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Iceland has become the fifth country to withdraw from the Eurovision Song Contest—following Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Slovenia—in the latest disruption to an event already scarred by controversy over Israel’s inclusion. The singalong has never been a stranger to politics; it suspended Russia immediately after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Yet after another year…

“Know your enemy” – Rage Against the Machine At the greasy nexus of reality and satire that America straddles, more specifically at something called the 2025 McDonald’s Impact Summit, US President Donald Trump told a room full of cheeseburger capitalists to further immiserate their employees: “The minimum wage thing, you have to be talking about…

Around the West, mainstream figures are normalising far-right actors and ideas. Some of them, for example the Australian judiciary, do so because they do not understand the deep dangers to societal wellbeing of, say, Neo Nazi ideologies. Maybe young white men in suits do not look so dangerous to these inattentive citizens. Others are actively…

Affluent White men are really annoyed about steps towards giving other groups a fair go. Really bloody annoyed. To the point that a coalition of them is prepared to resuscitate old ideas about genetic determinism to prove that “science” says that they are the only ones fit to lead. And they won’t be told their…

Albanese’s pilgrimage to pay homage at the feet of our lords and masters, the United States of America, is over and he’s back on our selection at the Lodge. Yes, he’s finally come home with cattle now, our Anthony who’s gone a-droving, and he’s returned to enjoying the usual perks of office he loves so…

Like colours, neurodivergence and political ideology, being a dickhead operates on a spectrum. From narcissistic middle managers, to people that use leafblowers, to parents that habitually scream at their kids, to pompous prats that unquestioningly lie about a genocide while posing as pure arbiters of reason, honesty, truth and intellectual rigour. This is Dave’s Theorem…

In societies which call themselves open and free, where elites cannot easily control the general population with violence, opinion management by other means remains the holy grail.  This is despite the fact that state propaganda and indoctrination are supposed to be exclusive characteristics of unfree and totalitarian states at both ends of the ideological spectrum.…

“We’re seeing a year-on-year decline on text,” said Facebook VP for Europe, Middle East and Africa, Nicola Mendelsohn, in a June 2016 interview. “We’re seeing a massive increase, as I’ve said, on both pictures and video. So I think, yeah, if I was having a bet, I would say: Video, video, video.” It’s the ten…

There’s an established principle in law: he who comes looking for equity must come with clean hands. The clean hands doctrine simply means that if you want equitable treatment on an issue, you must have acted ethically and in good faith yourself on the same issue. In other words, don’t come at me with lectures…

At no other moment in history has the leader of the world’s most powerful empire, mid-genocide, addressed a gathering of global dignitaries and boasted of the merch sales of a personal line of baseball hats. “I’m really good at predicting things,” Trump said to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday. “During the campaign they had…