A 65-year-old New York City cab driver from Queens, Nicanor Ochisor, hanged himself in his garage March 16, saying in a note he left behind that the ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft had made it impossible for him to make a living. It was the fourth suicide by a cab driver in New York in the last four months, including one Feb. 5 in which livery driver Douglas Schifter, 61, killed himself with a shotgun outside City Hall.
Category: Uncategorized
Democrats in 2018 feel more positive toward socialism than capitalism, according to a Gallup Poll released Monday.
Fifty-seven percent of respondents indicated they had a positive view of socialism, a percentage that has not changed drastically since 2010. “The major change,” Gallup reports, “has been a less upbeat attitude toward capitalism, dropping to 47% positive this year—lower than in any of the three previous measures.”
New York ( Tomdispatch.com) – American weapons makers have dominated the global arms trade for decades. In any given year, they’ve accounted for somewhere between one-third and more than one-half the value of all international weapons sales. It’s hard to imagine things getting much worse — or better, if you happen to be an arms trader — but they could, and soon, if a new Trump rule on firearms exports goes through.
via How Trump is Turning US Diplomats into Arms Merchants to the World
In a move that signals even more cooperation collusion between Fox News and Trump, the White House counsel has granted a waiver for the “public interest” that allows Bill Shine, WH Communications Director and former Fox News executive to skirt the law and meet with Fox News. (Emphasis added.)
The Administration has an interest in you interacting with Covered Organizations such as Fox News,” wrote White House counsel Don McGahn in a July 13 memo (PDF) granting an ethics waiver to Shine, a former Fox executive. “[T]he need for your services outweighs the concern that a reasonable person may question the integrity of the White House Office’s programs and operations.”
Larry Kudlow, the White House’s top economic advisor, was also granted a waiver for his old stomping ground at CNBC.
Shine’s involvement with the sexual abuse scandals that rocked the network must have been good for his resume before Trump hired him.
How does the public interest come into this mess since Fox News routinely buries real news stories that are negative for the Trump administration and his surrogates in Congress and uses mostly TV hosts that not only embrace the Trump administration but fight over his affections.
via White House Waives Rule To Allow Bill Shine To Meet With Fox News | Crooks and Liars
srael’s use of the technology to kill Palestinians, says the families’ attorney, raises “many questions concerning human judgment, ethics, and compliance with international humanitarian law.”
A secret report by the Israeli military police—obtained by The Intercept‘s Robert Mackey—reveals that a week into Israel’s Operation Protective Edge in 2014, “air force, naval, and intelligence officers” mistook four 10- and 11-year-old boys who were playing on a beach in Gaza for Hamas militants and killed them by firing missiles from an armed drone.
She now Knows what it’s like to be an indigenous person in Australia that has no money to engage a lawyer having committed a misdemeanor (ODT)
The Swedish national who lives in Kent, England, had accepted a complimentary glass of wine served with her meal on the Emirates Airlines flight to Dubai.
Upon being detained, she and her daughter were held in a “baking hot and foul smelling” airport detention centre and not allowed to call her husband. Speaking to the MailOnline, Holman said: “So far this situation has cost me around £30,000 in legal fees, expenses and missed work. All our savings have gone.”She was released on bail and told her passport would remain confiscated until the case was concluded.’My passport remains confiscated until the case is settled, which I have been told will take at least a year,’ she said.
via Dubai Jails Swedish Woman, Daughter, for one Glass of Wine on Flight
Islamophobic attacks on Muslim women who wear veils have risen since Boris Johnson compared them to “letterboxes”, a watchdog has found.
Tell Mama, which records hate crimes, said there was a “direct link” between the former foreign minister’s comments and an uptick in incidents targeting women who wear the niqab – which covers the face and hair apart from the eyes.
At least four women have been called “letterboxes” in public since Mr Johnson ignited a row over Islamophobia with an article published in the Daily Telegraph on 5 August.
‘Letterbox’ insults against Muslim women spike in wake of Boris Johnson comments | The Independent
If only concern was given to threats faced by the Individual citizen from both business and the business of cyber crime.We speak of market “freedoms” with little emphasis of “safety” other than “Buyer Beware” were not about to “teach” you the traps witch are increasing daily with data farming. Crime, Punishment are after all a class apart. (ODT)
Unfortunately, with around 3.5 billion internet users globally and well over 10 billion devices in use, cyber security will remain a major headache confronting business and government globally for years to come. For example, over the past year, the size of the global cybercrime economy has grown to more than $2 trillion annually, making it the world’s 13th largest economy by revenue, according to the Into the Web of Profit (Understanding the Growth of the Cybercrime Economy) study recently released by the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom.
