Pain and dying. It’s what we do. We endure the pain of birth through a passage that is too narrow both for child and mother. In China, more than fifty per cent of birth are done through Caesarean sections. We also use pain killers. Could the natural birthing limit the size of our brain? Much of what we do in life is designed to alleviate pain and achieve a certain level of contentment, though we are often told “no pain, no gain”. This of course is a contentious concept. Can we achieve a better way of thinking? 

In eighteenth century Europe, a bold new idea came along with the “robots” of Monsieur Jacques de Vaucanson. They were not robots per se, but automated figurines that through various clock mechanisms could perform complex tasks such as playing music, drawing images and playing games. Eventually, we thought such machines could develop reason and emotions. 

Joe Biden has accused his opponent Donald Trump of trucking with 'domestic extremists'. Ryan Cristian, founder and editor of podcast The Last American Vagabond, pointed out the hypocrisy of the president who arms Ukrainian Nazis.

The CIA is using fascist groups as tools of state policy at home and abroad, says an independent media commentator.

Several dozen members of the Blood Tribe and Goyim Defense League neo-Nazi groups marched to Disney World in Florida on Saturday.

Russia will extend its voluntary cut in oil exports by 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) until the end of the year, Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak announced on Tuesday. 

“The additional voluntary reduction in oil supplies for export is aimed at strengthening the precautionary measures taken by the OPEC+ countries in order to maintain stability and balance on the oil markets,” the official stated.   

Russia will review its voluntary cuts monthly, in order “to consider the possibility of deepening the reduction or increasing production, depending on the situation on the world market,” Novak added.   

The EU intends to endorse the African Union’s bid to become a permanent member of the G20 at the group’s upcoming summit in New Delhi, people familiar with the matter have told Bloomberg.

With Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping both announcing that they’re going to skip the event in New Delhi next week, Brussels is looking “to seize the moment... to show that it is serious about redefining its partnership with Africa, despite the troubled legacy of colonialism,” the news outlet claimed in a report on Tuesday.

According to the sources, the bloc's officials are planning to organize a “mini-summit” with the African Union (AU), which incorporates 55 of the continent’s countries, on the sidelines of the G20 event on September 9, the first day of the two-day gathering.

Adani Group, chaired by India’s second-richest man Gautam Adani, on Thursday categorically rejected allegations of stock-trading violations made by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), an international investigative platform known for its work on the ‘Panama papers’ and ‘Pandora papers’. 

Long time ago, there was joy in the air

When one was young without wear and tear

The days were full of love and beauty

While the earth gave us a horn of bounty

Then the psychos won the time of day

With illusions and promises of goodness

Hiding behind a horrible deceitful mess

Pompously leading a deranged military

With war drums beaten to the tune of hate

Claiming righteousness to justify our madness

Did we osmose the psychos’ ugly fate

How come now we took the bait

Have we destroyed our own goodness

That of our youth without anger nor debate

The days were full of love and beauty

While the earth gave away tons of bounty

Until the psychos won the day either way.

The Qantas board of directors should resign and regulators ought to investigate charging Alan Joyce with insider trading. Michael West reports.

Can Alan Joyce be prosecuted for insider trading? If he knew about the ACCC investigating Qantas’ ‘phantom flights’, which is false and misleading conduct, then the answer is yes.

The ACCC began investigating Qantas last year. By the time Joyce sold $17m worth of his personal Qantas stock in early June, the investigation was in full swing. It was only made public on Thursday, Qantas shares dropped almost 7% on the news to close Friday at $5.82.

President Biden on Monday mocked former Commander in Chief Donald Trump as a “great real estate” developer who “didn’t build a damn thing.”

Biden ripped Trump — the head of a New York City real-estate dynasty and architect of the country’s controversial border wall with Mexico — while touting himself as the US’s infrastructure king.

“Guess what? The great real-estate builder, the last guy here, he didn’t build a damn thing,” the 80-year-old president said during a Labor Day rally in swing-state Pennsylvania. 

“Under my predecessor, ‘Infrastructure Week’ became a punchline,” Biden said, referring to the dayslong Trump initiative in which his administration touted its national development plans. 

The prime minister has criticised the opposition's proposal for a second referendum as "sabotage", saying it ignores what Indigenous people have asked for.

Thanks to a great response last week to an article about Klaus Schwab’s creep-tastic use of the term “transparency,” I’m pressing forward with a Devil’s Dictionary-style lexicographical project, tracking multitudinous dystopian alterations to American political speech.

It is no secret that United Nations mediation is in a state of decline. The U.N. is no longer in the lead role in conflict countries where the secretary-general and his representatives or special envoys are mandated to provide mediation and good offices. In most of these conflicts, powerful members of the Security Council, regional and subregional organizations are taking the lead, pushing the U.N. to the sidelines. 

By Jamal Benomar
PassBlue

Transgender activists have called out Anthony Albanese over his answer to the question: 'What is a woman?'

September 2 marked the 78th anniversary of the World War Two surrender ceremony onboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. This moment formalized Japan’s unconditional capitulation to the United States, and its allies, and marked the end of the conflict. From the Japanese perspective, it had been ongoing since the Marco Polo bridge incident of July 7, 1937, which started the Sino-Japanese War.

There was no negotiation, only a simple surrender ceremony in which Japanese officials signed documents, without conditions.

Because that is what defeat looks like.

China’s economy is slowing down. Current forecasts put China’s GDP growth in 2023 at less than 5%, below the forecasts made last year and far below the high growth rates that China enjoyed until the late 2010s. The Western press is filled with China’s supposed misdeeds: a financial crisis in the real-estate market, a general overhang of debt, and other ills. Yet much of the slowdown is the result of US measures that aim to slow China’s growth. Such US policies violate World Trade Organisation rules and are a danger to global prosperity. They should be stopped.

By Jeffrey D. Sachs

Despite what the Western media have said, Putin is a rational man. He expect other world leaders to be rational. But Putin is wrong. As Colonel Douglas MacGregor has said many times, there is not a single rational leader in the West. Worse still, what these leaders get for advice is aggressive demented rubbish. 

What this means is tragic. The superior species on this little planet is tinkering on the edge of complete self-destruction taking most of other life-form with it. It will take another 125 million years to reach the same level of present intelligence — which is quite low in the bowels of the American Empire headquarters.

BY Gus Leonisky