As a " liberal" I have absolutely no
problem criticizing my own political party.
You know why?
Because, I'm not in a god damn cult that's why …
FASTER, PLEASE. Could Type 2 Diabetes Be Reversed? 14-Year Study Reveals Remarkable Results.
Wednesday, November 11, 2026
Administrators of Empire CIA MI6 …
Exclusive: WhatsApp messages show firm pressuring Zubir Ahmed MP to help bring sensitive data into its platform
Administrators of Empire DD Geopolitics
Aaron Maté : CIA and MI6 vs Trump in UkraineJudging Freedom (video). “From what I know of how this game works, when you want to do something off the books, you’ll get a friendly billionaire or some or a friendly corporation to do the work for you.”
Democratic Party runs more than 60 military-intelligence candidates for Congress From September. Still germane.
Two numbers that explain the results of Aotearoa New Zealand’s election Free Market Moralism
David Jones collapse threatens thousands of jobs as Australian retail crisis deepens WSWS
Prisons Using AI to Predict When Incarcerated People Will Commit Future Crimes Futurism
Bad Flock Info Leads Police To Tow Wrong Car, Then Towing Company Totals It Jalopnik
Opinion | CNN’s John King has seen a lot of elections. This one was different.
November 9, 2026
Opinion | The stories that explain a historic election in America
November 6, 2026
Opinion | The day after the night that changed the country
November 5, 2026
Opinion | As Democrats swept the midterms, news anchors struggled to find the words
November 4, 2026
Tuesday, November 10, 2026
Keep Looking: Bluesky Gets a Midterms Bump
Bluesky Gets a Midterms Bump, Ships Pronouns-in-Bios Feature Gizmodo
Keep looking when cooking: 🧑🍳 🥘
Key Details
- Location: Level 7 (near Fountain Court), NSW Parliament House, Sydney CBD
- Opening Hours: Monday to Friday, 9:30 AM – 4:00 PM (staying open until 8:00 PM on parliamentary sitting nights)
- Hot Meal Service: Available between 11:30 AM and 2:15 PM (items available until sold out)
- Access: Open to the general public (walk-ins only, no bookings required), though a security check is mandatory upon entry.
- Offerings: Specialty coffee, house-made cakes by Chef Mike, sandwiches, wraps, salads, the famous Parliament scones with signature homemade jam, and senior discounts.
- Onsite Shop: Houses the Parliament House Gift Shop featuring local NSW artisan products, books, and house-made preserves.
- Price Range: AUD $20–$40 Best “Naked Chicken Burrito Bowl” in the city 🌆
For finer dining in the same building, you can also look into Strangers' Restaurant. You can view the full details or check current offerings via theParliament of NSW Dining Guide or Parliamentary Catering
Many savvy pundits on X framed the 2024 election as a massive political realignment and Bluesky as a “copium” den for progressives in a bubble. Boy, were they wrong.
Blue Wave Changed Who Governs. But Not Who Has Influence. HEALTH CARE un-covered
Six takeaways for the law from Tuesday’s blue tsunami election
Law Dork: “…Costs and corruption were front and center, with one-third or more of voters saying in exit polls that the economy or the state of democracy were the most important issue facing the country, but immigration policies and foreign policy, specifically the Iran war, also looming large. It’s not too ridiculous to say that Tuesday was the last most powerful day of Trump’s presidency. He is, effectively, a lame duck with two years left on his term. Much could still be done — extraordinarily harmful actions even — but he and his sycophants in the administration will face a very different, and more confrontational, world than they did for Trump’s past two years in office.
It was not just a federal election wave, either. The Democrats will also hold at least 27 governorships — and are leading the last two uncalled races, Alaska and Kansas. Other statewide offices and statehouses also flipped — sometimes dramatically, as in North Carolina, where the state House flipped from a Republican supermajority to, potentially, a Democratic supermajority. Not everything happened last night that could have for Democrats — but more happened than anyone imagined.