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From Reefgate to the Banking Royal Commission and Joyce versus Husar to Cash and the AWU raids, the case for a Federal ICAC is comprehensive, writes John Passant.
JUSTICE IS BLIND, so the old saw goes.
It is certainly blind to the crimes and misdemeanours of our political and economic overlords, the one per cent.
via #Reefgate, Joyce versus Husar and other scandals: The case for a federal ICAC
When money isn’t the solution and politics is guaranteed to fail the community’s most vulnerable by increasing the risk of their stress and isolation. (ODT)
“The average NDIS package value is nearly three times the average level of funding clients currently receive through the Mental Health Community Support Services program,” Martin Foley, Victoria’s Minister for Housing, Disability, and Ageing, said in a statement.”
But for Mr Gibbard, that essential service is changing with the transition to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).
Ms Stringer’s visits will end by December.
She works for the not-for-profit social and health agency EACH, and her support work is funded through Victoria’s Mental Health Community Support Service (MHCSS).
As the NDIS rolls out in areas of Victoria, the MHCSS is being wrapped up.
Right now, there are more than 900 full and part-time workers in Victoria doing mental health outreach paid for by the MHCSS.
By July next year — when the NDIS fully rolls out across the state — there will be none.
“It’s a shame because we’re going to be losing a lot of workers who are really skilled in mental health,” Ms Stringer says.
Will this change Hadley? It won’t change his media mates unfortunately(ODT)
If Daniel Hadley’s issues are mental health-related, then I certainly hope he receives the appropriate care and rehabilitation and makes a full recovery. I also hope that his father may gain a better understanding of the consequences of stress and take that into consideration the next time he thinks about bullying someone, or stigmatising part of the community on his radio program.
via Ray Hadley, the Sky News ban and the rise of ‘Romper Stomper’ fascism
The claim
Equality for Australian women has worsened dramatically since the beginning of this decade, with high levels of sexual harassment in the workplace, the former President of the Australian Human Rights Commission, Gillian Triggs, recently warned.
Picture some of the mainstays of traditional magic shows: snake charmers, levitation, rope tricks, jugglers, live burial, beds of nails and firewalking.
Did you know they all have their origin in India?
“This is a company that has always put profits ahead of public safety, and today, Monsanto has finally been held accountable.”
Remember this on Youtube
The Global Goose step of Murdoch Media. Is Laura Ingraham really Andrew Bolt? One hand aren’t all the fingers different? Not at Murdoch Media it’s a closed fist (ODT)
Professional bigot Laura Ingraham, ensconced in the primo 10 pm slot at Fox Cable News, has delivered herself of one of her typical Know-Nothing pronouncements on immigration to the US.
US Editorials called the Polish immigrant Grandparents of Laura Ingraham ‘Undesirables’
President Donald Trump’s core supporters consist of 60 million to 80 million American adults, 90 percent of them White and four-fifths age 40 and older. They score high on unofficial measures of “racial resentment,” anger at perceived “loss of status” and victimization of White Christians, fearfulness, and support for authoritarianism. Are these psychological tendencies the cause or consequence of alarming social trends that are only just now getting attention?
Trump and right-wing pundits accuse immigrants, urban gangs, and their liberal “abettors” of inflicting epidemics of violence, drugs, violent killings, and “crime, crime, crime” on Americans. Reality is the opposite. It’s Trump’s own mostly-older, White constituencies who are suffering and perpetrating surging crises of lethal self-destruction, crime, and violence.
via Busting the Myth of Immigrant Crime
Markson is the first News Corp journalist to take out the $25,000 prize established in 2011 to commemorate the late Sydney crime reporter, Les Kennedy.
BUT : Follow the Bouncing Dates
THE NATIONAL POLITICAL EDITOR of The Daily Telegraph, Sharri Markson, last night at the Kennedy Awards won the 2018 Sir Keith Murdoch Award for Journalist of the Year for breaking the story on the sordid Barnaby Joyce/Vikki Campion affair and pregnancy, published in her paper on 7 February 2018. She also took home the Outstanding Political Journalism award and shared the Scoop of the Year award.
