and vision of one dominant group – and the vulnerability of others. That’s because India’s biggest new public monuments all pay tribute to Hindu gods and leaders. As a scholar of social change in India,…
China’s hi-tech war on its Muslim minority
Darren Byler writes: In mid-2017, Alim, a Uighur man in his 20s, returned to China from studying abroad. As soon as he landed back in the country, he was pulled off the plane by police officers. He was told his trip abroad meant that he was now under suspicion of being “unsafe”. The police administered what they call a “health check”, which involved collecting several types of biometric data, including DNA, blood type, fingerprints, voice recordings and face scans –…
Trump now says ‘I know nothing about Wikileaks’; in 2016 he said ‘I love Wikileaks’
President Trump, who often expressed his love of WikiLeaks during the 2016 presidential campaign, says following the arrest of Julian Assange on Thursday: "I know nothing about WikiLeaks. It's not my thing." pic.twitter.com/smT8o7La95 — NBC News (@NBCNews) April 11, 2019 Trump today in the Oval Office: "I know nothing about WikiLeaks. It's not my thing." Flashback to the campaign. Trump: "WikiLeaks. I love WikiLeaks." pic.twitter.com/eYfg5zeySI — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) April 11, 2019 The Guardian reports: Trump celebrated WikiLeaks on the…
Music: Hocus Pocus — ‘Place 54’
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: It’s time to confront the major factor fueling global migration: climate change
Newsweek reports: New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took to Twitter on Tuesday to highlight one of the driving factors behind global migration that, more often than not, goes ignored by those seeking to quell it: climate change. “The far-right loves to drum up fear & resistance to immigrants,” said Ocasio-Cortez, whose own Green New Deal proposal aims to address climate change and economic inequality. “But have you ever noticed they never talk about what’s causing people to flee their homes…
Britain is down but not out of the EU
Tom Kibasi writes: Britain will remain in the EU until the end of October this year, but diminished in power and status, with a review of its conduct set for the end of June. It is the marital equivalent of being sent to sleep in the spare bedroom, if not quite the garden shed. Wednesday night’s humiliation, when 27 other nations decided our fate – a taster of Norway-plus or “common market 2.0”, where decisions are made about the UK…
Barr sends troubling signals ahead of Mueller report release
Garrett M. Graff writes: The Mueller report has been sitting in the Justice Department for nearly two weeks. Attorney general William Barr told Congress Wednesday he’s hoping the public will finally get a look at the 300-plus page document sometime within the next week, ending a bizarre period of dissembling and fumbling by Barr that has left America with more questions than answers about the seriousness of what Mueller uncovered. That public release, when it comes, will thankfully end the…
DHS, FBI say election systems in all 50 states were targeted by Russian government in 2016
Ars Technica reports: A joint intelligence bulletin (JIB) has been issued by the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of Investigation to state and local authorities regarding Russian hacking activities during the 2016 presidential election. While the bulletin contains no new technical information, it is the first official report to confirm that the Russian reconnaissance and hacking efforts in advance of the election went well beyond the 21 states confirmed in previous reports. As reported by the intelligence newsletter…
Israeli democracy is rotting from the inside
Vox reports: Israel’s 2019 election results are in, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is all but certain to stay in office for a record fifth term. The consequences of his victory for both Israelis and Palestinians could very well be catastrophic. The past several years of Netanyahu’s time in office have been characterized by drift in two illiberal, anti-democratic directions. The prime minister has tried to buy off the independent media, further marginalized Israel’s Arab minority, and gone after civil…
PR firm that hid cameras in Arab-Israeli voting sites boasts of lowering turnout
Haaretz reports: An Israeli public relations company headed by a settler leader boasted Wednesday that it was behind the Likud initiative to place 1,200 hidden cameras in Arab polling stations on Election Day. The firm added that it was to thank for the historically low turnout among Arab voters. “Thanks to us placing observers in every polling station we managed to lower the voter turnout to under 50 percent, the lowest in recent years!” the PR company, Kaizler Inbar, posted…
New species of ancient human discovered in the Philippines
Science magazine reports: A strange new species may have joined the human family. Human fossils found in a cave on Luzon, the largest island in the Philippines, include tiny molars suggesting their owners were small; curved finger and toe bones hint that they climbed trees. Homo luzonensis, as the species has been christened, lived some 50,000 to 80,000 years ago, when the world hosted multiple archaic humans, including Neanderthals and Denisovans, and when H. sapiens may have been making…