Australia's Shame

“Only in Australia”: Glencore greenwash scraps coal mine for even more toxic blue hydrogen – Michael West

Glencore, coal

Fuel of the future not looking so good

Hydrogen, a fuel source, can be manufactured using energy from fossil fuels or renewable energy.

Green hydrogen, made from renewable energy, can play an important role in hard-to-abate industries such as ammonia and steel production.

Hydrogen produced using fossil fuel is called blue hydrogen by industry and dirty hydrogen by experts. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), natural gas is currently the primary source of hydrogen production, accounting for around three-quarters of the annual global dedicated hydrogen production of around 70 million tonnes.

This accounts for about 6% of global natural gas use. Gas is followed by coal, due to its dominant role in China, and a small fraction is produced from the use of oil and electricity.

According to Australian National University (ANU) researchers, dirty hydrogen is more polluting than simply using fossil fuels directly for energy.

 

Source: “Only in Australia”: Glencore greenwash scraps coal mine for even more toxic blue hydrogen – Michael West

Murdoch Media

Judge says Murdoch can be forced to testify — experts say he may spill Fox secrets out in the open | Salon.com

Rupert Murdoch (JEWEL SAMAD/AFP via Getty Images)

 Fox Corp. executives Rupert Murdoch and Lachlan Murdoch could be forced to testify in the defamation suit against Fox News and Fox Corp, a Delaware judge said Wedneday.

Source: Judge says Murdoch can be forced to testify — experts say he may spill Fox secrets out in the open | Salon.com

Russia

Russia-Ukraine war: Vladimir Putin set to cash in on oil move

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In October, the Saudi-led OPEC cartel of oil-producing countries slashed output by two million barrels per day to drive prices higher. Now – heedless of an angry US president who has threatened unspecified “consequences” – it is cutting production again. As Biden looks on powerlessly, one of the biggest winners is likely to be Vladimir Putin.

Source: Russia-Ukraine war: Vladimir Putin set to cash in on oil move

Israel

World’s Most Dangerous Flashpoint: Israeli Forces Repeatedly Invade Sacred al-Aqsa Mosque, Beat, Expel Worshipers, on behalf of Jewish Extremists

The Israeli newspaper Arab 48 reports that both on Wednesday and Thursday mornings, Israeli security forces invaded the al-Aqsa Mosque complex, the third holiest shrine in the Muslim world and expelled Palestinians who had been conducting an all-night retreat (i`tikaf) there for the holy fasting month of Ramadan. Video emerged from the Wednesday assault showing troops viciously assaulting worshipers. The BBC and other Western press actually called these barbaric beatings by armed occupation troops “clashes,” and said they were over a “disputed” religious site. But there is no dispute in international law about al-Aqsa Mosque. It is governed by an endowment deed that is overseen by the Jordanian government. No responsible person in a position of power disputes this.

Source: World’s Most Dangerous Flashpoint: Israeli Forces Repeatedly Invade Sacred al-Aqsa Mosque, Beat, Expel Worshipers, on behalf of Jewish Extremists

Fight against Fake News, Fighting Fake News

Old Dog Thought- The Monkey Pod Room said “No” to the broad and moderate voices in the Party and turned their backs on their electorates

May be art

Fighting Fake News with REAL, 7/4/23, Newspoll on the Voice, LNP, Noel Pearson, Promoting Racist Stereotypes, News Corp, Micallef, Mailer,

Education

The Right Wing Is Waging a Dirty War Against History and Education | The Smirking Chimp

There is a common thread in the ultra-conservative anglo speaking world which is the promotion of the uncritical glorious history of Western Civilisation. In Australia, it has been heavily promoted by the Ramsay Foundation and politically forced on us by the LNP in the systemic teaching of history in the country.

Under such circumstances, reviving the political and moral imagination is more crucial than ever in order to resist the assassins of memory and social justice who have turned critical education and thinking into a crime.

Source: The Right Wing Is Waging a Dirty War Against History and Education | The Smirking Chimp

Peter Dutton

Liberal opposition to voice ‘business as usual’ – Michael West

Stuart Robert expressed it when he said ” As a Cabinet member I’m obliged to lie” and not represent the people of my electorate. Dutton agreed when he said under my leadership the Shadow Cabinet will not be allowed  a conscience

A split is looming for the Liberals over the Indigenous voice to parliament as its architects warn the party’s opposition is a “vote for business as usual”.