The problem is that she did not break the story of Barnaby Joyce’s affair or pregnancy. Credit for revealing the affair goes to Serkan Ozturk, the editor of True Crime News on 24 October 2017. News of Joyce’s staffer’s pregnancy was broken three weeks later in Independent Australia, in a story by Sydney bureau chief Ross Jones on 19 November 2017.
Joyce stood in a by-election in the seat of New England held on 2 December 2017. Dates are important. It is alleged – and it certainly seems – that the embedded mainstream media held off on the story until the seat, critical to the Government’s hold on the lower house of Federal Parliament, had been secured by Joyce.
Sharri Markson’s Barnaby Joyce ‘scoop’: Giving credit where credit is due
It is easy to lie and cheat and steal and exploit. But infinitely more rewarding to know that you have done the right thing by others. We have to set our own standards. We have to honour our obligations, not because of fear of punishment, but because it is the right thing to do.
When you shake someone’s hand, whether physically or metaphorically, it should mean something.
via When handshakes and reputation meant more than money – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The current united corporate defence by Australia’s most consistent race -baiters Murdoch’s News Corp is a disgrace but expected.If any other commercial corporation attempted to do the same their business would be shut down quite easily but not so this media beamoth,why? News Corp creates the very enviroment on which it flourishes with it’s provocative headlines and soundbytes and we allow them to. The only way to fight back is boycott as there is no opposing competing voice of eqivalent size or concentration. However turn off the fuel on which it feeds money and the darkness will disappear..
News Corp feeds us the illusion of threat and hate in the hope for another Cronulla 2005 to then feed us more of the same. It’s the media version of the wall of sound a wall of percieved darkness using the constant drumbeat of sound bytes and headlines doing it for dollars and cents hoping for some pushback real or imaginary to continue moving forward and growing. The young, powerless react whether born here or not doesn’t matter because News Corp controls the story. In fact they don’t even have to do anything and News Corp still controls the story. It’s not new but it’s bigger and more concentrated than ever before. News Corp’s search to dominate creates it’s own news and the associated false narrative that influences others generally MP’s who use it.
There is no equivalent opposition to this corporate machine and the only power available to stop it is to starve it of the fuel it needs and wants to exist money. Boycott removes it’s oxygen. Individual staff, advertisers, government and the consumers can boycott the beast that’s so alien to the spirit of Multicultural, Multiracial, Australia.(ODT)
News Corp Australia marshalled its troops on Thursday after the pesky Labor government in Victoria banned Sky News from metro railway platforms following the appearance of far-right extremist Blair Cottrell on the network. Sky News devoted much airtime to expressing its furious disagreement with the decision, based mainly on the fact that the Cottrell interview was never shown on the railway platforms.
In a stunning display of solidarity with Sky, Rupert Murdoch’s print organs fell into line, accusing the government of “Stalinist” tactics and “retrograde socialist-style censorship”.
The Herald Sun, being the hometown paper of the Victorian metro railway ban, devoted its front page, opinion page and editorial to the story, skewering Allan for muddling her answers in an interview on Sky.
Politicians stoking malcontent, shock jocks firing up audiences, their message is simple: if you want to fix traffic congestion, crowded trains, housing affordability, inappropriate development, even African youth gangs, then just pull the handbrake on immigration.
via It’s getting crowded around here, and that’s a good thing
There can be no reconciliation until politicians acknowledge the harmful impacts of race baiting
Israel keeps getting caught blatantl lying. They were the first to break thecease fire and denied it.(ODT)
UN humanitarian coordinator Jamie McGoldrick demanded that Israel immediately allow the entry of emergency fuel into Gaza.
“The well-being of two million people, half of whom are children, is at stake,” McGoldrick stated. “It is unacceptable that Palestinians in Gaza are repeatedly deprived of the most basic elements of a dignified life.”
Emergency fuel is needed urgently to prevent the closure of Gaza’s hospitals and the overflow of sewage into the streets of one of the most densely populated areas in the world.
“Hospitals and other critical health services are reducing operations, with five hospitals facing possible closure in the coming three days, if emergency fuel is not allowed in,” McGoldrick’s office stated.
Two thousand patients relying on electrical devices in Gaza’s hospitals are at highest risk.
via Israel bombs Gaza as hospitals run out of fuel | The Electronic Intifada
Al-Qatati is the third Palestinian medic to be killed by Israeli forces during Great March of Return protests beginning in late March.
