RT

More than ten years ago, John McCain understood everything about Russia, The United States and Europe. His predictions are chillingly accurate. But because too few in high office listened, the peace after the victory in the Cold War was lost.

@MarkJCarney Best thing you've ever said.

Canada strongly condemns Russia’s launch of large-scale missile and drone attacks on civilian targets in Kyiv tonight. For more than four years since Russia’s illegal invasion, it has greatly underestimated the courage, determination, and strength of the Ukrainian people — even as Putin’s regime has relentlessly bombed Ukrainian energy infrastructure, schools, hospitals, and homes. We call on Russia to immediately cease these strikes and end this illegal war of aggression. They prolong human suffering and do nothing to change the fact that Russia will lose this war. Canada will continue working closely with international partners to secure a just and lasting peace for Ukraine and Europe.

@EnanoPancracio @RevolutionandIR @DrewPavlou You have more faith in Trump's understanding of naval tactics than I. It's certainly risky.

@taylorrobe79522 @RevolutionandIR @DrewPavlou Because the US and Israel have destroyed 90% of Iran's offensive capabilities like 3 different times now, and Iran keeps firing missiles. It's clear that "air superiority" can't win this conflict. If having the Navy convoy tankers worked trump would do that instead of cut a deal.

Trump TRIED to topple the Iranian regime and the entire global liberal intelligentsia spent the whole time trying to destroy the operation. Fukuyama was against it. Virtually every neocon who supported the Iraq War was against it because Trump was doing it. Hell I’m pretty sure John Bolton was against it. Can somebody explain how Trump is supposed to topple the Iranian regime when nobody has the will to do it? I wish the Iranian regime collapsed. It would have happened if the entire Western intelligentsia didn’t fucking panic at the sight of blood. What did Lenin say? Advance with bayonets - if you find mush, push, if you find steel, withdraw. Trump found mush and would have toppled the Iranian regime had the entire collective Western taste maker class had the guts to deliver freedom to the Iranian people. Instead they were all soft, cringe and retarded. Trump was the only one who actually tried

@EnanoPancracio @RevolutionandIR @DrewPavlou Why do you think that has been clearly demonstrated? President Trump ordered the Navy to convoy a couple of tankers out and then stopped, to the frustration of naval commentators like Sal Mercoglio.

@taylorrobe79522 @RevolutionandIR @DrewPavlou Because otherwise, as has been clearly demonstrated, you can't stop the people who want to close it to "good traffic" from closing it. Now you may also not be able to do it with ground troops, but you definitely can't do it without them.

@RevolutionandIR @DrewPavlou Why do you think you need ground troops to open a maritime channel to good traffic and close it to bad?

@DrewPavlou But he didn't really try. That would've required ground troops, which he had no stomach for, and everyone, both in the West and Iran knew that. There was nothing but hope the initial decapitation strike would trigger an internal revolt and when it didn't, there was no plan.

@wesyang @PincherMartin8 That is rather disappointing. How on earth do they get admitted?

@PincherMartin8 I do. There is a higher concentration of students who are much better than at other universities, but the baseline is lower for the typical students than we want to believe.

You can see in this passage from 2008, in which Christopher Hitchens heaps scorn on Michelle Obama's undergraduate thesis, ("To describe it as hard to read would be a mistake; the thesis cannot be “read” at all, in the strict sense of the verb. This is because it wasn’t written in any known language") the reason why the Great Awokening was soon to be launched. After a decade of Giuliani-ism and Clintonite triangulation (welfare reform, "superpredators", the Crime Bill), cynical white guys, even those nominally "on the Left" (Hitchens had departed it by 2008, but his prior credentials as a figure on the Left were part of what gave him permission to say these things in mainstream publications) felt free to do things they would soon not feel free to do, like belittle and ridicule and denigrate the intelligence of the first black First Lady.

@JTasioulas @RMLLowe @M_Ignatieff @DAcemogluMIT @CassSunstein @gbglax @jemimajoanna @joshglancy @stefanauer_hku By those lights the last 10 years has seen liberalism heavily degraded in the western hemisphere. And this is mainly because the so-called left now has much less time for freedom, individualism, egalitarianism or social order. An outcome foreseen by Brian Barry 25 years ago.

What is liberalism? My 5 point answer. Link below

@MadisonPierce Does engage mean cite?