Source: Liberal opposition to voice ‘business as usual’ – Michael West

Indigenous abuse

Indigenous voice: no campaign event reinforced ‘racist stereotypes’, watchdog says | Indigenous voice to parliament | The Guardian

Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce, former Labor minister Gary Johns, broadcaster Alan Jones and One Nation leader Pauline Hanson appeared at the no campaign event in Tamworth on Friday.

Gomeroi traditional owners fear more ‘divisive’ meetings after event attended by rightwing politicians attracted widespread condemnation

Controversial comments made at a no campaign against the voice event “reinforce racist stereotypes and inflict harm”, says the race discrimination commissioner, who has joined a wave of criticism prompted by the meeting.

Source: Indigenous voice: no campaign event reinforced ‘racist stereotypes’, watchdog says | Indigenous voice to parliament | The Guardian

The National Party

Barnaby Joyce, who has ripped off taxpayers $million for his family, says you should vote no for The Voice because of potential nepotismKangaroo Court of Australia

It’s Easter and this April Fool speaks

Barnaby Joyce, who has a long history of fraud and theft from the government including stealing for his family, says the public should vote no for The Voice at the referendum which is due later this year because of potential nepotism.

Source: Barnaby Joyce, who has ripped off taxpayers $million for his family, says you should vote no for The Voice because of potential nepotismKangaroo Court of Australia

Fossil Fuel Industry

Oil Giant Knew About Climate Impacts Even Earlier

The real Shell please reveal yourself and stop greenwashing yourselves

Newly unveiled records show that Shell began collecting knowledge about climate change in the 1960s, Jessica Corbett reports.

Source: Oil Giant Knew About Climate Impacts Even Earlier

Climate Change

Glaciologist Says New Melting Study ‘Frankly Scary. Even to Me.’

Satellite imagery shows the Larsen B Ice Shelf in Antarctica on February 21, 2000. The ice shelf's collapse in 2002 was hastened by fossil fuel-driven global warming.

“Ice sheets are retreating fast today,” said one expert. “But we see traces in the seafloor that the retreat could go faster, way faster, and this is a reminder that we have not seen everything yet.”

Source: Glaciologist Says New Melting Study ‘Frankly Scary. Even to Me.’

Russia

‘Afraid for his life’: Defector reveals depths of Putin’s paranoia

A former Russian security officer has given rare insight into President Vladimir Putin’s “pathological” fear for his life and his “distorted” grip on reality.

Source: ‘Afraid for his life’: Defector reveals depths of Putin’s paranoia

Israel, Israel Crimes

Rockets fired from Gaza after Israeli raid on Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque | The New Daily

Israel bombs Gaza during Ramadan and then displays a list of fake excuses

The Waqf, the Jordanian-appointed Islamic organisation that manages the complex, considered the third holiest site in the Muslim world, described the police actions as a “flagrant assault on the identity and the function of the mosque as a place of worship for Muslims alone”.

Source: Rockets fired from Gaza after Israeli raid on Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque | The New Daily

Israel

More than ‘Democracy’ is at Stake in Israeli Protests – CounterPunch.org

To be a Jewish State that confers by its own Basic Law of 2018 an exclusive right of self-determination exclusively on the Jewish people and asserts supremacy at the expense of the Palestinian minority of more than 1.7 million persons undermines Israel’s claim to be a democracy, at least with reference to the citizenry as a whole. As well, Palestinians have long endured discriminatory laws and practices on fundamental issues that over time have come to have its government process widely identified as an apartheid regime that is operative in both the Occupied Palestine Territories and Israel itself. If language is stretched to its limits, it is possible to regard Israel as an ethnic-democracy or theocratic democracy, but such terms are vivid illustrations of political oxymorons.

Source: More than ‘Democracy’ is at Stake in Israeli Protests – CounterPunch.org

Trump

Federal Court Denies Trump Appeal To Stop Aides From Testifying | Crooks and Liars

Federal Court Denies Trump Appeal To Stop Aides From Testifying

If he paid his lawyers he might have the best but he doesn’t and is rushed by idiots who want to try to make a name for themselves. Stalling seems to be his main exercise and it obviously worked in the case of his Tax Return audits.