The Israeli rights group B’Tselem found that medic Razan al-Najjar, killed on 1 June, was deliberately targeted by an Israeli sniper east of Khan Younis, also in southern Gaza.
Al-Najjar’s death came two weeks after the killing of Mousa Jaber Abu Hassanein, who like al-Najjar and al-Qatati, was wearing clothing identifying him as a medic when he was shot.
The second Palestinian killed on Friday was identified by Gaza’s health ministry as Ali Said al-Aloul, 55, also shot in eastern Rafah.
A photo of al-Aloul circulated on social media after his death:
Gaza’s health ministry stated that more than 300 others were injured during Friday’s protests, some 130 treated at hospital.
Eighty-five Palestinians were injured by live fire, five of them seriously.
Twenty-six children were among the injured, as well as two journalists and five medics.
This video is said to show a medic being carried away on a stretcher after being shot east of Khan Younis:
This photo shows journalist Mahmoud al-Jamal after he was shot in eastern Rafah:
Journalist Alaa Abd al-Fattah al-Namla was shot in the leg, also during protests in eastern Rafah:
More than 120 Palestinians have been killed during Great March of Return protests, including 21 children, according to the Gaza-based human rights group Al Mezan.
Palestinians gather at the militarized fence along the Gaza-Israel boundary during protests east of Bureij, central Gaza Strip, on 10 August. Mahmoud Khattab APA images
Israeli forces and armed civilians have killed more than 200 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip so far this year. Eight Israelis were killed during the same period, including a soldier shot by a sniper in Gaza last month.
Some 5,000 Palestinians have been injured by live fire during the protests.
As of early July, some 60 injuries required limb amputations. Eleven amputees were children. At least 10 more Palestinians were paralyzed as a result of spinal cord injuries.
At the end of June, more than 1,400 Palestinians faced long-term physical disability due to their injuries.
“Gaza’s health sector is struggling to cope with the mass influx of casualties, due to years of blockade, internal divide and a chronic energy crisis, which have left essential services in Gaza barely able to function,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs stated on Friday.
Earlier in the week UN humanitarian coordinator Jamie McGoldrick warned that hospitals would soon be forced to shut down if Israel didn’t allow the entry of UN-funded emergency fuel into Gaza.
McGoldrick’s office warned that fuel stocks to operate water and sanitation facilities are rapidly running out, and that “1.2 million Palestinians are at imminent risk of possible sewage overflow around the 41 main sewage pumping stations in the Gaza Strip.”
Water infrastructure was among the dozens of sites hit by Israeli bombing across Gaza on Wednesday and Thursday. During that bombing campaign a 9-months-pregnant Palestinian woman and her toddler daughter were killed, as was a Palestinian man in a separate incident.
Israel also destroyed a five-story building housing a prominent cultural center.
Palestinians organized a concert on the rubble of the cultural center on Friday:
The slogan for the day’s protests along the eastern perimeter of Gaza was “Friday of Freedom and Life.”
attacks on paramedics Abdallah al-Qatati Great March of Return Ali Said al-Aloul
Maureen Clare Murphy’s blog
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Maureen Clare Murphy
Maureen Clare Murphy’s pictureMaureen Clare Murphy is the managing editor of The Electronic Intifada and lives in Chicago.
@maureenclarem on Twitter
Israel destroys Gaza cultural center
Maureen Clare Murphy 10 August 2018
Israel bombs Gaza as hospitals run out of fuelMaureen Clare Murphy 8 August 2018
Activists hold large banner reading Gaza How Much More? with image of burning buildings on it
Israel’s innovations in Palestinian despairMaureen Clare Murphy 7 August 2018
Gaza man killed as Israel, Hamas reportedly near dealMaureen Clare Murphy 3 August 2018
Israel kills children in Gaza protestsMaureen Clare Murphy 28 July 2018
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via Israel kills medic during Gaza protests | The Electronic Intifada
The royal commission asked for CBUS documents, examined them, and decided to leave it there.
For people wanting a searing examination of industry funds, which have long had better financial returns to customers than the for-profit funds, the disappointment got worse.
Australian Super, Australia’s biggest fund, sailed through its examination.
The level of discussion, debate and analysis the $140 billion fund put into preparing for a $2 million investment in a news website, The New Daily, was both exhaustive and debated at board level.
After all that, it was revealed that the investment was less than the cost of mailing a letter to every member, once.