And that matters. And is a solidly reassuring sign for the stability of our democracy — even if it is, in some ways, just providing the opening to do more. (Much more on that to come.) For now, here are my six takeaways for the law from Tuesday’s blue tsunami election…”
How Republican Deepfake Videos Are Killing Campaign Ethics and Truth-Based Campaigning
Public Impact News: “…nationwide Republican candidates have made the campaign less about actual issues concerning the American people and more about scare tactics while deploying outlandish and unsupported claims against their opponents. There have been claims across the country that Democratic candidates favor Sharia law, are supporters or friends with terrorists, favor open borders, embrace “trans for everyone” (one of the most absurd concepts that you could possibly express in just 3 words), support abortion until the birth of a fetus, want to confiscate “all your guns” and take away the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution, and widespread assertions that all Democrats are Socialists.
Over the summer, this underwent an impressively ridiculous Republican transition into the concept that all Democrats are Communists at heart. But the top answer to the question of what platform Republicans are running on has to be the full-scale demonization of Democrats with some of the most outlandish actual lies and fictions that have ever been seen in American politics, thanks to the assistance of generative AI videos and deepfakes. Rather than talk about affordability, inflation, gas prices, interest rates, the Trump war against Iran, the Trump ICE and DHS war on immigrants to the United States, the housing crisis or gas prices, the answer seized upon has been to attack Democratic opponents ceaselessly and with abandon.
Any semblance of restraint or ethics about portraying your opponent in a fact-based light, or even attacking them for genuine positions that they embrace or have taken, has been thrown out the window in favor of pure falsehoods or multi-step extrapolations and guilt by association attacks, that do not, in fact, represent the Democrats’ actual positions or histories. Literal lies and fabrications that would have been unthinkable in the past have won the day (or year in this case). According to a recent CNN Analysis, about 96% of the TV ad spending on political commercials that disclosed using AI-generated or manipulated imagery came from Republican campaigns or groups…”
John Ford: Ex-ATO deputy commissioner joins BioCatch advisory board focused on government payment fraud
Gloria Cassimatis etc
Ex-ATO deputy commissioner joins BioCatch advisory board focused on government payment fraud
Former Australian Taxation Office (ATO) deputy commissioner John Ford has joined a new BioCatch public-private advisory board that aims to help governments identify and prevent fraud involving tax, welfare and pension payments.
The advisory board’s stated approach is to work with governments and law enforcement to enable banks using BioCatch to alert agencies when an account appears high risk, before government payments are deposited.
The board’s founding members include Ford, former IRS Criminal Investigation chief Guy Ficco and former Israel Money Laundering and Terror Financing Prohibition Authority director-general Dr Shlomit Wagman, according to BioCatch.
In Australia, the proposal lands amid persistent concerns about the scale of fraud affecting government payments and the gap between reported losses and estimated totals. Commonwealth entities quantified $110.7 million in external fraud losses in 2024–25, while external fraud allegations rose 27% to 348,072, according to figures cited in the release. The Commonwealth Fraud Prevention Centre has said the true figure is likely higher, and the OECD has cited an estimate of $5 billion to $25 billion a year.
The release also points to the ATO’s response to GST refund fraud, which it says cost at least $2 billion, with more than 57,000 detected perpetrators. Banks began sending the ATO more alerts about suspicious refunds from December 2021, it said.
BioCatch said it already operates an account intelligence network among Australian banks. Its BioCatch Trust network launched in 2024 with ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, NAB, Suncorp and Westpac, and Macquarie has since joined, according to the release.
“Fraud against tax and welfare systems diverts resources from those who need them most and undermines confidence in government programmes,” Ford said.
BioCatch said the advisory board would seek to establish partnerships enabling member banks to collaborate to warn government agencies about high-risk payments before tax, unemployment, pension and other payments are made to people who may not be legally entitled to them.
The announcement comes as Australia prepares for incoming reforms, including New Scams Prevention Framework obligations for banks starting on 31 March 2027. The release also noted that Parliament’s AI committee heard on 30 October that the ATO has begun using AI to track fraud.
