Facebook’s role in Brexit — and the threat to democracy
Steve Bannon’s ‘gladiator’ training camp
Steve Bannon & his allies have leased a monastery in the Italian countryside for 19 years, where they plan to build a school for budding populists and "modern gladiators." But it's ignited protest from locals, who want Bannon to take his right-wing populist agenda elsewhere. pic.twitter.com/kHWhY86SQu — On Assignment with Richard Engel (@OARichardEngel) April 16, 2019 Brandon W. Hawk writes: Stephen K. Bannon is back. He’s making the rounds in the United States and abroad, talking about uniting “the Judeo-Christian…
Trump’s veto over Yemen is a scandalous abuse of presidential power
Simon Tisdall writes: Expected or not, Donald Trump’s veto of a bipartisan Congressional resolution to end US military involvement in Saudi Arabia’s murderous war in Yemen is an outrage. It will prolong the unspeakable suffering of millions of Yemeni civilians, the blameless victims of Riyadh’s vicious proxy war with Iran and its Houthi allies. Yet Trump’s uncaring arrogance also threatens the US itself. It is further proof that the constitution’s famous checks and balances are just not working, and that,…
The biggest threat to the NRA seems to be internal
Mike Spies writes: This winter, members of the National Rifle Association—elk hunters in Montana, skeet shooters in upstate New York, concealed-carry enthusiasts in Jacksonville—might have noticed a desperate tone in the organization’s fund-raising efforts. In a letter from early March, Wayne LaPierre, the N.R.A.’s top executive, warned that liberal regulators were threatening to destroy the organization. “We’re facing an attack that’s unprecedented not just in the history of the N.R.A. but in the entire history of our country,” he wrote….
Half of England is owned by less than 1% of the population
The Guardian reports: Half of England is owned by less than 1% of its population, according to new data shared with the Guardian that seeks to penetrate the secrecy that has traditionally surrounded land ownership. The findings, described as “astonishingly unequal”, suggest that about 25,000 landowners – typically members of the aristocracy and corporations – have control of half of the country. The figures show that if the land were distributed evenly across the entire population, each person would have…
How culture works with evolution to produce human cognition
Cecilia Heyes writes: The conventional view, inside and outside academia, is that children are ‘wired’ to imitate. We are ‘Homo imitans’, animals born with a burning desire to copy the actions of others. Imitation is ‘in our genes’. Birds build nests, cats miaow, pigs are greedy, while humans possess an instinct to imitate. The idea that humans have cognitive instincts is a cornerstone of evolutionary psychology, pioneered by Leda Cosmides, John Tooby and Steven Pinker in the 1990s. ‘[O]ur modern…
Music: Tom Misch & Bearcubs — ‘Colours Of Freedom’
Notre Dame as a metaphor for our planet
In a world where we are so often told that the indomitable human spirit can accomplish almost anything, the response to catastrophes natural or otherwise, accidental or intentional, is that following every loss we can rebuild or recreate. Whatever falls can rise anew — or so the popular conviction would have it. Likewise, in the realm of our mundane and material life, whatever breaks or wears out, can be replaced — often with something better. We live in collective denial…
Forget Brexit and focus on climate change, Greta Thunberg tells EU
The Guardian reports: The teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg has chided EU leaders for holding three emergency summits on Brexit and none on the threat posed by climate change. In a clarion call to Europe’s political leaders ahead of European parliament elections in May, the founder of the school strike movement said if politicians were serious about tackling climate change they would not spend all their time “talking about taxes or Brexit”. In a typically blunt speech, she said politicians…
How the far right spread politically convenient lies about the Notre Dame fire
Talia Lavin writes: As a conflagration spread through the ancient timbers of Notre Dame Cathedral’s attic on Monday, a parallel fire was spreading on social media. This one was willfully set, a series of conspiracy theories neatly slotted into preexisting cultural biases. And soon enough, willing believers were aflame with hate. The conspiracy theorizing began almost as soon as the blaze did, right when people saw the shocking, transfixing video of the cathedral’s spire toppling. While French authorities began to…
Trump administration ends right to bond for certain asylum seekers
The Guardian reports: The Trump administration has opened the door to a seismic overhaul of immigration and asylum procedure that could lead to the indefinite detention of thousands of asylum seekers who cross the border illegally. The US attorney general, William Barr, on Tuesday issued guidance overruling a precedent set by George W Bush’s justice department in 2005, which enshrined asylum seekers’ right to bond, irrespective of how they entered the country. Barr stated in his updated guidance that the…
15 months of fresh hell inside Facebook
Wired reports: The streets of Davos, Switzerland, were iced over on the night of January 25, 2018, which added a slight element of danger to the prospect of trekking to the Hotel Seehof for George Soros’ annual banquet. The aged financier has a tradition of hosting a dinner at the World Economic Forum, where he regales tycoons, ministers, and journalists with his thoughts about the state of the world. That night he began by warning in his quiet, shaking Hungarian…
Is Trump a Russian agent?: Explaining terms of art and examining the facts
John Sipher writes: Whereas the U.S. mainly relies on a relatively small cadre of fully-controlled and tested secret sources, Russia sees their foreign intelligence role in a much broader way. They too seek fully vetted and controlled sources with access to unique reporting, but they are also more comfortable with sources who can help them in some manner or other even if they are not fully recruited spies. Throughout the Cold War the Kremlin relied on a wide variety of…
Britons who built Stonehenge were product of ancient wave of migrant farmers
The Independent reports: The ancestors of the Britons who built Stonehenge were farmers who had travelled from an area near modern Turkey, arriving around 4000BC, and who rapidly replaced local hunter-gatherer populations, according to new research. Scientists investigating the origins of farming in Britain have said they have found overwhelming support for agriculture being introduced to Britain by a surge of continental migrants from Anatolia, bringing farming techniques, pottery and new religious cultures and beliefs. The team examined DNA from…
Music: Tom Misch — ‘Wander With Me’ ft. Carmody
Only rebellion will prevent an ecological apocalypse
George Monbiot writes: By throwing up our hands about the calamities that could one day afflict us, we disguise and distance them, converting concrete choices into indecipherable dread. We might relieve ourselves of moral agency by claiming that it’s already too late to act, but in doing so we condemn others to destitution or death. Catastrophe afflicts people now and, unlike those in the rich world who can still afford to wallow in despair, they are forced to respond in…