Further, the fund’s chief executive Ian Silk was examined about the political nature of a series of TV advertisements called “Fox in the henhouse” about how retail funds are a bad deal for consumers.
The question was how it was in members’ best interests to spend the money.
Mr Silk defended the campaign as a way to safeguard the broader system of industry funds.
Best interests? Commissioner Kenneth Hayne will make up his own mind.
But forget 30 seconds of pictures of foxes, emotive music and a scary voiceover about retail funds. We just sat through four days of evidence about them that was truly terrifying.
In a rush to create heroes where there are only victims (ODT)
Ben Roberts-Smith: Beneath the bravery of Australia’s most decorated soldier
The question remains what damage does this blind chase for dollars do to social cohesion when a corporation is bent on portraying the world no the nation we live in in such negative terms simply to improve their bottom line. It’s like watching a game of cricket where one side threw away the rule book and simply came out with knuckle dusters encouraging the audience to join in. Because the ulimate prize was even bigger than simply witnessing that. Where that prize was agreed to behind locked doors. Murdoch’s in town (ODT)
Media analyst Steve Allen, of Fusion Strategy, believes Sky’s right-wing brand makes commercial sense. “They have to fight harder at nighttime because free-to-air networks take the lion’s share of viewers,” he says. “Unless you’re to the right of what’s being offered, you’re not going to get an audience.” There’s no point targeting progressives, Allen adds, because they’re likely to be younger, with less money to spend on Foxtel subscriptions – and many are loyal to the ABC.
Anchors David Speers and Laura Jayes criticised their employer on Twitter while commentator Craig Emerson quit in disgust. American Express, Huggies and Specsavers pulled their ads. And Victorian transport minister Jacinta Allan ordered Sky’s removal from Melbourne train platforms (though commuters only saw its news and weather bulletins, not its commentary).
Of course, Sky is no stranger to controversy. Since adopting its “right at night” strategy – replacing news with conservative opinion in prime time – it’s endured public criticism, bitter in-fighting and dramatic staff departures. One wag suggests Foxtel could edit these highlights into a reality show: The Real Housewives of Sky News.
Battered by boycotts, will Sky News now ditch its right-wing formula?
“As Israeli airstrikes persist and the living situation gravely worsens, Palestinians in Gaza are on the brink of a full-blown humanitarian crisis due to Israel’s 10-year siege. Everyday life in besieged Gaza is shaped by Israeli policy.”
According to Haaretz, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) intentionally targeted civilians “with the goal of causing the residents to understand the price of escalation and placing Hamas in a problematic situation.”
REALITY
While Israeli officials insisted that their large-scale attack on Gaza was in response to Hamas rocket fire, Haaretz reports that it was in fact the Israeli army that sparked the escalation by killing two Palestinians with tank fire, after they allegedly mistook a training exercise for an actual attack.
As Yousef Munayyer, executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, put it, the “current Israeli bombardment sequence in Gaza started when the Israeli military killed two Palestinians, lied about why, and later admitted to doing so just as a high level Palestinian delegation was on its way to Cairo to discuss longer term cease-fire.”
For over a year, my friends in Other Voice, comprised of residents of the towns and communities surrounding the Gaza Strip, have been protesting the government’s inability to find a viable solution for our situation. For more than a decade, members of Other Voice have been in touch with people in Gaza, and we believe it is possible to live in peace with our neighbors. Life there is unbearable, and without resolving the crisis in Gaza, our lives will continue to be a living hell.
These are the well-known yet forgotten facts: two million people in Gaza live on the verge of starvation, without running water, with limited hours of electricity a day, with a severe shortage of medicine and medical equipment, with rising unemployment, and massive destruction that has yet to be rehabilitated yet since the last war in 2014.
This is fertile ground for radical organizations that want to recruit hopeless youth in exchange for meager payments to their families. This is fertile ground for further entrenching hate toward Israel, which controls Gaza’s sea, land, and air. It is a fertile ground for the desperation that erupts in protests near the Israel-Gaza fence, where people fly incendiary kites and balloons, and attempt to cross the fence. All of those actions are backed by Hamas as well as various radical organizations.
via There’s a way out of our shared hell with Gaza | +972 Magazine
At least 29 children were killed in the latest attack on civilians by Saudi and UAE forces, which are supported by the United States
43 people were killed and 61 were wounded in the attack, the majority of whom were children.
social media, critics noted that other coverage of the air strike in the US and Britain—which also supports the coalition—failed to acknowledge the countries’ involvement in the war.
via ‘We Just Bombed a SCHOOL BUS’: Outrage After US-Backed Saudi Coalition Slaughters Children in Yemen
The ABC can now reveal the content of those documents, including a section Adani has fought for the past year to keep secret.