More bad legal news for Donald Trump. CNN reports that the Orange Menace has lost an emergency request to the federal appeals court to block his closest aides from testifying to a grand jury in the DOJ Special Counsel investigation. This particular grand jury is investigating Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Source: Federal Court Denies Trump Appeal To Stop Aides From Testifying | Crooks and Liars

Trump

“Thuggish behavior”: Experts warn Trump “tempting fate” by attacking judge’s daughter after warning | Salon.com

Former President Donald Trump appears in court at the Manhattan Criminal Court in New York on April 4, 2023. (STEVEN HIRSCH/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Are there no “contempt laws” in the US?

Former President Donald Trump attacked the family of the judge overseeing his Manhattan prosecution just hours after he was admonished in court for his rhetoric.

Source: “Thuggish behavior”: Experts warn Trump “tempting fate” by attacking judge’s daughter after warning | Salon.com

Fight against Fake News, Fighting Fake News

Old Dog Thought- Dutton relives the invasion of Australia and orders his Shadow Cabinet to throw their conscience overboard. They and only they are the rulers of god’s given country.

Anthony Albanese, right, and Peter Dutton now put themselves, and history, to the test.

Fighting Fake News with REAL, 6/4/23, Trump Brooding and Unhappy, Dutton’s “No!”, A power play to retain Party leadership, Dubious Claims, Doubts about the Party’s Value,

Happiness

PATRICK LAWRENCE: The Happiness of Others

The LNP in Australia simply can’t imagine that the Australian majority simply might not want what they do.

This is the problem with surveys such as Ipsos’s and Edelman’s — about which you are very unlikely to read anything unless you read publications such as the People’s Information Bureau (which is privately circulated) or columnists such as Alex Lo. Admitting that people who do not want what we have or to live as we live can be happy is in its subtle way devastating to our view of the world.

Let it be so: There is so very much about our worldview that must be devastated if we are to get anywhere in the 21st century worth getting to.

Source: PATRICK LAWRENCE: The Happiness of Others

Prime Minister

Jacinda Ardern says goodbye to parliament: how her politics of kindness fell on unkind times

Jacinda Ardern’s resignation as prime minister in January was a courageous and pragmatic decision for herself, her family and her party. Although many said she’d done a great job as leader, she rightly reminded us that a great leader is “one who knows when it’s time to go”.

Source: Jacinda Ardern says goodbye to parliament: how her politics of kindness fell on unkind times

Uncategorized

Liberal Party confirms it will oppose the Indigenous Voice to Parliament – ABC News

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton announces the Liberals’ formal opposition to the federal government’s model for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, after a party room meeting in Canberra.

Source: Liberal Party confirms it will oppose the Indigenous Voice to Parliament – ABC News

LNP

Voice to parliament: Peter Dutton’s No a blend of dubious claims and genuine doubts

Anthony Albanese, right, and Peter Dutton now put themselves, and history, to the test.

The opposition leader starts from a position of serious weakness, with a poor personal standing in the community and the Liberals in retreat across the country, but his move is the biggest threat to the Voice since the Uluru Statement called for the reform six years ago.

Source: Voice to parliament: Peter Dutton’s No a blend of dubious claims and genuine doubts

Rupert Murdoch

Rupert Murdoch has a wicked problem

Pictured is Rupert Murdoch

The Dominion defamation case makes one wonder if Rupert Murdoch has been advised to try the Alan Bond defence of early onset dementia or mental incapacity as we once saw him try to do in the UK 20 odd years ago? Is his on-and-off recent engagement a step in that direction one wonders?

In love one moment and ” I didn’t know what I was doing the next”? What benefit would such a claim be? Maybe to escape being called to testify due to his age and mental ill health? It served him well during the UK investigations when he was only in his 70s and being investigated for his involvement in the criminal practices of his media in the UK.

Rupert Murdoch has a wicked problem. Many of the politicians who bent, or even grovelled, when his News media outlets blew on them are no longer scared.