‘Not a workers’ party anymore’: Aussies slam Chalmers over ATO
‘Labor loves spending taxpayers’ money’: Readers turn on Jim Chalmers over multimillion-dollar ATO headquarters
Daily Telegraph readers have taken aim at Treasurer Jim Chalmers over the opening of the Australian Taxation Office’s multimillion-dollar Canberra headquarters, questioning the massive taxpayer spend while families battle rising interest rates and cost-of-living pressures.
The six-storey building in Barton has cost at least $138.3m to fit out, with a further $323.4m committed through a 15-year lease.
The opening has sparked a wave of reader criticism, with some questioning the need for such an expensive headquarters when many public servants work from home.
“Labor loves spending taxpayers’ money,” Steven said.
Another questioned how Mr Chalmers could justify the expenditure on public servants working remotely.
“How does Chalmers justify such expenditure on staff that WFH (Work from Home)?” they wrote.
Another commenter described the opening as “a bit pointless when they are all WFH”.
Others accused the government of being disconnected from ordinary Australians.
“Look at the entitled bureaucrats there with Chalmers. They just live in another world compared to the rest of us,” one reader said.
“Not a good look, is it? Or jetting all over the world for useless, expensive junkets. Labor is not really the party of the workers anymore, is it?” another wrote.
Tony questioned the value of public servants, saying they “leach off the wealth produced by the private sector and ordinary workers”.
Byron called for government offices to be relocated so public servants could better understand life outside Canberra.
“It’s time for Canberra government offices to be relocated to join the real world and only employ people with varied experience of being in it,” he said.
The backlash comes as households face mounting financial pressure, with five interest rate rises in nine months and Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock warning of recession-like conditions.
Environment Minister Murray Watt has also urged Labor colleagues to stop undermining Mr Chalmers through media leaks, saying the government needed to work together to improve the economy.
The opening was seized on by the Coalition, with Opposition Leader Angus Taylor accusing Mr Chalmers and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of being out of touch with Australian families and small businesses.
Shadow treasurer Tim Wilson also criticised the spending, arguing the Treasurer should be focused on cutting government expenditure.
The building, at 15 Sydney Ave in Barton, features 85 office suites for senior executives and can accommodate more than 2500 staff.
A spokesman for Mr Chalmers defended the visit, saying the ATO would play an important role in Labor’s tax reforms, including measures to help first-home buyers and deliver another tax cut for workers.
However, not all readers were critical.
“Poor old Jim can’t even cut a ribbon without getting a negative response. Oh dear!!” Glen said.
The economics of cheating is worth studying
Blue Wave Changed Who Governs. But Not Who Has Influence. HEALTH CARE un-covered
In a message to Nvidia employees, CEO Jensen Huang admitted to being unfaithful to his wife and took “full responsibility” for his actions.
The economics of cheating is worth studying
The Ig Nobel Prize remains the best guide to what makes economists tick
It has been weeks since the prize announcement, and plaudits are long overdue: hearty congratulations to Paul Piff, Daniel Stancato, Stéphane Côté, Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton and Dacher Keltner, who discovered that upper-class people are more likely to steal candy from children. They are worthy winners of the 2026 Ig Nobel Prize in economics.
I have praised the Ig Nobel Prizes before: they are the irreverent alternative to the Nobel Prizes, this year awarded for achievements such as research into splash-free urinals, burying and later disinterring 1,000 pairs of underpants to assess soil health in various countries, and discovering that babies smell lovely to their parents but teenagers do not. They refresh parts of the scientific discourse that the Nobel Prize does not reach. In the case of the economics prize, the Nobel memorial is all very well, but for a shortcut to understanding what makes economists tick, it’s the Ig Nobel Prize every time.
Cheating is a particularly rich seam for economists, and for the Ig Nobel. In 2015, the prize was awarded to the Bangkok Metropolitan Police “for offering to pay policemen extra cash if the policemen refuse to take bribes”. It is good to see the boys in blue being recognised for advancing the cause of human knowledge.
It is just a shame that the Ig Nobel committee cannot reward every worthy recipient. Steven Levitt, co-author of the bestselling Freakonomics (2005), won the prestigious John Bates Clark medal in 2003. He must be sorely disappointed never to have followed up that win with an Ig Nobel.