That section suggests that later on March 27, while Adani was applying for a last-minute extension to its temporary pollution licence, it appeared to know the water it was likely to dump would be so polluted it would breach the licence.
A truly golden moment in politics beckons; a moment that would just about sum up the more than decade-long absurdity of Australia’s climate war.
It will be when arch conservative carbon crusader Tony Abbott sits alongside Greens MP Adam Bandt to vote against the National Energy Guarantee.
Mr Abbott, the former Liberal prime minister, would be voting against the NEG as part of his declared war on what he calls environmental theology.
Will the same be said of Banking and the Finance Sector? Will anybody be Charged? Neoliberalism is intent on destroying any rights people have to associate and unionise. Their purpose and ideal is to govern over a total disassociated society of individuals without any voice or means of dissent.(ODT)
The national building regulator needed to be “publicly exposed” for wasting taxpayer money after it made an “outrageous” decision to take legal action against two construction union officials for having a cup of tea, the Federal Court has found.
Federal Court Justice Tony North said the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) had wasted money taking legal action against the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union officials.
“I hold the clear view that this is a case where the ABCC should be publicly exposed as having wasted public money without a proper basis for doing so, in my view,” he said.
via Judge blasts building cop for wasting public money on ‘tea cup’ case
A Model of the American System(ODT)
“Wilbur Ross is a cartoon stereotype of a Wall Street fat cat with no interest in anyone but himself. He has shady ties to Russia and China, serious business conflicts, and a history of cheating people out of their homes.
Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s campaign manager, is being tried for money laundering, keeping some 15 illegal foreign accounts, and cheating the government out of the taxes he rightfully owed, among a host of other crimes.
via Manafort’s alleged Corruption is How America Works, not Deviance
Neither market forces, innovative business techniques, trickle-down economics nor individual determination can withstand drought. No matter what the marketeers throw at it, nothing can make it rain, and a failure to develop public policies which accept the forces of nature, will likely see off this current crop of right-wing nongs.
via Drought, the end of the right, and the Last Man – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Andrew Bolt’s denial was obvious in his editorial stating ” this is normal Australia” “The Big Lie” was his “Big Wet” half a graphic story which is just ” Big BS”. Climate Change is real generations of farmers know it’s real. Bolt’s ignorance his denial and we have seen more rain than ever been seen before. He showed a graphic that ignored the reality of two states. (ODT)
The entire state of NSW has been declared in drought after a drier-than-expected June and July.
According to the NSW Department of Primary Industries, 61 per cent of NSW is either in drought or intense drought, while nearly 39 per cent is drought affected.
“The forecast suggests an increase of drier than normal conditions for the next three months across the majority of NSW.”
Mr Blair assured farmers and the community that the government would “stand with them through this challenging time and continue to make sure we have the right support available”.
NSW 100 per cent in drought: minister
The NSW government has announced more than $1 billion in drought relief measures, which include transport subsidies, waivers on farming costs, further bolstering the Farm Innovation Fund, animal welfare measures and mental health support, the statement said.
Koalas are struggling to survive as their habitat is being destroyed and, as the koala is at the top of the pyramid, if you remove their habitat, every other species will also be wiped out. Sue Arnold speaks with wildlife warrior, Clare Gover.
FARMERS and farm animals are doing it tough out there.
But there’s little media about what’s happening to wildlife struggling to survive in a moonscape of cleared land, without food, shelter and water.
Clare Gover runs Return to the Wild, a rescue organisation in the Darling Downs,
via Koalas are being left to die slow painful deaths during drought
Andrew Bolt tells us their ratings are HUGE off a small base. Reality Bytes (ODT)
“This could easily happen at any time,” one Sky insider said. “We’ve got hosts who aren’t journalists and people are just trying to get the programs to air. There’s no time to have a think about whether this is a good guest or not.”
Outside the Sky News studios, there is a view management manufactures outrage in a bid to grow the 24-hour channel’s relatively small audience. But staff say this isn’t the case.
via ‘It was my error’: Sky News boss gave Cottrell interview the go-ahead
WHY AUSTRALIA NEEDS THE ABC (ODT)
The last two evenings have seen the PM and the head of the Great Barrier Reef Foundation trying to justify/sell Turbull’s captain’s call on 7:30 report.