On the other hand, News – particularly Fox – is showing signs that it is scared of its own audiences.

A growing number of journalists and eminent Australians are fearlessly pushing back against the Murdoch Australian empire.

Source: Rupert Murdoch has a wicked problem

Israel

Exposing Israel’s violations upset the Israeli lobby – Pearls and Irritations

Israel and Palestine flags painted over cracked concrete wall.

The main Israeli lobby operating under the name of the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC), a well-financed private group, is worried.

Given the AIJAC, the Australian Zionist Federation (AZF), which is a branch of the World Zionist Organisation (WZO) headquartered in Israel, and the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), admit their lobby activities on behalf of a foreign government, people are asking, shouldn’t the Australian authority be concerned of the strong relations of this lobby with the Israeli government, the powerful influence it developed through its political donations and free trips to Israel? Isn’t it in Australia’s national interest to see such organisations registered under “The Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme”, and why are they not?

We all know if there were such groups and organisations with a strong connection to China, Russia or any other country, working on their behalf, how the government and media would have reacted, so why are Israel and its lobby exceptional? Is it because they became so powerful that they are so intimidated?

 

Source: Exposing Israel’s violations upset the Israeli lobby – Pearls and Irritations

America

The Answer to ‘Full Spectrum Dominance’

The United States is interested in safeguarding the profits of monopoly capital, which carries politicians in Washington around in its pockets like loose change, writes Roger McKenzie.

Source: The Answer to ‘Full Spectrum Dominance’

Informed Opinion

Australia isn’t a real nation, it’s a US military base with kangaroos – Pearls and Irritations

Relations between two countries. USA and Australia flags.

One of the many, many signs that Australia is nothing more than a US military and intelligence asset is the way its government has consistently refused to intervene to protect Australian citizen Julian Assange from political persecution at the hands of the US empire.

Source: Australia isn’t a real nation, it’s a US military base with kangaroos – Pearls and Irritations

NATO

Finland joins NATO, Russia threatens ‘countermeasures’

Finland NATO

Finland has formally joined NATO, its flag unfurling outside the military bloc’s Brussels headquarters, in a historic policy shift brought on by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that drew a threat from Moscow of “countermeasures”.

Source: Finland joins NATO, Russia threatens ‘countermeasures’

Informed Comment

What’s Happening Today in Wisconsin Is As Important to the Future of American Democracy As What’s Happening in Manhattan | The Smirking Chimp

Progressives win a majority in the Supreme Court.

What’s happening today in Manhattan’s criminal court is important. Holding a former president accountable to the rule of law is essential.

But what’s happening today in Wisconsin may prove as, if not more, important to the future of American democracy. It will either strengthen or weaken the levers of self-government in a state where those levers could make all the difference.

Source: What’s Happening Today in Wisconsin Is As Important to the Future of American Democracy As What’s Happening in Manhattan | The Smirking Chimp

Informed Comment

The Trump presidency has brought on the self-destruction of Western civilisation: FLASHBACK 2020

One way or another, America and the rest of the world will pay a terrible price for the Trump presidency.

Source: The Trump presidency has brought on the self-destruction of Western civilisation: FLASHBACK 2020

Trump

US Joins Civilized World: Trump’s Arraignment for Electoral Corruption is just like former French President Sarkozy’s

Trump’s arraignment today has been widely denounced by the US Right as politically motivated and unprecedented. But high officers of the US government, including former vice presidents Aaron Burr and Spiro Agnew, have had to be arraigned before judges. Moreover, in other countries, such as Israel, Germany, France and Portugal, former leaders guilty of corruption have been put on trial and some have been jailed or sentenced to house arrest.

