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Here is a thought for you. If everyone in America, who voted for Donald Trump, was suddenly infused with a medieval oriental concern for honour they would kill themselves. Because the stain left on American civilization by this generation of voters will never go away. It is so bad and reaching such levels of disgusting behaviour that nothing will ever get that stain out. To regain face, as they say in that eastern way, taking your own life is the only viable option left open. Nothing short of this will redeem the honour of these folk or the country. I love that Japanese/Chinese intensity around this stuff!
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In the United States, you have an actual crook who is president, a convicted felon, Donald Trump. This travesty of a human being is inventing bogus charges to indict those who have challenged his behaviour in the past. The dichotomies of now, sees a real crook using the US DOJ to pursue individuals who were doing their job in prosecuting or investigating a career liar and con man – Donald Trump. The truth is probably the most serious collateral damage in this whole sordid situation. Once the power elite lose all contact with the bedrock of factuality the entire nation is in major trouble. Arrogant bad liars taking the stand at senate hearings will come back and bite us all in the end.
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Google search and its AI Overview is killing off the last of the legacy media news organisations. Technology has taken the news from print to the internet and now we can watch the death of the news thanks to AI. If you are one of the increasing number of viewers who simply read what the AI Overview or bot tells them in answer to your query the days of news feeds is over. You are now solely in the hands of an automated AI source for your information. Gee, I hope you can put your unstinting trust in that thing!
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Day 3 of having no power due to a storm. No service: Profitability is the new power. Yes, this post is written under the duress of being cut off from electricity in my home and work. We live in a time, where being connected to the grid is more essential than ever before. Everything now runs on electricity. My gripe is that despite this clear and present reality, we are still dependent upon outdated and fragile infrastructure. 50 years ago, as I was growing up, I heard about the plans to put the power lines underground. Indeed, this has been achieved in many new suburbs. I do wonder why in this wonderful new world of privatised utilities how so many more established suburbs and towns have not been transformed in this subterranean fashion. Storms wreak havoc to power lines on poles.
Contact sports in the guise of AFL or rugby are coming under increasing scrutiny in regard to head knocks to players. The truth is that modern human beings are not designed to crash and bash into each other at speed. We have, obviously, evolved away from the need to do so in the natural world. Survival does not call for such behaviour these days and that has long been the case. It is, rather, recreational pursuits in the form of team contact sports which have become the unhealthy danger in recent years. The professionalism and commercialism within these sports have motivated players to become bigger, stronger and faster in pursuit of material rewards. The resultant clashes between these modern day gladiators are fuelling an increasing amount of brain injury diseases showing up in past and present players. Is it a situation where caveman sports have no place in a healthy life?
The latest tranche of the Epstein Files released has revealed how far the tentacles of right wing wealth and power reach across the world. Bill Shorten, the favourite whipping boy of the Australian Right, along with being falsely accused of past union corruption had Clive Palmer spending big on attack ads during the last week of the 2019 federal election. Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s former campaign director, is claiming to Jeffrey Epstein that he advised Clive Palmer on this matter. Those on the Right are, as we know, terrible liars, and Epstein and Bannon are both headline acts in this regard. Taking credit for stuff is what these guys do. Whatever the factuality of this matter it reveals the network of wealth and power across the globe.
The American pollical system is pretty weird. For instance, where is their Leader of the Opposition? They have 2 major political parties opposing each other at elections, but when one party is in office the other is nowhere to be seen. Right now, President Trump is doing his grandiose thing, but the recently defeated Kamala Harris is a big fat zero on the scene. How can the party not in power be the alternative government in waiting without a leader to rally around? Congress is a massive failure and has been for many years, as many of them don’t represent the people they are supposed to because they have been bought by AIPAC or some other super pac. Republican congress men and women are so much in thrall to President Trump that they have collectively lost their voice.
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Contact sports in the guise of AFL or rugby are coming under increasing scrutiny in regard to head knocks to players. The truth is that modern human beings are not designed to crash and bash into each other at speed. We have, obviously, evolved away from the need to do so in the natural world. Survival does not call for such behaviour these days and that has long been the case. It is, rather, recreational pursuits in the form of team contact sports which have become the unhealthy danger in recent years. The professionalism and commercialism within these sports have motivated players to become bigger, stronger and faster in pursuit of material rewards. The resultant clashes between these modern day gladiators are fuelling an increasing amount of brain injury diseases showing up in past and present players. Is it a situation where caveman sports have no place in a healthy life?
Culture Footy Fresh Health News Sport Contact sports in the guise of AFL or rugby are coming under increasing scrutiny in regard to head knocks to players. The truth is that modern human beings are not designed to crash and bash into each other at speed. We have, obviously, evolved away from the need to do so in the natural world. Survival does not call for such behaviour these days and that has long been the case. It is, rather, recreational pursuits in the form of team contact sports which have become the unhealthy danger in recent years. The professionalism and commercialism within these sports have motivated players to become bigger, stronger and faster in pursuit of material rewards. The resultant clashes between these modern day gladiators are fuelling an increasing amount of brain injury diseases showing up in past and present players. Is it a situation where caveman sports have no place in a healthy life?
Culture Footy Fresh Health News Sport
Contact sports in the guise of AFL or rugby are coming under increasing scrutiny in regard to head knocks to players. The truth is that modern human beings are not designed to crash and bash into each other at speed. We have, obviously, evolved away from the need to do so in the natural world. Survival does not call for such behaviour these days and that has long been the case. It is, rather, recreational pursuits in the form of team contact sports which have become the unhealthy danger in recent years. The professionalism and commercialism within these sports have motivated players to become bigger, stronger and faster in pursuit of material rewards. The resultant clashes between these modern day gladiators are fuelling an increasing amount of brain injury diseases showing up in past and present players. Is it a situation where caveman sports have no place in a healthy life?