First up was Malcolm looking distinctly uncomfortable – so uncomfortable that he forgot Tony Burke’s name as he lamely, and so excruciatingly predictably, tried to blame Labor.
When asked why there was no grant application or tender process, Malcolm said “Well it was a very thorough process, a whole cabinet process leading up to the budget.”
When asked if this happened before or after he offered the money on April 9, the PM lied by saying “No it all went through beforehand.”
That is just not true.
7:30 Report – Lies and revelations – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Andrew Bolt’s enouraging free speech and the reduction of universities to this sort of opinion which he calls “debate” to self boost what he’s never achieved (ODT)
A recent survey by the National Tertiary Education Union found that 60 per cent of its members had been subjected disrespectful and abusive comments in student evaluations.
via ‘This woman is so old’: Insults hurled at academics spur survey rethink
Palestinians are and have been reliant on international humanitarian aid for one reason only. For 70 years Israel has denied them their rights as it systematically destroyed their economy. The cutting of humanitarian aid is yet another form of collective punishment meted out to a people long denied justice.
Living under a violent occupation or in extreme poverty in overcrowded refugee camps has left Palestinians in a weakened position to handle negotiations. Eradicating their demands and trying to force their hand before new negotiations is a cruel, calculated political manoeuvre.
via Palestine Burns While Australia Cuts Aid And Trump Threatens ‘Deal Of The Century’ – New Matilda
Stockholm (AFP) – Researchers expressed concern Thursday about the rapid pace of climate change, after a glacier on Sweden’s Kebnekaise mountain melted so much in sweltering Arctic temperatures that it is no longer the country’s highest point.
“It’s quite scary,” Gunhild Ninis Rosqvist, a Stockholm University geography professor who has been measuring the glacier for many years as part of climate change research, told AFP.
via “It’s Quite Scary”- Climate Scientists Alarmed as Europe Melts in Record Heat
Listening to the growing hysteria surrounding predicted population increase in Australia, you would think our country is heading for disaster. Yes, urbanisation is happening rapidly across the world and in Australia.
The United Nations predicts that more than 68 per cent of the world’s population will live within an urban area by 2050 with 43 megacities of more than 10 million inhabitants.
‘Western-style democracy’ has become a play thing in the hands of Western policymakers, used to initiate regime-change operations abroad, while tamping down ‘unpopular’, public-supported initiatives at home. The charade needs to end.
In memories of Kristallnacht
The owners of Britain’s largest socialist bookshop have said the store was attacked by masked far-right protesters who chanted fascist songs and threatened staff.
Authors and an MP were moved to express solidarity with workers at Bookmarks Bookshop, on Bloomsbury Street in central London, after around a dozen people stormed in on Saturday night.
It followed the conclusion of a “Make Britain Great Again” protest against the censoring of a conspiracy theory website nearby.
The far-right group filmed their actions before swiftly deleting the video from their YouTube channel, however a copy was saved and uploaded again on the channel Far-Right Watch.
It shows protestors screaming abuse, tearing up signs on display in the shop, and brandishing books with titles they disapprove of.
Another Bolt from the white Right
Let’s be clear. Bolt’s language about Jews is redolent of the past. In response to the article, the President of the Jewish Community Council of Victoria, Jennifer Huppert, said that there was ‘a rise in ultra-right-wing activity in Victoria and this type of activity can fuel antisemitic, anti-Islam and general racist debate and language in our community.’
The Australian Jewish Democratic society expressed their anger and then stated:
In response we say to Andrew Bolt and white supremacists everywhere: we are not interested in assimilating to White Australia. We are not interested in being subjects of your racist attacks. We – as migrants, as people who have lived in this country for a long time, as people who have faced racism and antisemitism of so many different guises over such a long period of time – are here to tell you that we will win and you will lose. Your vision for how society should operate will never succeed. We will continue to work with other others to ensure that a strong, cohesive, anti-racist, justice-based society is the future for “us” all.
Bolt also attacked the descendants of 1950s immigrants. He wrote that in Five Dock, Sydney,
‘ … one in seven residents still speak Italian at home.’
Clearly, Andrew Bolt’s othering is all-embracing — from white Jews and those speaking a foreign language to Muslims of any colour and brown and black people.
olddogthoughts 
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