Corduroy Academy

( Mostly) radical thoughts, ideas, and links from late stage colonial capitalism.

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    Human rights groups say Australian government must act after ICJ ruling on allegation against Israel

    The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has warned the Israeli government must do everything in its power to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza.

    It was among several other preliminary orders issued by the court.

    When asked whether he welcomed the ICJ ruling, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Australia was not a party to the process.

    “We’ve made very clear our position, which is that every human life matters, whether it be Israeli or Palestinian,” Mr Albanese said.

    The Australian Centre for International Justice (ACIJ) said the prime minister’s response was an attempt to hide from his government’s duty, with executive director Rawan Arraf warning the federal government does not get to “escape its obligations” under the Genocide Convention and international law.

    They needed to take action when hundreds of thousands of citizens wrote to and demonstrated against their pro-genocide position. Sadly, democracy has been utterly usurped by capitalism in this country.

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    French President Macron joins India’s Republic Day celebrations as chief guest

    Thousands of people lined a ceremonial boulevard in the heart of India’s capital on Friday to watch a colorful parade showcasing the country’s military power and cultural heritage to mark its 75th Republic Day. 

    French President Emmanuel Macron attended the parade as the chief guest at the celebration of the adoption of the country’s Constitution on Jan. 26, 1950, following India’s independence from British colonial rule. 

    Indian President Draupadi Murmu escorted Macron in a ceremonial British-era horse-drawn carriage from the nearby president’s palace to the viewing stand. It was the first time the carriage has been used at the parade since it was abandoned by the government 40 years ago in favor of an automobile.

    Just right-wing things.

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    Invasive ants leave lions scrambling for prey on the savannah in an ecological chain reaction

    Lions, elephants, zebras, buffalo, ants, and trees are all locked in an intricate ecological web in one Kenyan nature preserve. But that web is unraveling as a small invader disrupts the natural balance of things, according to a study published January 24 in the journal Science.

    The spread of an invasive insect across the savannah habitat of Ol Pejeta Conservancy has triggered a domino effect. The fallout leaves lions less able to hunt zebras–their primary prey– and has prompted the big cats to pursue larger and potentially more dangerous buffalo, says Todd Palmer, one of the study authors and a biology professor at the University of Florida. Other major ecosystem shifts, like loss of bird habitat and declining soil health, are likely also occurring. 

    The new research builds on past work to demonstrate just how delicate and complex the savannah ecosystem is. More broadly, it shows how important mutualisms (mutually beneficial relationships between species) can be in habitats around the world. When the connections between organisms are disrupted, it can have serious conservation consequences.

    Invasive non-human animals, like invasive humans, just fuck shit up.

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    US pauses UNRWA funding after employees accused of Oct. 7 involvement

    The State Department has paused additional funding to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees while it reviews allegations that 12 of the organization’s employees were involved in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

    The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, known as UNRWA, said on Friday that it was conducting an investigation into the alleged involvement of several of its employees and that it had immediately terminated their contracts.

    “The United States is extremely troubled by the allegations that twelve UNRWA employees may have been involved in the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement. 

    It’s all a deliberate distraction from the actual genocide Israel has been committing for decades.

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    Not a date to celebrate

    hello, just a friendly reminder that Jan 26 is not a celebration. This is a day of mourning, of loss, of invasion.

    see also: thousands march in Invasion Day rallies.

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    PM defends tax cut backflip as living costs soar

    More help is on its way for middle income workers stretched thin by the high cost of living in the form of more generous income tax cuts.

    Laying out the details of the revamped stage three tax cuts at a national address, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese defended the change in policy as the “right thing to do”.

    “When economic circumstances change, the right thing to do is change your economic policy,” Albanese said at the National Press Club address on Thursday.

    “This is a change in our policy.”

    The prime minister repeatedly promised to deliver the stage three cuts in full as devised five years ago under the coalition government.

    Rather than making literally anything better for those living on (or below) the poverty line, this bourgeois cunt is giving his mates the biggest tax cut in recent history. So much for a party of the workers. Labor are class traitors to the bone and deserve to be strung up.

    The number of rusted on shills pushing this as a good thing that working class people might get $50 back is cooked. This only hurts workers. It only further reinforces the gap between the rich and poor. It only further fucks over public investment in necessary services. This is a betrayal of everything Labor should stand for.

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    Global warming drove record Amazon rainforest drought

    Climate change, and not El Nino, was the primary driver of the unprecedented drought last year in the Amazon rainforest that caused rivers to dry up, required deliveries of essential supplies to river communities and resulted in the deaths of endangered dolphins, scientists have said.

    A report released on Wednesday by World Weather Attribution, an international network of scientists, showed that human-induced global warming was draining waterways in the world’s largest rainforest, killing hundreds of endangered dolphins and isolating millions of people who rely on the region’s waterways for food, transport and income.

    As an academic human I don’t say this particularly lightly… did we really need a study to tell us this was the climate? We’re so fucked.

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    Workers Need to Fight to Make Sure AI Works for Them

    Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a labor issue. Maybe we’ll get lucky and it will prove to be a marginal labor issue. Or maybe it will prove to be an existential, epochal labor issue on par with industrialization or globalization, each of which revolutionized their own eras of work. Before we get completely immersed in the battle over how AI will affect workers, though, it is important to frame the playing field correctly. This is not a fight between a backward-looking labor movement on one side and technological progress on the other. Rather, this is a question of where the wealth and efficiency gains created by AI will flow.

    The capitalists are trying to privatise and close the source on AI and LLM tools. They suggest it’s impossible for regular humans to run a private AI tool. This is wrong, and only disempowers workers.