The number of Australians aged over 65 will more than double, and those aged over 85 will triple in numbers, according to a Treasury forecast of the economy in 2063, the Intergenerational Report, to be published on Thursday.
Month: August 2023
They are meant to be a bargain between the inventor and the public: tell us how your invention works, and we’ll give you a fixed time – a patent protection period – in which you’re the only person who can make use of it.
Source: Patents were meant to reward inventions. It’s time to talk about how they might not
If The ALP Government is already dragging its feet on Climate Change why is Sky News After Dark complaining? Any wonder there’s been a seemingly corporate shift in attitude. I say seemingly because the ALP isn’t threatening their reality.
This year’s federal budget contained a bunch of new spending measures, but they mostly start with ‘m’ for millions not ‘b’ for billions. The total is well short of $37 billion, let alone $116 billion.
During July, sea surface temperatures across much of the Mediterranean Sea were as much as 3 degrees Celsius higher than normal, with pockets up to 5.5C above average along the coasts of Italy, Greece and North Africa.
The Kremlin has been running an aggressive propaganda campaign to justify its actions to its citizens.Now, Russia is sinking deeper into the quagmire of Putinism, and there are few signs that the population is resisting the path the president is leading them down.
Polling by the Russian independent pollster Levada Centre revealed that, in July, approval of Putin amongst Russians stood at 82 per cent. Three-quarters of those surveyed said they supported the actions of the Russian army in Ukraine.
Source: If Putin is about to fall, why do 82 per cent of Russians support him?
How Hitleresque is this? They didn’t kill him and should be praised for their kindness. The branding a PROOF of their HUMANITY.
The macabre incident took place in the middle of last week, when 16 Israeli policemen went to the home of a young Palestinian man in the Shuafat refugee camp on the outskirts of Jerusalem to arrest him. They maintain that he refused to go quietly, and they were constrained to use force against him. His attorney said when he was arraigned on Thursday that every bit of his body was black and blue from the beating the 16 policemen gave him, and that at one point they held him down and branded his cheek with the Star of David, which has been made a symbol for Israel. The police tried to explain this brand away as being from a policeman’s boot.
The question is do any of the superpowers provide us with a model in which individuals want to live?
Every empire falls and the fantasy of American exceptionalism doesn’t exempt the U.S., writes Wilmer J. Leon, III. Yet the failing hegemon behaves as though it still controls events, but instead creates worldwide danger.
Source: Every Empire Falls
Labor’s leadership has delivered impassioned pleas to party faithful to get out and campaign for a successful referendum on the Voice with a simple message: It’s time.
Source: ‘It’s time’: Labor invokes Gough’s spirit to lift Voice push
Abbott went on to claim “hundreds of Aboriginal men would not have signed up to fight for king and country in 1914 and 1915 if they had been the subjects of a racist empire”.
The Australian War Memorial offers more context. Its website states about 1,000 Indigenous soldiers enlisted in the first world war, but “upon their return to civilian life they were treated with the same prejudice and discrimination as before”.
“By the end of 1915 it became harder for Aboriginal Australians to enlist, and some were rejected because of their race … Instructions for the ‘guidance of enlisting officers at approved military recruiting depots’ issued in 1916 state that ‘Aboriginals, half-casts, or men with Asiatic blood are not to be enlisted’,” the AWM website says.
Perhaps Abbott could have provided more detail.
Parroting a Trump catchcry wasn’t exactly surprising for the CPAC event, a local franchise of the long-running American conservative gathering. In keeping with its US roots, the event hosted a smattering of devotees of the Donald, alongside several Sky “after dark” favourites and one-fifth of the Nationals partyroom.
Senator Linda Reynolds has admitted lying under oath when she gave evidence at the Bruce Lehrmann rape trial which when put together with part of the ACT Inquiry Report raises the real possibility that Bruce Lehrmann might have been found guilty if Senator Reynolds had not perjured herself.
Labor’s Shame, However, the worm will turn,
At this week’s Labor Conference Defence Minister Richard Marles distributed a 32 paragraph statement for insertion into the ALP National Platform to explain the Albanese’s Government’s rationale for an incredible $368B of public expenditure on submarines. At $11.5B per paragraph, one can be left very disappointed in his words. Rex Patrick provides readers with a hard hitting paragraph-by-paragraph analysis that reveals a massive swindle.