Culture Footy Fresh Health News Sport
The Sydney Swans flop off the bye at the Gabba under fierce Lion’s pressure. Personally, I hate the bye and always have as a Swan’s fan. Too many times the team fails to fire after a week off. The Swans looked soft on this Thursday night featured contest with last year’s premiers. Brody Grundy gifted Brisbane goal scoring opportunities out of the centre 4 times on the night. These free kicks for crossing the line at the ball up are huge penalties to pay for this indiscretion, especially when advantage is taken and opposing players steal out the front of the centre square toward their goal.
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You know a lot of the apparent support for One Nation comes from older white Australians. Pauline Hanson and her campaign machine promote the idea that things were better back in the day. This right wing idealisation of the past, of there being some sort of golden age, is nothing new. Fascists in Hitler’s era promoted the concept of the pure German who lived during a bucolic time of yesteryear. Romanticising the past appeals to older folk especially. Contrasting it with the present and focusing on negative stuff like urban crime and demonising special interest groups plays well with this audience. Hitler and the Nazis attacked the immorality of the Weimar Republic, which won them electoral support from conservate Germans. Pauline Hanson attacks Muslims, refugees and immigrants, as all things bad for Australia. The idealisation of the past is a never land, in that it never really existed the way they say it did.
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Whilst watching a documentary about Nazism and fascism in America back in the 1930s, my ears were pricked by the repeated expressions ‘ make America great’ and ‘one nation’! The modern day use of these terms as names and tag lines are by no means accidental. The white supremacist beliefs and racism, which lie at the base of MAGA and One Nation, in the US and Australia respectively, are the foundation of these movements and political parties. If you have read DH Lawrence’s book Kangaroo or seen the movie based upon it, you will know that Australia was not immune from the rise of fascism post WW1.
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We are not joking about something like suicide or the depression that can follow from poor financial decisions and outcomes. It can be a very dark time for those who have cooked their goose with financial controllers around the place. A bad credit rating is not a death sentence: It just feels that way in the game of life. The free enterprise system, where we can buy and sell things like goods and our services, is sometimes like a very serious board game – where the stakes are high and not Monopoly™ money. Losing one’s reputation around money and assets can be a difficult proposition to win back. It is more than the discomfort of not being able to afford the things you want. In a highly materialistic nation like Australia your credit rating and wealth are akin to your mobility within the various stratas of society. Door can close in your face and it takes great resolve to soldier on and get through these hard times.
China has achieved an economic miracle by being one of the few developing countries to shift its status up and into a world superpower. A billion people have together created a modern economy in record time. Only a handful of nations have made the jump to developed economy from developing status in recent times and they are Singapore, Taiwan, and Korea. According to Professor Richard Werner none of the developing nations primarily being helped by the IMF or the World Bank have made this transition. Why is that? Why has the West and the US in particular been so unsuccessful in their efforts to facilitate such economic progress, despite their wealth? In his estimation, as an international economist, it is because the help these financial entities offer is largely exploitative. Bankers just want to make money, it is in their DNA, and they come from investment banks and their associates are still tied to these banks and corporations. Miners and engineering firms are in it for their own profitability above all other considerations when operating in third world places. There are, also, disagreements around economic policy, as there always are in economics.
The media’s obsession with polls in the political spectrum is damaging to our civil society. I think a keen illustration of this was the recent Voice to Parliament for Indigenous Australian’s referendum. The constant polling around this drove the political debate to a large degree. Australians watched as support for the Voice dropped over the weeks and months according to the polls. What had been reported prior to the constant polling as having broad public support was eroded with each update to the polls. What I saw happening was uncertain Australians finding certainty in going with the flow of public opinion. It became alright to say No via perceived safety in numbers, according to the polls. Polling and manipulation by media is damaging to civil society.
How can we have a situation where Australian banks are making record profits in the billions and we are getting scammed for billions at the same time? These scams utilise our bank accounts and banks to transfer their ill-gotten gains.
You know, one of the most fundamental failures of the neoliberal order over the last few decades has been its decimation of wage growth in Western economies. Not paying high enough wages to the world’s biggest consumers has hamstrung productivity in America. The US economy has been stuck in third gear for 20 plus years or more. All those smart cookies who thought it was a brilliant idea to move manufacturing offshore to developing countries, where they could pay workers peanuts, didn’t factor in the whole picture. Yes, production was much cheaper, but the impact on wages in America meant that consumers couldn’t afford to buy as much stuff.
The few serious offenders who have been released by the High Court of Australia from indefinite detention have already served their sentences. Xenophobic Peter Dutton fear mongering once again and raising anxiety levels among Australians. The Leader of the Opposition is both an embarrassment to the nation and a danger to the social fabric. The political point scoring by Dutton is at the expense of the judicial fairness of Australia. Why should these people have to serve further punishment if they have already served the time for their crime. Dutton is a disgrace and should be censured by the parliament for inciting ill feeling toward vulnerable human beings under the care of Australia.
It’s the old story, Leader of the Opposition banging war drums at home and criticising the PM for going out and doing things in the world. When he should be at home mud wrestling with Dutton. Hamas initiated war with Israel and that is Albo’s fault. According to Dutton, Albo should be touring Israel, just like Scomo, instead of wasting his time repairing the China relationship – our major trading partner and the economic elephant in the room. The Libs want to bang the war drums with China and blame the red menace for everything under the bed. Dutton sees himself as a mini Trump, voicing loud opinions on everything.
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.
