NEWS stands for stories on MEdia Dragon that come from North bound East and West Bound South ...
Glendale's chief arson investigator was arrested for arson. John Orr was charged with setting multiple wildfires, including one that destroyed 67 homes. In his house was the draft of a novel about an arsonist firefighter who got turned on by setting blazes.
Why Would Someone Deliberately Start A Wildfire?: LAist
Sydney's not full, but Berejiklian says some parts might be
"We appreciate that some parts of greater Sydney in particular cannot handle extra development," the Premier says.
Sydney trains technical issues spark major delays across the city
PM Turnbull warns of 'perfect cyber storm'Sydney trains technical issues spark major delays across the city
Malcolm Turnbull's NEG remains in snake-infested territory
Malcolm Turnbull faces serious threat of leadership challenge
Sydney Uni lecturer investigated for defending 'Death to Israel' badge
Tim Anderson, a senior lecturer at Sydney University, said his friend and former colleague Jay Tharappel was 'under attack from zionists'.
'No justice': Huge Reef Foundation grant stuns charity sector
The government's $444 million grant to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation slammed as 'ludicrous' and 'unfair' by the country's $135 billion charity sector.
Major universities hire ex-immigration agent to crack down on international student fraud
India, Bangladesh and Nigeria are among the countries targeted by Australian universities - but there are risks.
It found Australia's top crime agency "outed the claimant as an informant" with a 2006 media release "divulging that they had a source" in the Bandidos.
- Canada refugee board agreed Australian authorities had put Stevan Utah's life at risk
- International law expert says refugee ruling is unprecedented
- Failure by Australian authorities branded corrupt and inept
- Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) accepted evidence that there were murder contracts placed on Mr Utah's life after he was recruited by the Australian Crime Commission (ACC) for a national operation against bikie gangs
Bikies infiltrator 'outed by Australian authorities' granted Canadian ...
↩︎ Vulture
IN MANY WAYS, IT IS IN FACT THE OPPOSITE: Sympathy is Not Respect
The Berlin Wall provides a unique natural experiment for identifying the key sources of urban development. This research, for which its authors have recently been awarded the prestigious Frisch Medal, shows how property prices and economic activity in the east side of West Berlin, close to the historic central business district in East Berlin, began to fall when the city was divided; then, during the 1990s, after reunification, the same area began to redevelop. Theory and empirical evidence confirm the positive relationship between urban density and productivity in a virtuous circle of ‘cumulative causation’.
Students caught up in education rort may have course debts wiped
The Turnbull government is considering waiving the debts of former students who were conned by dodgy private colleges.
Top CEOs’ compensation increased 17.6 percent in 2017; The ratio of CEO-to-worker compensation grew to 312-to-1 Economic Policy Institute
'A shame on us all': fury over South Head development plans
Locals are furious about plans by a leading Sydney businessman to take over part of South Head national park for a wedding and function centre.
Chinese billionaire eyes former Packer cattle empire
A major stoush is looming over the future of the country's richest agricultural operation, with several high-powered international parties circling the sprawling Consolidated Pastoral cattle.
Richard Murphy: “First, Let’s Kill All the Accountants” – On Accounting’s Systemic Failure
Why taking accounting for granted is a really bad idea.
'We need people to die': funeral businesses worry about slowdown in deaths
Funeral operators say they've faced a quiet year so far - but the ageing population could boost business.
Dutch architecture firm designs a new style of funeral home
↩︎ Vulture
IN MANY WAYS, IT IS IN FACT THE OPPOSITE: Sympathy is Not Respect
Cryptocurrency: Currency of the Future or Just a Fad? National Conference of State Legislatures. UserFriendly: “States coming after crypto too.”
The Mechanics of Cryptocurrency
An examination of cryptocurrency practicalities.
Kushner’s Ties to Russia-Linked Group Began With Kissinger Lunch Bloomberg. Hillary Clinton’s very good friend. It’s like all these people know each other
With TripAdvisor and Yelp, everything is so documented that travel stories have become a thing of the past. Or have they?
Why It’s Sometimes Important To Be Cruel To Do Good
Sometimes, the only way to help someone seems to be a cruel or nasty approach – a strategy that may leave the ‘helper’ feeling guilty and wrong. Now research from my team at the Liverpool Hope University in the UK sheds light on how the process works. … Read More
Sandra Oh Talks About The Role That Demands Everything She Has
And then there’s the experience of being nominated for an Emmy for that role, on Killing Eve, as well: “It felt like this place where my community is really waiting to see themselves. And I can just see that in people’s faces. There’s joy and grief in there.”