Source: Marles Mauled: Rex Patrick demolishes Defence sophistry on AUKUS, submarines, nuclear – Michael West
Indonesians kicked the Dutch out the Dutch didn’t cede. It’s Time – Australia recognized the First Nation people’s 65000 years of presence here in our Constitution and said YES to their voice. They were the first multicultural populace on this land. We never even bothered to recognize them and only convert them until late 1900s.
The LNP doesn’t even approve of multiculturalism today let alone Race, Religion the Separation of Powers or even that Australia is an Asian Nation. Less than 10 years ago Abbott dreamed of Aussie Knights and Dames and wanted us to join NATO however we were being absorbed by America. When will we kick them out?
Over two weeks after our visit to the monument, on 14 June 2023, the Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte stated on behalf of his government that 17 August 1945 will henceforth be acknowledged as the date on which the Republic of Indonesia came into being, and hence as the end of Dutch colonial rule over the archipelago – hereby abandoning the government’s previous position that the republic did not come into being until 27 December 1949, the day on which the Netherlands transferred sovereignty to Indonesia. In the four intervening years the Netherlands had waged a bloody war against the Indonesian inhabitants who were fighting for their country’s independence.
Australia has been following in the footsteps of America and our Tertiary Corporatisation is just one proof. Degrees were once free, the government’s investment in our youth and our future, and health was a government responsibility, along with housing. Remember when the ALP promise was ” no child will live in poverty”( Bob Hawke)?
Today’s yardstick has slipped to “we will do better than the LNP” That yardstick has become an inch stick
Since the 1970s, many colleges and universities have become predatory financial giants, while mountains of student debt pile up and academic work becomes ever more precarious. An ascendant academic labor movement may be key to reversing these trends.
Source: US Colleges and Universities Are Becoming Giant Exploitation Machines
After his department was caught pushing the ouster of the democratically elected Imran Khan, the U.S. secretary of state is now praising Pakistan’s preparations for “free and fair elections.”
![TOPSHOT - Niger's National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland (CNSP) Colonel-Major Amadou Abdramane (2nd R) is greeted by supporters upon his arrival at the Stade General Seyni Kountche in Niamey on August 6, 2023. Thousands of supporters of the military coup in Niger gathered at a Niamey stadium Sunday, when a deadline set by the West African regional bloc ECOWAS to return the deposed President Mohamed Bazoum to power is set to expire, according to AFP journalists. A delegation of members of the ruling National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland (CNSP) arrived at the 30,000-seat stadium to cheers from supporters, many of whom were drapped in Russian flags and portraits of CNSP leaders. (Photo by AFP) / "The erroneous mention[s] appearing in the metadata of this photo by - has been modified in AFP systems in the following manner: [Colonel-Major Amadou Abdramane] instead of [Colonel-Major Amadou Adramane]. Please immediately remove the erroneous mention[s] from all your online services and delete it (them) from your servers. If you have been authorized by AFP to distribute it (them) to third parties, please ensure that the same actions are carried out by them. Failure to promptly comply with these instructions will entail liability on your part for any continued or post notification usage. Therefore we thank you very much for all your attention and prompt action. We are sorry for the inconvenience this notification may cause and remain at your disposal for any further information you may require." (Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images)](https://olddogthoughts.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/gettyimages-1581236163.jpg)
![TOPSHOT - Niger's National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland (CNSP) Colonel-Major Amadou Abdramane (2nd R) is greeted by supporters upon his arrival at the Stade General Seyni Kountche in Niamey on August 6, 2023. Thousands of supporters of the military coup in Niger gathered at a Niamey stadium Sunday, when a deadline set by the West African regional bloc ECOWAS to return the deposed President Mohamed Bazoum to power is set to expire, according to AFP journalists. A delegation of members of the ruling National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland (CNSP) arrived at the 30,000-seat stadium to cheers from supporters, many of whom were drapped in Russian flags and portraits of CNSP leaders. (Photo by AFP) / "The erroneous mention[s] appearing in the metadata of this photo by - has been modified in AFP systems in the following manner: [Colonel-Major Amadou Abdramane] instead of [Colonel-Major Amadou Adramane]. Please immediately remove the erroneous mention[s] from all your online services and delete it (them) from your servers. If you have been authorized by AFP to distribute it (them) to third parties, please ensure that the same actions are carried out by them. Failure to promptly comply with these instructions will entail liability on your part for any continued or post notification usage. Therefore we thank you very much for all your attention and prompt action. We are sorry for the inconvenience this notification may cause and remain at your disposal for any further information you may require." (Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images)](https://theintercept.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/GettyImages-1581236163.jpg?w=1024)
The Pentagon refuses to call the overthrow of Niger’s president a coup — a move that could affect military assistance and a U.S. drone base.