Since then almost every negative engagement with my work has come from this institution. Almost every time, the claims of the man who played a game of telephone to engage with my thesis are replicated… But they are *not* there.

My “scholars not reading” story is: I gave a paper related to my unpublished thesis once. Someone present was interested, so I sent them the current draft. A while later I received an email from a colleague that mentioned my work hard been engaged by a senior prof at the school.

@elfozzie25 @Katie_Lam_MP Has the ratio of capital to labour in financial services varied so that there are more employees per unit of firm output? Otherwise her analysis of the proportion of regulator employees to financial employees remains valid and your objection is incorrect.

@Katie_Lam_MP Because there’s been no growth in financial Services since the 80s, right? Sigh, as a Goldman Sachs alumni you should know better. Your argument undermines itself! As you know, the biggest hit to the city was the idiocy of Brexit… which you supported… how do you square that?

In 1980, we had one regulator for every 11,000 people working in financial services. Today, it's closer to one regulator for every *75* people. Bureaucrats always create more rules and always work to expand their powers. The idea that we can "regulate for growth" is ludicrous.

@ProfSteveFuller You mean without these charlatans and their ilk there would only be rational knowledge (so far as it survives falsification), in relation to which social preconditions are of minor significance?

The Sociology of Knowledge wouldn't be needed if people didn't think that Slavoj Zizek and Judith Butler are important philosophers.

@wself Very, very good.

@RobertBarry12 @wself An elitist cannot be sad. He might be disdainful, but not sad.

@mark_dengate @DrewPavlou Ok so I think we agree that liberal democracy based on universal human rights is the only proper basis for human civilisation. I assume Drew would agree with that.

@taylorrobe79522 @DrewPavlou Universal rights are aspirational standards not trophies awarded to most advanced civilisation & are universal because no culture has inherent moral supremacy. Caring about Aboriginal welfare follows from that principle. It not depend on cultural relativism or cultural hierarchy.

New article in the Australian Financial Review argues that migrants should not be blamed for house price increases because every single non-Aboriginal Australian is ultimately a migrant. Do these people understand that this constant sneering attitude towards white Australians plays a big role in the rise of parties like One Nation? People are fed up with being told that they have no connection to Australia, that they have no country of their own, that they are just settler coloniser thieves squatting on stolen land. Their ancestors found a remarkably depopulated continent essentially frozen in Neolithic, pre-historic conditions for tens of thousands of years and within 200 years they built a modern nation state that builds nuclear submarines and sends rockets into space. And then they are told that they have less right to the future direction of this country than people who arrived last week on student visas. THIS is literally the number one thing driving the surge of One Nation. Why do they refuse to see it? I am glad that the British came to Australia and built a modern nation state. Without settlement, Australian conditions would be the same as sub-Saharan Africa. It would be like Papua New Guinea, a country where isolated highland tribes still engage in brutal tribal warfare into the 21st century. Why do we have to hate ourselves? Why can’t we be proud of the civilisation that the British peoples and their allies friends built in Australia?

@mark_dengate @DrewPavlou But human rights are universal rights. That means they have supremacy over any inconsistent cultural standards. That is progress. And it is not consistent with cultural relativism.

@taylorrobe79522 @DrewPavlou Human rights progress doesnt require believing some cultures are ‘more advanced’ (that a 19th century myth). Oz should care about Aboriginal welfare because Indigenous persons are fellow Oz citizens who were dispossessed by the state. Justice isnt conditional on cultural rankings

@mark_dengate @DrewPavlou If you don't believe in any concept of progress, then you don't believe there has been any progress in human rights over time? If so, why should non-Aborigines (the majority) care about Aboriginal welfare or history?

@taylorrobe79522 @DrewPavlou Why is metaphysical question but putting that aside icymi such as Darwinism proven be racist pseudo science (pseudo scientific race based notion of “progress” with white Christian male at the pinnacle of human evolution) which used in 19th & 20th century to justify terra nullius.

@mark_dengate @DrewPavlou Why do you think that?

@DrewPavlou Indigenous worldviews no more or less “advanced” than Western ones & Oz archaeologists correctly abandoned term “Stone Age” decades ago. Albeit you thoughting desert adapted camel “primitive” because it isnt a horse, Aboriginal people were not “behind” or in need of “civilising”

@akuareindorf @bphillipsonMP @KishwerFalkner She has dead eyes. Raised in Russia, she'd be working for Putin with equal conviction.

