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Ill-disciplined Swans players look frustrated out on the field. This has resulted in a number of incidents and free kicks, which have cost suspensions and goals. An injury hit side like the Sydney Swans can little afford to lose more players to suspension. A losing team like the Swans can ill afford to give away 50m penalties and free kicks which directly cost goals to the opposition. It has been a perfect storm of poor play, lack of effort, weak tackling, loss of contest and ill discipline over the last 12 weeks. This is not the red and white team that the competition has grown to respect over many years for its unstinting application to the job at hand.
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Most movies I watch these days are disappointing. The Penguin Lessons is a rare exception. Set in Argentina in the 1970s, it tells a story of human pathos worthy of an association with an animal – a penguin in this case. Animals are far more trustworthy, I find, and deserving of greater respect than human beings in the majority of instances. The struggle for power by humans inside nation states is directly responsible for the deaths and damage done to millions of people. Argentina, back in the 1970s was in the grip of a fascist regime following the collapse of the Peronist government. Hyper inflation was rife and a police state existed, with anyone suspected of dissent being disappeared by bad men employed by the regime.
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The Sydney Swans playing group, obviously, lack belief in what they are doing. Whatever head coach Dean Cox has been selling, they aint buying! It has been awful, as a longtime supporter, to watch the crumbling of this once great team. This rendition of the Swans AFL side has almost made it to the pinnacle twice. We all know about the disastrous grand final fails of 2022 and 2024. Now, however, the 2025 Cox coached Swans are sinking and will not even make the finals. So, what has gone so dreadfully wrong after the bright hopes at season beginning of a fresh start under longtime apprentice, the big fella, Dean Cox? Why is the team going backwards at a rate of knots?
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AI is coming for your job. As someone who has just been replaced by an automated program this is real, let me tell you. In light of this it is pertinent to remember that Australia punishes the unemployed economically. It is bipartisan policy of Australian governments to provide below the poverty line welfare payments to the unemployed. This has been going on for decades and is one of the reasons why we have a substantial number of older Australians living in poverty. These folk cannot afford to visit the dentist to get treatment because it is too expensive and dental is not included in Medicare. This in one of the wealthiest nations on earth.
Here are 5 things to know about black teeth. Japanese women used to blacken their teeth and shave off their eyebrows post marriage, prior to the mid nineteenth century. Ohagaru was practiced up until the Meiji era. It is interesting to view this custom through the lens of our current 21C obsession with very white teeth. Some see this as further evidence of the control and denigration of the human rights of Japanese women in their traditional society, whilst others disagree with this conclusion. Early western anthropologists described ohagaru as an abhorrent custom, which disfigured women. The custom was, also, practiced in parts of China by minority groups.
Do the dulcet tones of the human voice do it for you? Are you a lover of aural pleasure? The spoken word read well, whilst you drive to work? Listening for both intellectual and sensual gratification? Learning stuff and getting where you are going at the same time? All of these things are possible via audiobooks. For the very first time, sounds of fanfare ladies and gentlemen, my books are available as audiobooks. And they sound pretty darn good, if I do say so myself. Now, you can take the banality out of traffic jams by listening to what I have to say on the really important topics.
Australia is full of progressive laws that just don’t get enforced. I call us the land of toothless tigers and unlike the Tasmanian tiger these are not rare or extinct. Indeed, they are prolific. Black market tobacco grey in Australia because it is so readily available. Tobacconists stock black market tobacco openly in defiance of the laws of the land. Why is this so? Is it a bit like the long held laisse faire attitude of male police officers toward domestic violence in this country? Smokers don’t like paying so much for their ciggies and most cops in Australia are blokes. They just don’t see the problem.

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I saw a headline from The Australian, a News Corp publication, which is an American multinational corporation, asking the question whether the ABC should be worried in light of Donald Trump’s threat to sue the BBC for a billion dollars. This is, of course, all about intimidation. Trump’s BBC billion dollar libel: Will the ABC be next? Trump sues people and organisations to shut them up, as do many powerful people. Intimidating the media is a favourite of the Trump regime, as it seeks to distort and divert attention away from factuality. The Murdoch family, the owners of News Corp, which operates Fox News and Sky News Australia have been a conduit for and supporter of Donald Trump. You could say that they plough the same right wing furrow.