Source: US Joins Civilized World: Trump’s Arraignment for Electoral Corruption is just like former French President Sarkozy’s

Fight against Fake News, Fighting Fake News

Old Dog Thought- Two Decades of Shaming and Trashing Australia

Fighting Fake News with REAL, 5/4/23, Extinction, The Voice, John Howard the Ghost, 2 Ps in a pod, Palmer and Porter

Truth in Humor

Why The Liberal Party Can’t Win Elections And Other Predictions That Will Looks Silly One Day… – » The Australian Independent Media Network

That was one of those strange little bits of hypocrisy that the Liberals are so good at: in 1972 they opposed lowering the voting age because people under 21 weren’t mature enough to consider the issues but they were old enough to be conscripted into a war… or rather, “police action” because there was no war declared so that’s why it took so long for the Vietnam vets to get recognition from the government for many of their issues…

Source: Why The Liberal Party Can’t Win Elections And Other Predictions That Will Looks Silly One Day… – » The Australian Independent Media Network

LNP

 Crikey-architect behind the Liberal Party’s growing malaise

May be an image of 1 person

On Saturday, Defence Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles observed “there are precious few moments when you get to be in the presence of history”. He’s not wrong, the Aston byelection result was historic. But it was a historic result rendered less surprising though not less significant by the political conditions fashioned by the true architect of the modern Liberal Party’s enduring malaise: Howard.

Source: How the ghost of John Howard haunted the Aston byelection.

Australia's Shame

‘Why risk racial harmony?’: Key Lib queries voice vote – Michael West

We apparently live in, if not a perfect, an almost perfect world of “racial harmony” according to the Liberals. So why risk what began in 1788 with a no-vote referendum today? That in a nutshell is the ahistorical premise on which the Liberals base their argument against A Voice.

Their argument denies both 1) History and 2) the social reality in which we live. Theirs is a fiction that dates back 240 years, or even further. A fiction that maintains an Inglorious Imperial and colonial history. Primarily, it is a past that is based on the fact that nobody was here, and that if there were they weren’t a nation and therefore had no rights, a treaty or needed to be recognized like the First peoples of the rest of the world are today. The LNP attitude remains the exception on this planet shaming Australia while declaring us to be the best of all possible colonised worlds and a model for the planet. They remain the British-sponsored pirates of the East India Company in the 21rst Century today.

According to the LNP any problems  Indigenous Australians face is largely of their own making due to their resistance to assimilate

The federal opposition has questioned the wisdom of holding a referendum on an Indigenous voice later this year, putting a dampener on hopes of bipartisan support for the landmark vote.

Source: ‘Why risk racial harmony?’: Key Lib queries voice vote – Michael West

Informed Opinion, Opinion, Unmoderated opinion

Australian housing is a cartel, and it’s time to break it up | The Shot

if we’re being honest, is that not what the housing market has become – little more than a racket to grift money out of those unlucky schmucks not already in on the game? Or more accurately, a cartel.

Source: Australian housing is a cartel, and it’s time to break it up | The Shot

Energy

Poles and wires super-profits causing energy price spikes, and foreign takeovers

On average, excluding publicly owned Essential Energy, network providers are earning a 13-14% super-profit across the east coast and South Australia.

By contrast, Essential Energy, an NSW Government-owned corporation that services rural NSW and parts of southern Queensland, charges no super-profits whatsoever actually taking a 1% haircut on return on investment according to Orme’s analysis.

Another offender is Ausgrid, again formed in 2011 when the NSW sold off its network assets. 

SAPN, or South Australian Power Networks, sold by the South Australian government to controlling shareholder Hong Kong-based Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings, and Australian investment fund Spark Infrastructure charges a 15.5% super-profit to its customers.

Since our report was published last October, no action has been taken to stem supernormal monopoly network profits.

 

Source: Poles and wires super-profits causing energy price spikes, and foreign takeovers

Fossil Fuel Industry

‘Incredibly Disturbing’ Docs Reveal Oil Giant Shell Knew About Climate Impacts Even Earlier

The Shell logo is pictured at a gas station in London

Corporate Crimes and Secrets lie behind the media announcement that Shell was to be the biggest investor in battery power in Australia

“Despite internal awareness, the company systematically downplayed the problem to the public, instead promoting more and more fossil fuel use despite the dangers,” said one expert. “Now, five decades later, Shell continues to dawdle and delay.”

