"Our data says about 50 per cent of Canadians are living paycheque-to-paycheque(opens in a new tab)," Sue Hutchinson, the president of Equifax Canada, told CTV News Channel on Tuesday. - CTV
Zupančič: The bio-morality is replacing the classical notion of responsibility with the notion of a damaged, corrupt being: the unhappy &the unsuccessful are somehow corrupt already on the level of their bare life and all their erroneous actions or nonactions follow from there.
The “tiniest attack” by Israel would bring a “massive and harsh” response, Iran’s president has reiterated as concern over the threat of full-scale war in the Middle East persists. - Aljazeera
British foreign minister David Cameron said it was clear Israel had made a decision to respond to the Iranian drone and ballistic missile attack and he hoped this would be carried out in a way that minimised escalation. "It's clear the Israelis are making a decision to act," Cameron, who was speaking to reporters in Israel, said on Wednesday. "We hope they do so in a way that does as little to escalate this as possible." Britain wanted to see coordinated sanctions against Iran, he added. - Times of India
Loren Goldner~ "Capital in crisis spirals backwards, pulling society with it. It must either devalue existing commodities... or else the working class must destroy value."
Iranians Express Diverse Reactions To IRGC's Attack On Israel: In the responses seen on social media, three significant trends emerged: expressions of support for Israel, public skepticism towards official news, and ridicule directed at IRGC weapons used in the attack. One user, writing in Farsi, stated, "My country is fighting with another country, and I want that country to win." Iranians on social platforms also utilized hashtags like "Beat them, Israel!" and "Thank you, Israel."..In reaction to the criticism following the attack on Israel, the Revolutionary Guards Intelligence Organization issued a notice urging citizens to report any online support for Israel, treating it as a "criminal" offense. The amount of pro-Israel sentiment exceeded expectations for the IRGC intelligence unit.
While global attention remains on Israel's possible response to recent Iranian attacks, a government crackdown on women in Iran entered third day. According to eyewitnesses, the Morality Police and plainclothed agents are apprehending women wearing non-compulsory clothing on the streets of Iranian cities. - Iran Cracks Down On Women Amid Tensions with Israel
Extensive research conducted by GAMAAN has demonstrated that the vast majority of Iranians in the country and throughout the diaspora, regardless of their religious affiliation, support the protests and oppose the Islamic Republic. Moreover, these opinions are shared across gender: according to Iranian sociologist Mehrdad Darvishpour, the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement has had a transformative impact of this movement on changing patriarchal attitudes in Iran, with a noticeable shift in men’s perspectives, especially among the youth…The intrinsic connection between democracy and upholding women's rights is readily apparent to the majority of Iranians - Carnegie
The 2024 annual report by the Sweden-based V-Dem Project, one of the largest international data collection projects pertaining to global democracy, has disturbing news for South Korea: the country is one of the leaders in autocratization, a reversal of democratization that the report calls a “bell-turn.” reversal. - The Blue Roof
The reports come as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in the U.S. confirmed to NBC News that it has contacted Tesla after reports the truck’s accelerator pedal is prone to getting stuck while driving. - Global News
The United States should seek negotiations now. As the shake-up in Ukraine’s military leadership earlier this year and news reports of the exhaustion of Ukrainian troops portend, its time may indeed be much shorter than most Western analysts realize. The soldiers on the front lines speak of back-to-back deployments, falling numbers of troops, declining supplies of ammunition, and apparently inexhaustible Russian reserves. Western aid should therefore be continued, as the alternative is likely to be a situation in which Russia will dictate, rather than negotiate, terms of a settlement. But this aid should also be envisioned not as a means to secure victory but as a source of leverage in negotiations. - Harpers February 2024
In recent days, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky walked the first steps toward peace by announcing his openness to making several concessions to Russian demands. These include a commitment to Ukrainian neutrality with respect to military alliances, a rejection of any nuclear arsenal, and an acceptance of Russian control over Ukraine’s eastern regions. He even indicated a readiness to change language policies that had disadvantaged Russian speakers. Zelensky’s announcements gave the face-to-face talks convening this week in Istanbul some hope of a cease-fire. - Foreign Policy March 30, 2022
Just ask a Ukrainian soldier if he still believes the West will stand by Kyiv “for as long as it takes.” That pledge rings hollow when it’s been four weeks since your artillery unit last had a shell to fire, as one serviceman complained from the front lines. - Why Ukraine is Losing the War April 17, 2024
Volodymyr Zelenskyy's five-year term as Ukraine's president formally ends on May 20. An election would normally have been held in late March, but the parliament postponed the vote as the country is still at war and under martial law. But a major question remains for Ukrainians: who might succeed Zelenskyy once he leaves office? - DW
In response to the U.S. warnings, Zelensky said in an interview with the Washington Post on March 30 that Ukraine has the right to use its own weapons with retaliatory strikes on Russian oil refineries, despite concerns from the United States. - Yahoo News
Wild Pigs Kill More People Than Sharks, Shocking Research Reveals - AG web
Why Biden Should Not Debate Trump: The Constitution is not debatable!
AI is teaching my nine year old to code
Hysterical discourse is the only productive one. New truth emerges there. It's great to be an analyst, but the analyst is the stupid guy; analysis is basically what Lacan was doing. What Lacan was doing – it's not a joke, I spoke with patients of Lacan who experienced this – three main activities of Lacan during analysis were having cakes and tea, counting money, and interrupting with stupid questions. So the analyst is not productive. The analyst is a purely formal function; all the productivity, all the truth is with the hysteric. Hysteria is the place where something new emerges. - Unbehegen and the Subject
Finland plans "difficult but necessary" spending cuts and tax rises
Tabloid Iltalehti covered the US Department of Defense (DoD) alerting Finland and the Baltic States that Russia will try to test the solidity of Nato's Article 5 in the region. Nato's collective defence clause, Article 5, states that an attack on one member is an attack on all. - YLE
From the point of view of an NGO activist in, say, Tbilisi, or for that matter in Moscow, it is all so unfair. Like liberal Eurocrats in Brussels, these activists believe in Europe and a Western model of ‘civil society. - Platypus
"The domain of Being is in itself non-All, thwarted, and 'thinking' is the activation of this hole in the order of being— we 'think' imaginatively beyond being, into what doesn't exist or may exist." -- Zizek