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I saw a headline from The Australian, a News Corp publication, which is an American multinational corporation, asking the question whether the ABC should be worried in light of Donald Trump’s threat to sue the BBC for a billion dollars. This is, of course, all about intimidation. Trump’s BBC billion dollar libel: Will the ABC be next? Trump sues people and organisations to shut them up, as do many powerful people. Intimidating the media is a favourite of the Trump regime, as it seeks to distort and divert attention away from factuality. The Murdoch family, the owners of News Corp, which operates Fox News and Sky News Australia have been a conduit for and supporter of Donald Trump. You could say that they plough the same right wing furrow.
Crime Fresh News PowerI saw a headline from The Australian, a News Corp publication, which is an American multinational corporation, asking the question whether the ABC should be worried in light of Donald Trump’s threat to sue the BBC for a billion dollars. This is, of course, all about intimidation. Trump’s BBC billion dollar libel: Will the ABC be next? Trump sues people and organisations to shut them up, as do many powerful people. Intimidating the media is a favourite of the Trump regime, as it seeks to distort and divert attention away from factuality. The Murdoch family, the owners of News Corp, which operates Fox News and Sky News Australia have been a conduit for and supporter of Donald Trump. You could say that they plough the same right wing furrow.
Crime Fresh News PowerThe ABC and its legacy media pack leader, News Corp, are unable to adjust to the new political landscape downunder. The Liberal Party has become an irrelevance to modern metropolitan Australians. However, the mainstream media are stuck in a 2 party adversarial model in their coverage of federal politics nationally. Thus, we have disproportionate amounts of attention being paid to a political movement that the bulk of the population have moved past. Aussie news stuck in adversarial 2 party politics model. The LNP Coalition was trounced at the last federal election because Australians were sick of far right toxic masculinity masquerading as democratically elected representation. The Tony Abbott/Sky News Australia led hard Right faction of the Libs were completely out of step with a younger and more dynamic Australia.
Culture Democracy Fresh Government Media Politics PowerIf you wanted proof that the police services are more aligned with right wing white supremacist movements than other protest groups you only had to watch Neo-Nazis demonstrating outside the NSW Parliament. The NSW police service had no problem with this going ahead. You do not see many non-white faces among police anti-riot units when watching news coverage of protests around the genocide in Gaza. Bashing up brown skinned people and those passionate about defending the rights of innocent women and children in Gaza are, obviously, more in line with the priorities of Australian police. Masked men in black saluting in paramilitary fashion whilst protesting against Jews is more the cup of tea of the upper echelons of the NSW police, it seems.
Crime Culture Democracy Fresh Government Police Politics PowerThe Liberal Party of Australia is in a civil war between its moderate side, which seeks to regain relevance within a modern Australia, and the far right faction still in the grip of toxic masculinity. Peter Dutton fell at the last federal election, as leader, rejected by the Australian electorate on all fronts. He had run a campaign and his tenure as opposition leader aggressively, in the mode of former short term PM Tony Abbott. Abbott was still pulling the Liberal Party strings, along with his former chief of staff now over at Sky News Australia. Their conservative brand was Trumpist, via its extreme nature, which was always attacking and polarizing. Liberal Party in civil war for control, who will lead them going forward? Currently, Sussan Ley holds the mantle atop the Liberal Party of Australia.
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American Congressmen and women regularly trade on the stock market during their terms in office. This is despite the fact they may have crucial information about corporations and companies which affects their stock price. The American political set up is a bad joke in terms of any separation between civics and commerciality. The committees that these members of Congress sit upon directly impact upon the fortunes of American companies. The fact that members of Congress or their families can happily trade on the stock market during their terms of office is outrageous. No wonder they have to carry them out in wooden coffins and they hardly ever leave office until they reach the ripe old age of Methuselah. Talk about being on a good wicket.
