Hi Auckland friends, I'll be in town and giving a couple of seminars this coming Thursday. Details below.

My review of two new books on Habermas for @liberalcurrents.com www.liberalcurrents.com/also-a-revie...

Even as elites abandon any pretense of giving a shit ... climate change is accelerating.

New Zealand’s score in the @anticorruption.bsky.social Corruption Perceptions Index has dropped yet again. Over the last decade we’ve slipped 10 points, and gone from equal first to equal fourth. Greens & Labour must take integrity issues seriously and act. www.transparency.org.nz/blog/falling...

Assaulting people while they pray peacefully in public is a new low for the Australian police. Shame on them. #Herzog #Gaza

Nothing winds me up more than Luxon and assorted other suits saying we need to be wealthier before we can afford doctors, nurses, water we can swim in etc. Meanwhile wealthier kiwi households have stacked up huge piles of savings (cash, shares, equity etc). The economy works for the few. [🧵 1/n]

This is excellent & draws out something the rest of the media is ignoring: among other things, the Epstein files have made it super, super clear that the entire "anti-woke" cultural hysteria was engineered by powerful men averse to accountability.

Siouxsie is a hero. Useful summary of recent events here for anyone unaware

How many pillars of the US media system will be broken during this Presidential term? Such rapid decline. (That’s not to say these institutions are models of socially valuable independent journalism. But they have the resources to do journalistic work at scale, and will be hard to rebuild)

The next step in the autocratization of the US… following the playbook

This shit hits like a sledgehammer right now. It's not even remotely an exaggeration.

💯

Chef’s kiss

I keep thinking again, in light of the latest Epstein files dump, about how MeToo “went too far.”

"We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster. This is a global emergency beyond any doubt. Much of the very fabric of life on Earth is imperiled." That's from a group of more than a dozen prominent climate scientists. Probably nothing.

DOJ has since killed this link. This is what was there:

"as a tool of authoritarian conflict management, the Board of Peace arguably upholds three basic principles: Might is right, ethnic cleansing is an appropriate tool of conflict resolution, and war is an opportunity for real estate development." read @danaelkurd.bsky.social

I was a sensitive kid. I loved cats. I had OCD, undiagnosed. When I was 9, a fraternity brother tortured a cat to death in my hometown. The details even now are beyond imagination. archive.is/xdmUL I was traumatized for years from reading the news story. The torturer? Now the head of the NRA.

This isn't just near Independence Hall. It's where Washington stayed while president, kept slaves, posted bounty ads for runaways, and rotated them back and forth to VA to evade PA's manumission law. This is what it's known for, this specific location's primary historical significance is slavery.

This is embarrassing and we are fucking doomed.

I imagine this how monarchs communicated to each other in the 16th century. Petty, self-absorbed, and petulant, and ready to use force as an extension of personal ego

Maybe threatening to steal stuff from the people who lend you the money to maintain your lifestyle and can call those loans in at anytime is not the best idea?

From a time when US presidents were admired in other parts of the world. (This is in a park in Melbourne, Australia)

Imagine my surprise.

Narwhal Whales Arctic waters of Canada, Greenland and Russia Credit: NOAA Fisheries: Narwhal Research

Peter Pomerantsev called his book about the information environment of Putin's Russia "Nothing is True & Everything is Possible" to convey how important turning it into an unnavigable morass of lies was to consolidating autocracy there, precisely because it made cynicism the main rational response

The Islamic Republic has killed an estimated 12000-20000 of its people in just a few days.

In case you missed it, definitely worth a read: www.bostonreview.net/articles/emp...

If agents of the state have “absolute immunity” then goodbye to the rule of law. Nice republic you used to have there, USA

You know, protecting western civilisation

"The moral purpose of civilized society is to prevent the stronger from attacking and exploiting the weaker." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Generations of scholars spilt ink trying to demonstrate that the US was in fact an empire despite its novel methods and rhetoric of respect for law/democracy etc. Now it’s just naked imperialism. Bad men bullying whomever they want to.

Chavez in 2009, while being labelled as paranoid, outlines exactly what is happening today.

From the Übermensch to the Gigachad: The evolution of reactionary thought

Thanks for that, signed All Affected

A dark day for democracy in Aotearoa.

We're very excited to be bringing the one and only @carlbergstrom.com to Aotearoa for the Capital City Complex Systems Symposium in February 🧪 Will you join him there? www.tepunahamatatini.ac.nz/conferences/...

The loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) can grow to more than 450 kg (1,000 lb) and live for over 65 years 📹Pelagic Ventures Scuba

Unlocked new level of shame today after being told off for forgetting to remove my shoes in the wharenui by a Justice of the Supreme Court 🤦

I love this intro to a philosophy paper, though I can't actually remember which paper it's from.

We need our guns to protect us from tyranny! Turns out, you’ve got a better shot with solidarity. Powerful lessons

Bingo

Says everyone who does not live in the US

Sarah Cooper, you know what to do

This is awful

Solar’s price drop is astonishing: panels are now 98% cheaper than when I first analyzed them in 2004. Today, building a fence with solar can be cheaper than using wood.

Tbf the US has never been a reliable “supporter of democracy overseas”

The Australian Electoral Commission. A model that works and is impartial. Let’s go! This makes me proud to be Australian, I must admit.