A Quinnipiac University poll, conducted partially after the Georgia indictment dropped, (Aug. 10 – 14), found that a 54% majority of Americans think Trump should be criminally prosecuted, 12 points more than the 42% who say he shouldn’t.
Crucially, independent voters favor Trump being prosecuted by 20 points, 57% – 37%.
Nearly two-thirds of Americans (64%) call the federal charges serious, with a 52% majority saying they are “very serious” while just 21% say they are “not serious at all.”
Again, crucially, 51% of independents think the federal criminal charges are very serious.
Nearly 7 in 10 Americans (68%) think a felony conviction should render someone ineligible to be president. Independents hold that view by a roughly 40-point margin, 67% – 25%.
And look at 2020: 94% of Democrats voted for Joe Biden, 94% of Republicans voted for Trump, and independents—who accounted for roughly one-quarter of the electorate—favored Biden by 13 points, 54% – 41%.
As an Aboriginal journalist who contributes to a range of media publications, here are six themes that I believe have contributed to the malaise.
Source: Media and the Voice – the campaign’s descent into darkness
Australia can change, and for the better. It happened this month on the back of the mighty Matildas and it can happen again in October.
Let’s just hope it doesn’t involve watching any more fucking Channel Seven.
Source: I willingly watched Channel 7 and didn’t even regret it – The Shot
Beyond rent controls: can we have a market where tenants are treated with respect? On of the subjects of Ian McAuley’s weekly round up.
Significant findings from the spotlight report include:
- More than half of Australians (56%) take sustainability into consideration when making purchases.
- Over 69% of Australians believe that the retail industry creates too much waste.
- Whilst majority of Australians (54%) affirm they are willing to pay a premium for sustainable products, with increases in cost of living, unsurprisingly, there was an 8% rise of shoppers who aren’t willing to pay extra for an eco-friendly product.
- Further, 49% of shoppers expressed the likelihood of shopping again with retailers that had sustainability practices they approved of, but 34% of shoppers are unsure of their future shopping preferences, a 5% increase from last year, showing further murkiness in consumer trust and interest around sustainability in retail.
So, what does a sustainable retailer look like in 2023 and why should it be at the forefront of businesses’ minds? Through their extensive research and the steps taken by leading retailers in this area, The Purpose Agents and Power Retail have identified six key areas where changes can be made across the retail sector. These include:
Are you convinced?
You have to laugh though Peter Dutton talked about the “Great Division in the ALP” about AUKUS. Yet again it was something that proved not to exist.
“We have to analyse the world as it is rather than as we would want it to be,” he said. “These are the choices of a mature nation.”
Source: Why Labor has embraced AUKUS with so little party dissent
Labor has a long history of profiting from poker machines. Will they move a motion at the ALP National Conference to address gambling harm? Veteran anti-pokies crusader, journalist Stephen Mayne reports.
Source: Action from Labor on pokies, gambling, more long-shot than sure bet – Michael West
In the intensive care room in the Bethlehem Arab Society for Rehabilitation (BASR) lies four-year-old Jibreel Sawarka. The Palestinian toddler is in an extremely critical condition after being hit in a car ramming attack by an Israeli settler in the Palestinian village of Kisan, east of Bethlehem in the Occupied West Bank. Jibreel was playing near his house with his brother when the settler struck him with his car and then fled.