Source: ‘Incredibly Disturbing’ Docs Reveal Oil Giant Shell Knew About Climate Impacts Even Earlier

Uncategorized

Lying about Lying: Why we must revisit the Definition of ‘Fake News’ from Iraq to Palestine

The ALP wasn’t where the money was. They were buyers of papers, yes but they weren’t the catalysts of the profits Rupert Murdoch was looking for. They were merely the numbers, the rating, but not the honey pot. The major corporate players in the economy’s sectors, the generational wealthy investors who the  LNP represented were. They could be found in the Private Clubs and associations of Australia. Associations like the IPA, which his father was a founding member and the Melbourne Club. Fake News, PR and influence became Rupert  Murdoch’s core business after the LNP’s underhanded removal of the Whitlam government.

Murdoch simply focused on working for where the cash lay and flowed from. The continued influence for and on behalf of that cabal of owners, shareholders, and non-representative politicians. Meanwhile, news took a back seat. He peaked with the arrival of Fox News in the US in the 80s which focussed on power, and politics via fake news.

“fake news” predates both Clinton and Trump. When I first moved to the US over two decades ago, I recall my total shock at seeing the headlines of print tabloids, always positioned at the centre of major US grocery stores: from unsubstantiated celebrity scandals, to “breaking news” about aliens impregnating human females before returning to their home planet. Even as a newcomer to the country, it was obvious to me that such rubbish was also “fake news”. Sadly, these tabloids were often sold faster than legitimate newspapers, which suggests that the biggest challenge posed by “fake news” is our gullibility and willingness to engage with it. In the modern definition, “fake news” has grown to also include people with opposing opinions, whether these opinions are based on facts, selective facts or utter fiction. Many of us, as journalists, are caught in this impossible labyrinth. No matter what we do to demonstrate the authenticity of our sources, we continue to be haunted by “fake news” allegations. The generational struggle for independent media organisations and journalists has been the constant push to create as much space as possible between them and the whims of politics and p

Source: Lying about Lying: Why we must revisit the Definition of ‘Fake News’ from Iraq to Palestine

Israel

Many Civil Wars: The Extremist Israeli Gov’t has Roiled Relations with Biden and US Jews and Highlighted the Occupation of Palestine

Meanwhile the Australian Government stays silent as does the mainstream media while roiling against Russia

Some 450,000 Israeli protesters massed again this weekend against Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu’s efforts to disempower the Israeli judiciary, so he can pick the judges for his own corruption trials, declining to be mollified by his promises to find a compromise. Netanyahu’s attack on the judges is also too much for the US government and American Jewish communities to bear. Netanyahu’s move to undermine the Israeli judiciary and empower extreme Right elements has alienated most Democrats. In response, President Joe Biden has shown courage not seen since President Barack Obama left office, pointedly rebuking the prime minister and declining to give him the seal of approval that comes with a White House invitation. Finally, an American president said “no,” after Trump, the Bushes and Reagan had all empowered the worst elements of Israel’s far right-wing and enabled the current crisis.

Source: Many Civil Wars: The Extremist Israeli Gov’t has Roiled Relations with Biden and US Jews and Highlighted the Occupation of Palestine

USA

Home – CounterPunch.org

Imagine the uproar if China or Russia—or any other country for that matter—said it aimed to exercise military control over land, sea, air, and space to protect its interests and investments. This amazingly has been the stated United States policy since 1997. Full spectrum dominance, as the doctrine is known, is the reason the United States behaves the way that it does on the international stage.

Source: Home – CounterPunch.org

Republicans

Days After School Shooting, Ron DeSantis Signs Permitless Gun Law | HuffPost Latest News

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday signed a law allowing Floridians to carry a gun without a permit, a measure that aims to appeal to gun-loving GOP primary voters even as Democrats warned it would increase violent crime.

 

Source: Days After School Shooting, Ron DeSantis Signs Permitless Gun Law | HuffPost Latest News

Informed Comment

Donald Trump’s upcoming trials divide America and the world

Recent charges against Donald Trump have split observers worldwide, lawmakers in the USA, members of the Republican Party and even Trump’s family, as Alan Austin reports.

Source: Donald Trump’s upcoming trials divide America and the world

American Military, Industrail Military Complex, Military Aid

After Years of U.S. Military Aid, Terror Attacks Still Rise in Niger

The invasion that saved Iraq created ISIS. America has military bases in 150 countries and Niger is just like Iraq. Australia has welcomed them to set up here.

