Corduroy Academy

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

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    Aidan
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    Israel bombs Gaza after UN warns territory ‘uninhabitable’

    Israel bombed Gaza on Saturday (Jan 6) as the United Nations warned that the Palestinian territory has become “uninhabitable” after three months of fighting that threatens to engulf the wider region.

    AFP correspondents reported Israeli strikes early Saturday on Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of people have sought shelter from the fighting.

    Civilians continue to bear the brunt of the conflict, with the UN warning of a deepening humanitarian crisis as famine looms and disease spreads.

    There does, at least, seem to be growing recognition that this is not and has never been a war. This is a colonial project run by a genocidal terrorist group posing as a nation, backed by much of the anglophone west. History will remember these actions and hopefully many will remember this as a Zionist project of ethnic cleansing. “Never again”? No, only if Zionists aren’t the perpetrators, I guess.

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    Aidan
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    Hezbollah fires rockets at Israel in ‘response’ to Hamas leader’s killing

    Lebanese armed group Hezbollah has said it targeted a vital Israeli military post with a barrage of 62 rockets as a “preliminary response” to the killing of a Hamas leader in Beirut this week.

    This comes as the European Union foreign policy chief met the Lebanese prime minister in Beirut on Saturday, and warned against Lebanon being dragged into a regional conflict in a spillover from Israel’s war on Gaza.

    “As part of the initial response to the crime of assassinating the great leader Sheikh Saleh al-Arouri … the Islamic resistance [Hezbollah] targeted the Meron air control base with 62 various types of missiles,” the Iran-aligned group said in a statement on Saturday of the attacks in northern Israel.

    Israel is actually seeing some retaliation for its genocidal project. Funny how there’s consequences when you attack a sovereign nation you haven’t been systematically impressing for generations. Of course the international sphere is calling this terrorism.

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    Aidan
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    Crackdown on Palestine in education goes far beyond universities

    In November, two teachers at the Citizens of the World Charter School in Los Angeles were suspended and subjected to an investigation after they made social media posts about giving lessons to first graders on the genocide in Palestine.

    “LOL but I did a lesson on the genocide in Palestine today [with] my first graders,’” wrote one. “My fav was a kid who was like ‘What if they just gave the land back to Palestine and find somewhere else to live,’” she added.

    Upon suspending the teachers, the school’s executive director Melissa Kaplan condemned the posts and their reference to genocide.

    “Land of the free”. Freedom to be complicit in propaganda, or to be ostracised by the entire nation – even when it’s divided over politics.

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    Aidan
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    U.S. Employers Add Robust 216,000 Jobs In Sign Of Resilient Job Market

    The nation’s employers added a robust 216,000 jobs last month, the latest sign that the American job market remains resilient even in the face of sharply higher interest rates.

    Friday’s report from the Labor Department showed that December’s job gain exceeded the 173,000 that were added in November. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 3.7% — the 23rd straight month that joblessness has remained below 4%.

    This, in any nation, grinds my gears. It’s not about “employment” as a volume – it’s about if people can afford to live, are happy, are meaningfully living their lives. Who gives a shit if there’s more minimum wage jobs – all that’s an indicator of is people struggling, not success. Fuck economists and their fake bullshit “science”.

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    Apple Could Soon Face ‘Sweeping’ U.S. Antitrust Lawsuit

    Apple officials have met with the DoJ several times during the investigation, which has covered everything from iMessage to the Apple Watch. Some of the topics looked at:

    • How the Apple Watch works better with iPhone than other smart watches do.
    • How Apple locks competitors out of iMessage.
    • How Apple blocks other financial firms from offering tap-to-pay services similar to Apple Pay on the ‌iPhone‌.
    • Whether Apple favors its own apps and services over those provided by third-party developers.
    • How Apple has blocked cloud gaming apps from the App Store.
    • How Apple restricts the ‌iPhone‌’s location services from devices that compete with AirTag.
    • How App Tracking Transparency impacted the collection of advertising data.
    • In-app purchase fees collected by Apple.

    Apple competitors like Tile, Beeper, Basecamp, Meta, and Spotify have talked with antitrust investigators, as have banks that have wanted access to the ‌iPhone‌’s NFC capabilities.

    Taking a break from world news. So I’ve been an all Apple person since 2004 and this screams jealousy from android users rather than an actual antitrust? Apple devices are not a meaningfully large majority of human consumers for this to even register as anticompetitive.

    But sure I guess the biggest problem for US regulators right now is why the App Store would stop slimy advertising companies spying on users – apparently that’s bad.

    Can’t you guys be consumer advocates like the EU? Remember how we got USB-C? Tracking cookie protections? No? Of course not. Capitalism wins.

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    Aidan
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    Tesla recalls over 1.6 million EVs exported to China to fix automatic steering, door latch glitches

    Tesla is recalling more than 1.6 million Model S, X, 3 and Y electric vehicles exported to China for problems with their automatic assisted steering and door latch controls. 

    China’s State Administration for Market Regulation announced the recall on Friday. It said Tesla Motors in Beijing and Shanghai would use remote upgrades to fix the problems, so in most cases car owners would not need to visit Tesla service centers.

    The recall due to problems with the automatic steering assist function applies to 1.6 million imported Tesla Model S, Model X, Model 3 and Model Ys.

    Shoddy corner cutting billionaire’s shoddy company makes bad vehicles. Regulator forces them to fix it.

    Anything with Musk on it should be avoided like a sewer. There’s a special kind of sociopathy going on there.

    Remember when rich white people thought Tesla was some kind of status symbol? lol

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    US offers $10 million for Hamas financial information

    The United States is offering up to $10 million for information on five Hamas financiers or anything leading to the disruption of the Palestinian militant group’s financial mechanisms, the State Department said on Friday.

    The reward offering follows four rounds of U.S. sanctions on Hamas after the group’s deadly incursion into Israel on Oct. 7, which Israel says killed 1,200 people. Israel’s subsequent military retaliation in Gaza has killed 22,600 people, local health officials say, and left much of the enclave in ruins.

    Some more sick propaganda for your Saturday. As if drowning Israel in weapons and financial aid to commit its genocide wasn’t enough — here’s some more direct involvement in a fake “war” under fake pretence.

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    China promises pandas for the U.S. on the 45th anniversary of the two nations’ ties

    Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Friday that the United States and China must insist on peaceful coexistence and transcend their differences like they did when they established diplomatic relations 45 years ago this week.

    Wang also promised that giant pandas would return to the U.S. — and specifically California — by the end of the year.

    “China-U.S. cooperation is no longer a dispensable option for the two countries or even for the world, but a must-answer question that must be seriously addressed,” he said.

    Why are pandas the carrot here? It’s not like the US and China have positive and reciprocal relations.