Source: Israeli Squatters in Palestinian West Bank are Deploying Terrorism against Indigenous Population
A viral video this week of a Russian couple who are volunteers in occupied Ukraine. They were shocked at their treatment by native Ukrainians who don’t regard them as liberators. Far from it. Most times, with their Russian license plate, they’re refused service at gas stations. And besides all the rude comments, they fear for their safety, and they even try not to spend nights there for fear of not waking up.
And if the video strikes you as some bizarre exercise in cognitive dissonance where they regard the native Ukrainians as “traitors”, I’ll remind you again that this is how ordinary Russians are taught. It makes no sense at all to the rest of us, but to them it does.
Source: Russian Volunteers Shocked That Ukrainians Don’t Want Them There | Crooks and Liars
US Secretary of State Tony Blinken tweeted in celebration of Pakistan’s preparations for “free and fair elections” on Wednesday, a week after it was revealed that the US pressured Pakistan to oust its popular democratically elected prime minister Imran Khan last year.
Source: US government pressured Pakistan to oust democratically elected Imran Khan – Pearls and Irritations
If the following words sound familiar, the reason is that l have posted them before. However, it may be best to reread them to understand my thoughts. Again, I had better pause lest you fail to grasp where I am heading. In Australia, we have a saying, “Only in America.” It’s a phrase we use when… ( John Lord )
Source: Could Trump really win against multiple indictments? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
It took over a decade to lead up to the rise of Trump era. It will be over 3 decades to get over him. However, is this the change we see coming?
Finally. Donald Trump’s depravities are laid bare for all to see in a court of law.
Source: Folks, the wait was worth it: Donald Trump is going to prison | Salon.com
Pride or Prejudice
The outcome of the Voice referendum will affect Australia’s reputation – a fact voters should consider, writes John McCarthy.
Source: What the Voice means for Australia’s reputation – Pearls and Irritations
Contradictions have appeared in evidence given by Linda Reynolds as to what happened on the night of the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins, writes Dr Jennifer Wilson.
When I published my first book decades ago, the purpose of most publishing houses was to publish books. Publishers made money in order to publish books. They earned enough on their big bestsellers to take chances on unknown authors like me and put out books that delighted small numbers of enthusiastic readers but never showed a profit.
Source: How Private Equity Is Destroying the Labors of Love | The Smirking Chimp
Hillsong Church founder Brian Houston has been found not guilty by a Magistrate for concealing his paedophile father’s rape of survivor Brett Sengstock when he was a child.
Settlers are awaiting the appearance of a ‘blemish free’ red cow, which, according to Judaism, is central to the prediction about the “end of times”, and therefore paves the way for the acceleration of the destruction of Al-Aqsa Mosque to make way for the so-called Temple.
Source: In Israel, Religious Zionism’s End-of-Days hope for “Red Cow” emboldens Extremism
IIn his message to the troops prior to the July 4th weekend, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin offered high praise indeed. “We have the greatest fighting force in human history,” he tweeted, connecting that claim to the U.S. having patriots of all colors, creeds, and backgrounds “who bravely volunteer to defend our country and our values.”
…… yes, the U.S. military is indeed exceptional and being so, being #1 (or claiming you are anyway) means never having to say you’re sorry, no matter how many innocents you kill or maim, how many lives you disrupt and destroy, how many lies you tell.
Was Morrison ever caught on camera by News Photographers or Paid and Bought Freelancers? ” Lights Camera Action ” feed the press.
The current chancellor, Olaf Scholz, is also proving stellar in his own right: 21,808 euros was spent on hair and makeup in 2023, and 38,910 euros the previous year. These totals would be questionable at the best of times, but Scholz’s case is even odder. How do you justify generous remunerations to hairstylists for someone with little to no hair to work with? Is the pate particularly delicate, requiring tender care? German taxpayers must be pondering the mysteries.
Source: Keeping Up Appearances: Merkel’s Hair and Scholz’s Pate – » The Australian Independent Media Network
This isn’t The Chaser. It’s a reflection of what the ABC was forced to become during those past 13 years of the LNP and now for Peter Dutton “Lets Humanise the @#$%$#. They are going to try to Normalise him Fuck you very much!!