Gunmen on motorbikes terrorize the African nation despite — or perhaps because of — a beefed-up U.S. presence that includes drone bases.

Source: After Years of U.S. Military Aid, Terror Attacks Still Rise in Niger

Uncategorized

Old Dog Thought- LNP’s God-given right trumps any history or human rights so no correction is needed

May be a cartoon of standing and text

Fighting Fake News with REAL, 4/4/23; Labor’s missed opportunity, Dutton’s Excuses, LNP Shames Australia, The Voice,

Whistleblowers

Court crushes whistleblower protection in Richard Boyle, Tax Office case – Michael West

The South Australian District Court has dealt a fatal blow to public sector whistleblowing, basically making it impossible for anyone to safely blow the whistle. Rex Patrick explains the public interest travesty.

Source: Court crushes whistleblower protection in Richard Boyle, Tax Office case – Michael West

LNP

Liberals look for answers after Labor by-election win – Michael West

The Liberals are licking their wounds and are trying to figure out what went wrong after unexpectedly losing the Aston federal by-election, despite rising living costs.

Source: Liberals look for answers after Labor by-election win – Michael West

ALP Government,

Aston By-Election: The Electoral Light on the Hill for a New Change Agenda? – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Corporate Australia is quite media friendly but only inside journalists received comprehensive answers to enquiries and emails. This makes investigative journalism exciting. Something is lurking under friendly marketing structures if no replies are forthcoming. The companies on the ATO’s tax avoidance lists are indeed some of the most secretive. I love to be kept waiting for replies as it motivates my chases even further.

Legalized tax avoidance by Anglo-American multinational companies is standard practice. Some US companies like Cubic Defense and Cubic Transportation of San Diego have no record of company tax payments at least since the Abbott Government was elected in 2013.

Under the previous LNP governments, initiatives by Cubic received favourable comments in the Australian Defence Magazine:

Our future strategic history was outlined in San Diego in March 2023:

 

Source: Aston By-Election: The Electoral Light on the Hill for a New Change Agenda? – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Recognition

The reality that supports the recognition of the Voice – Pearls and Irritations

Albanese may well want to have an Aboriginal Affairs Minister in cabinet with its own department, demonstrating his commitment to the Uluru Statement. Image: Pixabay

Historically the belief in equality and equal citizenship has motivated actions aimed at remedying Aboriginal discrimination and disadvantage. It underlay the success of the 1967 referendum. Supporters of separate Aboriginal medical and legal services in the 1970s saw that what were supposed to be universal service providers often did not provide for Aboriginal people. There were discriminatory and cultural barriers between disadvantaged Aboriginal people and the services that were meant to provide for all.

Source: The reality that supports the recognition of the Voice – Pearls and Irritations

Facts

Wall Street Bonuses Continue to Soar Compared to Worker Wages | The Smirking Chimp

After a historic 22 percent spike in 2021, the average annual bonus for New York City-based securities industry employees fell 26 percent in 2022, according to just-released New York State Comptroller data. But the rate of increase in average Wall Street bonuses since the 2008 crash is still far higher than wage increases for ordinary workers, according to Institute for Policy Studies analysis of comptroller and BLS data.

Source: Wall Street Bonuses Continue to Soar Compared to Worker Wages | The Smirking Chimp

Informed Opinion

If You “Don’t Dream of Labor,” You Should Organize for Socialism

A viral tweet decrying the idea of work became a TikTok meme celebrating individualist influencer culture and the lives of the idle rich. But real freedom from the drudgery of labor requires collective action — and building a world beyond capitalism.

Source: If You “Don’t Dream of Labor,” You Should Organize for Socialism

Happiness

Global happiness: up six points since last year – 73% now say they are happy – Pearls and Irritations

Multiracial friends group taking selfie portrait.

Here’s something you don’t see reported in the WEST and certainly not in Australia that the Chinese are “fucking happy”

On average, nearly three in four (73%) adults across 32 markets describe themselves as happy, according to the results of a new Ipsos survey. Of all the markets surveyed, those with the highest proportions of happy citizens are China (mainland – 91%), Saudi Arabia (86%), and the Netherlands (85%).

Source: Global happiness: up six points since last year – 73% now say they are happy – Pearls and Irritations