Depressing to see this ill-informed & juvenile sniping from @bphillipsonMP against @KishwerFalkner, a public servant who worked through devastating stage 4 cancer to rectify a grievous wrong & reinstate the rule of law. Because somebody had to do it.

@nixonfoundation Paul Johnson's other book The Birth of the Modern should be there too. Bought it 30 years ago but only read it last year. Wish I'd read it earlier. This book is superb to understand the explosive changes released by new ideas, science and technology by the early 19thC.

This is President Nixon's book recommendations for students interested in history, biography and historical novels.

@soniasodha I believe critical race theory is just as debilitating.

I think it's genuinely sad that a once-mighty human rights organisation like Amnesty International - an unalloyed force for good - has beclowned itself by producing something as cranky as this. Just another proof point that there's nothing more stultifying than gender ideology.

@MarkOfBitcoin @PaulineHansonOz @au_energy_prod 70% seems very high.

Creating yet another govrnment department to manage those investments. Not a fan. My proposal: ZERO tax on all profits that a mineral extraction company makes. HOWEVER, every resource taken out of the ground has a royalty of 70% of the MARKET VALUE at the time of extraction. There is no point trying to tax these big corps on profit. They cook the books and move money around and end up "Oh gee, we made NO PROFIT this year, so we don't pay any tax!" Screw that. That's OK buddy, we don't charge you ANY tax on profits at all. Make as much or as little as you want! Oh you want to funnel income in from other countries and get it all tax free? That's fine, too. (I'm sure our banks will charge some fee or other, thus bringing in more revenue into Australia.) HOWEVER... For every litre of gas they extract... For every kilo of coal... For every bar of gold... For every ship load of iron ore... They pay a Resource Royalty of 70% of the CURRENT market value. If it goes down, if it goes up, if it skyrockets... Australia gets 70% no matter what. Very simple, and efficient in terms of government staffing and policing required. No need for the ATO to be involved.

Today I announced One Nation's policy to get Australians a better return on the Commonwealth's gas and oil, our natural resources at @au_energy_prod We want more gas extracted and more money given back to Australian's future wealth. One Nation would partner with the oil and gas industry rather than treating it as an enemy, with the aim of increasing exploration, development and production of oil and gas Under the policy, the party would introduce a 30 per cent rebate for genuine oil and gas exploration in Commonwealth waters, while giving the Commonwealth Government the option to take up to a 30 per cent equity stake in any production licence. This would mean real ownership of Australia's natural resources by the Australian people. Rather than acquiring ownership by force, the government would pay its share of costs as a joint venture partner and receive a corresponding share of production. To manage these interests, One Nation would establish a special investment vehicle called the Australian National Wealth Investment Corporation (ANWIC), which would hold the government’s resource stakes and be tasked with making decisions for the greatest benefit of Australians. Government would receive their proportion of oil and gas which could then be directed to the domestic market, used to support critical industries such as fertiliser, energy and smelting, or sold into export markets to help reduce government debt. ANWIC would be overseen by a board made up of people with proven oil and gas industry experience, rather than career bureaucrats, and the Commonwealth would remain a non-operating partner while private-sector experts continued to run projects. The policy would also allow ANWIC to invest in existing projects, but only on commercial, arm’s-length terms, with the government paying its way as in investment rather than taking over projects. In return, the Commonwealth could choose to receive either its share of profits or physical gas supply, giving it the flexibility to support domestic manufacturing when needed or benefit from selling at high international prices. One Nation argues this approach is even better than a domestic gas reservation policy, which can be blunt and inefficient. We also reject proposals for a 25 per cent gas export tax, because this measure is purposely designed to kill the gas industry. Alongside these structural changes, One Nation would cut “red, green and black tape” to speed up project development and set a target of deciding on projects within six months. We would abolish net-zero policies and the Safeguard Mechanism, while also having government help fund gas exploration. In taxation, the party would replace the failed Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT) for offshore gas with a simpler Commonwealth royalty based on wellhead values. This new royalty system would apply only to future projects, with existing PRRT arrangements grandfathered. Overall, One Nation's policy is designed to deliver greater returns to Australians, encourage oil and gas production, strengthen fuel security, lower power prices, reduce government debt and give Australians real ownership of our natural resources.