A phalanx of politicians announced the completion of the Robodebt Royal Commission and that the federal government would be accepting all its 50 something findings. This disgusting policy initiative by the previous Coalition government went after 500, 000 Australians accusing them of fraudulently taking social […]
The radicalisation of the Republican Party in America under the aegis of Donald Trump continues to present disturbing new realities. Domestic Terrorism by the Right. Election officials are being threatened and now sent letters with white powder, which could be Fentanyl and other deadly substances. Domestic terrorism is a right wing phenomenon. Extremists on this side of the political spectrum are happy to threaten violence, brandish weapons, and do bad stuff. Trump has ushered in a new level of domestic terrorism into the United States. The ex-President who wouldn’t accept defeat has role modelled this kind of extreme behaviour for others to follow.
Money originated from blood money, wergild, how appropriate when you think about it. This was a payment that had to be made to the family of who was killed or hurt. The price of blood, usually, the monetary value determined of the injury done. Now, when you think about the bastards you have done business with and their morally repugnant behaviour it all makes sense somewhere (LOL).
My heart feels for the forgotten Australians. For those who missed the advantages of well heeled parents and private schools. For those who never quite managed to save up enough for a deposit on a home. For those who rent their residence in an ever shrinking market but now pay through the nose. My heart goes out to the third of Australians forgotten by governments and swept under the rug of their lost concerns. Are we returning to an age where money and property determined your rights in the world? Perhaps, we never really left that unfair realm.
Government budgets are not like household budgets. They do not work in the same way. Nations like Australia with a sovereign currency, like the Australian dollar, cannot run out of money. Therefore, all this tut tutting about government deficits and spending is misdirection. If you print your own currency you can always print more. Yes, there are other economic constraints like inflation, but worrying about going bankrupt is not one of them. Governments are better off running deficits than being in surplus. In a national economy the role of government is to spend to further the wealth and wellbeing of its citizenry when required. Understanding money is not the same for the state and its citizens.
Bruce Lehrmann goes to a strip club in Toowoomba in 2021, where he hooks up with a woman who later claims he raped her. He is now charged with allegedly raping this woman and the matter is before the courts in Queensland. Mister Lehrmann has been on our TV screens via Channel 7’s Spotlight, where he is portrayed as a victim of political and judicial skullduggery. Bruce Lehrmann was able to walk free after the Brittany Higgin’s rape trial collapsed due to juror misbehaviour and the decision was made not to have a retrial on the basis of the dangers to the mental health of the alleged victim Brittany Higgins. He was not cleared of the alleged charge of rape, however.
Renters don’t matter in Australia if the current situation is anything to go by. The available rental stock nationally has fallen to 1.1%. This is the lowest figure on record in the history of the nation. So, let’s talk about the rental crisis in Australia. Rents in the capital cities have been going up 12% year on year on average. Of course, for some their rent has gone up way beyond that in the 20% to 30% stratosphere. At the same time in Australia wages have not gone up anywhere near this. Indeed, for most wages have not risen at all. This means that poorer Australians are going backwards economically at a serious rate of knots.
Conservative politicians and their backers are inviting Australians to embrace their worst selves. Peter Dutton in his successful campaign to defeat the Indigenous Voice referendum has galvanised the downward envy gripping this nation. Too cheap and nasty to do the right thing and redress the constitutional wrongs which have defined this country the Australian people have let themselves down. Expediency always costs much more in the long run. The limited vision expounded by the No campaign and Dutton will come back to bite us on the bum make no mistake. Denying recognition and a say about the things that impact their own lives is a serious slap in the face for First Nations people.
Thank Adele Ferguson for shining the spotlight on this alleged blatant exploitation by a Sydney podiatrist of vulnerable Australians. ABC reveals podiatrist ripping off veterans and the evidence is stacks up. This illustrates the malfeasance by medical professionals occurring within the Medicare system and other government schemes. We know that billions of dollars are being rorted by some within the medical fraternity in a betrayal of the trust put in them by the Australian public. The 7.30 Report shows the complete lack of oversight present in so many government-funded schemes in Australia. The idea that all doctors are good guys and worthy women is being shown to be a costly fallacy for tax payers down under. Thank goodness for investigative journalism.