Giving New Meaning To The Term ‘Dinner Theater’ By Making The Meal The Performance
For more than a year, the Detroit-based experimental theater company The Hinterlands has been staging what they call "µTopian Dinners" - literally preparing and sharing a meal with guests. The company sees the project "as a kind of a laboratory to investigate the cultural values that are reinforced through eating, meals, and cooking. ... Implementing this process of non-textual translation via food practices carries a kind of power in the fact of it being a non-verbal form of communication, but one that nonetheless is extremely culturally specific." … Read More
The trial over The Trial. German scholars argued that Kafka’s manuscripts belonged to Germany; Israeli scholars disagreed. Then things got contentious... more. Kafkaesque
I THINK STEPHEN GREEN IS WAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE ON THIS: Embracing päntsdrunk, the Finnish way of drinking alone in your underwear. “To Americans, drinking alone can sound, well, lonely, but the Finns see a solitary drink at home in your skivvies as a form of self-care.” Well, the Finns
Politicians were not shy about discussing sexual pleasure, even as a matter of state business. During Jefferson’s second term, when the ambassador from Tunis arrived in Washington, he requested that the secretary of state make his stay complete by providing him and his entourage with concubines. Madison (generally portrayed as prim and proper) charged the ambassador’s pleasure to the government, listing “Georgia a Greek,” as one of the expenses among “appropriations for foreign intercourse” He made light of the incident in a letter to Jefferson, noting the double meaning of “foreign intercourse.”
That is from Nancy Isenberg’s excellent Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr. I also learned that Burr was the grandson of Jonathan Edwards, and that late in his life Burr spent time with Bentham, was intrigued by the Panopticon idea, and he may have influenced Bentham on suffrage
Amid heat wave, rare flamingos lay first eggs in 15 years Boston
My fascination with these two events is linked to an interest in starting a deeper conversation. Four years ago, I started a salon with a psychologist friend, Dr Doris Brett. We called it the "Sibyls’ Salon", after the Sibyls who had wisdom and insight, and predate Plato. We devised some questions and asked ten strangers to share their stories in a non-judgmental, non-competitive space. That’s when the magic happened. Women who hardly knew each other dropped their usual defenses and told stories, wonderful, hilarious, sad, heroic stories about their lives. Energy filled the room and the buzz remained with all of us for hours. Indeed, research is now showing that connecting through face-to-face conversation is as good for our physical self as it is for our psyche.
Meanwhile, research by University of Arizona psychologist Matthias Mehl found that people who engaged in deep conversations, rather than endless small talk about the weather or TV shows, rated higher for happiness and life satisfaction. You know how much weather small talk we do in Melbourne? If it’s not the weather, it’s football. Melbourne, we need to go deeper. Ditto the rest of Australia.
On Twitter this morning, Craig Mod asked:
What’s the best conference talk/public speech you’ve seen? Topic can be anything. Just the most engaging talk you’ve been present for?And bonus points: Is there any one particular speaker who’s so good you make an effort to see?
I’ve been to a lot of conferences and seen some very engaging speakers, but the one that sticks out most in my mind is Eloma Simpson Barnes’ performance of a Martin Luther King Jr. speech at PopTech in 2004 (audio-only here).
Our internet keeps getting faster, but the websites we're going to aren't: This is the bullshit web.
TED TALK From CBC’s This Is That, a satirical presentation that is
I’m now going to come back to the center of the stage and give you some unremarkable context about how I became a thought leader. If it’s ok with you, I’d like to pace while telling you this story.
I chuckled throughout this, but deep down I’d love to have the stage presence to give a talk like this. Whenever I’ve done talks in the past, my brain always convinces me that I’m about to be eaten by a lion — “flee flee flee!” — and I end up doing my best impression of the squeaky-voiced teen from The Simpsons.
↩︎ LAist
↩︎ Pixel Envy
The Atlantic: What It Takes to Be a Trial Lawyer If You’re Not a Man, by Lara Bazelon (San Francisco):
Tech Foresight: “A dashboard of 100 wonderful, weird (and possibly worrying) ways the world might change in the foreseeable future. The purpose of this publication is to make individuals and institutions future ready. Also, to make people think, at least periodically. It is a mixture of prediction and provocation intended to stimulate debate, but be aware that other elements should always be considered when assessing potential impact, especially the wider psychological and regulatory landscape in which technologies exist
The political precariat
"More than twenty years before Emma Husar’s alleged misbehaviour, our correspondent had his own experience of the precarious life of a political staffer." (Inside Story)
Last year, Elizabeth Faiella took a case representing a man who alleged that a doctor had perforated his esophagus during a routine medical procedure. Before the trial began, she and the defense attorney, David O. Doyle Jr., were summoned to a courtroom in Brevard County, Florida, for a hearing. Doyle had filed a motion seeking to “preclude emotional displays” during the trial—not by the patient, but by Faiella.
Tech Foresight: “A dashboard of 100 wonderful, weird (and possibly worrying) ways the world might change in the foreseeable future. The purpose of this publication is to make individuals and institutions future ready. Also, to make people think, at least periodically. It is a mixture of prediction and provocation intended to stimulate debate, but be aware that other elements should always be considered when assessing potential impact, especially the wider psychological and regulatory landscape in which technologies exist
The political precariat
"More than twenty years before Emma Husar’s alleged misbehaviour, our correspondent had his own experience of the precarious life of a political staffer." (Inside Story)