Crabb is adept at using humour not to satirise, but to minimise. It can’t be so bad if we can have a good laugh about it together over lunch, can it?
What does a Liberal vote mean if the ultraconservatives take over the party’s mechanisms?
Source: The insurgency within the Liberal Party – » The Australian Independent Media Network
With only 25% of the devastated area searched by rescue teams, developers and realtors are already swooping in to try to buy land from displaced locals—a callous incarnation of our current social order.
The struggle now is the one that punctuates all moments of crisis: the forces of disaster capitalism versus the people attempting to build a paradise out of hell.
Source: Opinion | Empire and Capital Set Maui Ablaze | Common Dreams
Remember when Andrew Bolt kept telling us the world was “cooling”. He no longer does but parrots off that the proposed “solutions” to climate change are wrong. Has the worm really turned?
The indefatigable Creighton does though use one of the most recent versions of the denialist position with the proviso: “Noone denies that climate changes. It always has, for reasons obviously unrelated to human activity. The question is how much of its our fault”.
for some time now, researchers have suggested that the balance of arguments propagated by climate sceptics or denialists has shifted from denying or undermining climate science to challenging policy solutions designed to reduce emissions.
“To comprehend the truth and not act upon it – is there a greater sin than this? Knowledge masked is murder.”
We might also take solace in all this with A.E.Housman’s “The house of delusions is cheap to build, but drafty to live in, and ready at any instance to fall…..It is and it must in the long run be better for a man to see things as they are than to be ignorant of them.”
But then it’s hard to see things clearly if you read Adam Creighton and watch Fox news or Sky After Dark.
Source: What do climate denialists say when the facts change? – Pearls and Irritations
Wealth inequality is a global crisis and taxing the super-rich is a pathway to saving the planet from environmental catastrophe, writes Robert Gordon.
The two openers for the New Pakistan : Caught and bowled by Imran Khan
For a year and a half, Pakistani politics has been gripped by word of a diplomatic cable said to describe U.S. State Department officials encouraging the removal of former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan from power. Last week, The Intercept published the contents of the cable, known internally as a cypher, which revealed U.S. diplomats pressing for the removal of Khan over his neutral stance on the conflict in Ukraine.
Since it was published, the response to the story from Pakistani and U.S. officials has been both defensive and contradictory.
Source: Pakistan Denies Conspiracy Against Imran Khan, Confirms Cable
For 75 years, Israel has been waging an ideological war to manufacture a legitimacy it does not have. Fissures, however, are now visible in Israel’s carefully crafted and managed narrative.
What is taking place in Occupied Palestine is clearly not a “conflict,” a word which implies a fight between two people with equal political and military resources and equal claims. And while the media perfunctorily describes Israel as a “democratic state,” they avoid using the more accurate “apartheid state” description.
In light of the open racism of Israel’s extremist government, and the unrestrained violence of Jewish “settler-colonists,” the country is finding it increasingly difficult to whitewash its entrenched apartheid system in occupied Palestine.
Source: Uncovering Israeli Propaganda: Wars to Wage with Words to Bamboozle – CounterPunch.org
While the world’s attention is drawn away from the Middle East Israel’s Extremists take advantage
Bezalel Smotrich’s settlement plan is to annex the West Bank, increase settlements and bring an end to the Palestinian Authority. He works silently, away from the cameras and the Knesset podium. He is a professional politician who knows how to swim against the tide.
WTF What’s going on?
In the age of Donald Trump, not even 91 criminal charges – which, remember, is 91 more than his predecessors combined – puts him out of the presidential running. On the contrary. Trump’s grand slam of criminal indictments in New York, Miami, Washington DC and now Atlanta – and all in the same calendar year – has solidified his lead in the Republican primary race. What explains the change?
Source: Tired of Donald Trump surviving each new outrage? Blame Bill Clinton
Donald John Trump’s indictment in federal court for sedition and in state court for racketeering are both legal means of sanctioning him for trying illegally to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Although he is the first president to be criminally charged for such a crime (or at all), he is not the first world leader to be taken to court for trying to overthrow the government.
olddogthoughts 