One Ig Nobel-worthy contribution from Levitt was a journalistic piece he and his Freakonomics co-author Stephen Dubner published in The New York Times Magazine in 2004: “What the Bagel Man Saw”. The Bagel Man in question was Paul Feldman, who ran a successful business delivering thousands of bagels to more than 100 offices in the Washington DC area, collecting money through an honesty box.
Feldman, an economist, carefully tracked the repayment rate. He concluded that people were more likely to pay for their bagels in small offices, in offices where the boss was well liked, during recessions and after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Offices where people needed a security clearance to work were no more honest than anywhere else, which surprised him. Bagels delivered to the executive floor were more likely to be stolen, which did not.
Raymond Fisman and Edward Miguel are another duo unjustly overlooked by the Ig Nobel committee for their work on cheating. Fisman and Miguel have studied corruption through an unusual lens: the accumulation of unpaid parking tickets by UN officials in Manhattan. The work is ingenious. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, UN officials with diplomatic plates could park where they wanted without fear of financial consequence. Tickets would be issued; paying them was a matter of individual conscience rather than fear of any penalty. What is more, every official, from anywhere in the world, faced the same setting — the mean streets of Manhattan — and the same incentives. Who would succumb to temptation?
Fisman and Miguel found that dishonest behaviour clearly had a cultural component. The number of unpaid parking violations each consulate piled up was strongly correlated with general perceptions of corruption in the home country. Kuwait, Egypt, Chad, Sudan and Bulgaria led the way.
The consulates of Denmark, Norway and Sweden did not pick up a single unpaid parking ticket between them over the six years studied. By way of contrast, one Kuwaiti diplomat racked up the equivalent of two unpaid parking fines every working day for a year.
Fisman and Miguel also noted that in 2002, the incentives sharply changed: New York, with the backing of the US state department, revoked nearly 200 diplomatic plates, and with further action threatened, parking violations dropped by 95 per cent almost overnight. The lesson is that while culture matters, the rules matter too.
Speaking of cheating, I am aghast at the lack of an Ig Nobel for a 2012 research paper, “Signing at the beginning makes ethics salient and decreases dishonest self-reports in comparison to signing at the end”. This paper, written by multiple co-authors, presented the results of several studies purporting to find that people are more honest in filling out a form when they sign a promise at the top of the form rather than a declaration at the bottom.
It was a famous finding at the time, and is infamous now. The data sleuths Uri Simonsohn, Leif Nelson and Joe Simmons (collectively “Data Colada”) argued that two of the studies supporting that conclusion contained data that had been manipulated in favour of the scientific hypothesis. The paper has since been retracted.
As the Data Colada team put it, “Two different people independently faked data for two different studies in a paper about dishonesty.” That is a special kind of achievement, and exactly the kind of achievement best celebrated by an Ig Nobel Prize. There is some kind of precedent, after all: the 1995 Ig Nobel for economics was shared by a cast of characters including Nick Leeson and his superiors at Barings Bank.
But who should receive the prize? That is a ticklish question. One of the studies was supervised by Dan Ariely (author of, among other works, The Honest Truth About Dishonesty (2012)) and another by Francesca Gino (author of Rebel Talent: Why it Pays to Break the Rules at Work and in Life (2018)). Data Colada have presented evidence of suspected data falsification in another study supervised by Ariely and in several by Gino. Ariely denies manipulating data and suggests that it was faulty when supplied to him by a third party; Gino says that she has been falsely accused of research malpractice and there is an innocent explanation for the apparent anomalies.
Different people will reach their own conclusions about who, if anyone, might have faked the data in all those academic studies, but the Ig Nobel is a prize with a sense of humour and nobody can deny there is a certain dark comedy to the situation.
The philosophy of the Ig Nobel Prize is that it should make you laugh — and then make you think. Researchers have certainly been thinking, reflecting on the ease with which sloppy practice and worse have too often passed unnoticed in academia. Perhaps it is time to rely less on the honesty box system, and to revoke those diplomatic number plates.
But has the community of researchers been laughing? Perhaps. Sometimes you either have to laugh, or to cry.
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