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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 conservative 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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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.
I am, by choice, petless in my life. That is, without a furry companion to share my domicile. For four weeks, however, this changed, when I was invited to house sit on holiday in WA. Thus, the title of this post – Doggie Dementia: My month of pet poop and piss in Perth. It was a family arrangement with a sibling, she and partner were off to Bali, whilst I would hold down the fort. Water a few sheltered pot plants, turn on the irrigation system, take out the trash, something about feeding worms, and look after Misty – the Shih tzu Maltese Terrier Cross.
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!
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.
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President Trump, in an obvious act of desperation, is offering every adult American a cheque for $5000 if his Republican party wins the primaries. This would cost some $1.3 trillion in a nation already $40 trillion in debt. Responsible Republican politics? The corrupt nature of populist politics is there for all to see. Now, I know Americans are pretty dumb but Trump has previously failed to honour promises for DOGE dividend cheques and for tariffs he imposed. Compound that with his promise to improve affordability for everyday Americans, which has not been realised thanks to his war with Iran and those many Trump tariffs. Things could not be much worse economically for ordinary Americans right now.
Democracy Economics Fresh Government Media News Politics Power Workers President Trump, in an obvious act of desperation, is offering every adult American a cheque for $5000 if his Republican party wins the primaries. This would cost some $1.3 trillion in a nation already $40 trillion in debt. Responsible Republican politics? The corrupt nature of populist politics is there for all to see. Now, I know Americans are pretty dumb but Trump has previously failed to honour promises for DOGE dividend cheques and for tariffs he imposed. Compound that with his promise to improve affordability for everyday Americans, which has not been realised thanks to his war with Iran and those many Trump tariffs. Things could not be much worse economically for ordinary Americans right now.
Democracy Economics Fresh Government Media News Politics Power Workers
President Trump, in an obvious act of desperation, is offering every adult American a cheque for $5000 if his Republican party wins the primaries. This would cost some $1.3 trillion in a nation already $40 trillion in debt. Responsible Republican politics? The corrupt nature of populist politics is there for all to see. Now, I know Americans are pretty dumb but Trump has previously failed to honour promises for DOGE dividend cheques and for tariffs he imposed. Compound that with his promise to improve affordability for everyday Americans, which has not been realised thanks to his war with Iran and those many Trump tariffs. Things could not be much worse economically for ordinary Americans right now.
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The shocked AFL pundits cried out, nobody picked this!!! The Sydney Swans demolition of the mighty Brisbane Lions in the Qualifying Final at the SCG. A talent depleted Sydney outfit outplayed the premiers for 4 quarters on a Saturday afternoon in the Harbour City. In actual fact, someone did pick this massive upset. No lesser person than the great Buddy Franklin picked this result and publicised it via his YouTube video with Shane Crawford. Buddy, I am reminded, is a great student of the game, according to John Longmire; and he proved it on this occasion.
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Much of the news you view downunder is controlled by News Corp, which is owned by a right wing American billionaire. Facebook and Instagram are owned by another right wing billionaire, Mark Zuckerberg. X, formerly Twitter, is owned by yet another American billionaire, Elon Musk. American billionaires control your news feed. Can you perceive a bit of a pattern here, folks? The news you get either by legacy media or social media platforms comes via Trump supporting oligarchs. AI is likewise owned by a bunch of American billionaires, who have kissed the ring of President Trump. Your news and information comes via a filter, a right wing filter, which puts a decided slant on things.
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Did anybody notice that all 4 AFL clubs playing off in the Wildcard round were Melbourne based? In this expanded VFL parading itself as a national competition something had to be done about the lack of success for the glut of Melbournian AFL clubs. Enter the Melbournian mediocrity wildcard weekend, where a midtable result gets rewarded in season 2026. Something like 180, 000 footy fans attended these matches at the MCG. Big clubs like Collingwood and Carlton played off for a final’s spot against perennial also-rans the Western Bulldogs and Melbourne. If you build it they will come, to quote a line from an old sport’s movie.
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The last refuge of the incompetent is violence, to paraphrase a line attributed to Isaac Asimov. This truism is particularly apt for Donald J Trump and his regime in the United States. Busy stuffing up the world’s greatest economy, Trump and his cronies are now turning to violence to compensate. Venezuela is their first port of call, amid BS about attacking drug dealers, they are going after this nation’s oil. Venezuela has the world’s largest reserves of thick crude oil. The bully in the White House is picking on a weaker opponent, as bullies always do. You do not see Mister Trump taking on Vladimir Putin and Russia. This is despite the fact that Putin’s Russia is clearly the biggest villain in international terms. No, Trump and his kind pick on the weak, like undocumented immigrants in America.
Let’s take a peek inside the Aussie racist bubble. This is where those wrapping themselves in the national flag and marching against immigration reside. The thinking goes that if we keep out all those brown skinned people, we will not see horrendous events like the Bondi Beach mass shooting. White folk from, predominantly, Anglo stock do not commit such vile acts, according to their script. Shutting the big bad world out will protect us from the atrocities. Yes, some of our business elite sell weapons to war torn countries and our superannuation funds invest for profit in such stuff the world over, but that is beside the point. Yes, our soldiers have fought in wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East but that is not our concern, either.
I see reports that the alleged Bondi Beach gunmen were on ASIO’s radar. Well, further investigative reports tell us that they travelled to the Philippines in November and attended militia training there in the south. This would involve firearms training and learning strategies for shooting people, I would suggest. It seems that our security agencies are not all that we might hope, if the evidence is anything to go by. This in conjunction with gun laws that allowed an individual to have licenses for 6 firearms. What do you need to have this many guns for? It is time to stop treating gun owners with kid gloves and get real about the dangers these deadly weapons pose to the greater community.
We can bang on about terrorism and causes but it was guns that made this horrific Bondi Beach incident so costly in lives. Why does a gun licensee need 6 weapons? For those that might require reminding, guns facilitate massacres by making it easier to kill people. 16 people are dead from this mass shooting event at the time of writing. It is lax and over generous gun laws which have provided these killers with 6 guns to use in this devastating attack on multiple victims. Nobody needs 6 guns, whatever their circumstances; and the Bondi Beach victims have paid the price.
How the ‘Gig economy’ feeds on its workers to profit its corporate masters and their shareholders? Technology has facilitated more services and cheaper rates for consumers. Delivery drivers and riders provide their own assets, like vehicle and smart phone, to make those deliveries possible. These, often, expensive assets depreciate through use and the gig worker must bear the cost and not the parent platform. The risks are all with the worker and not the platforms. Indeed, Uber has a pathway where drivers, often, end up paying for the shopping with their own money, which is to be reimbursed days later. If the worker was being paid extra for these financially onerous uses of their assets it might be OK, but they are not.
In Australia, on the political front, we have very little in the way of progressive or Leftist policy options. It is rather the choice of how far Right. Traditionally centrist positions have been favoured by most voters, usually Centre Right. The LNP Coalition has, over recent years, moved further Right in thrall to populist demagogues like Donald Trump. Neoliberalism via privatization has seen many previously publicly owned assets move into private hands. The energy utilities are an illustrative example of this, where numerous private companies operate within this sector, either generating, wholesaling or retailing energy. Despite promises to the contrary prices for energy have not come down. Those greater efficiencies have not materialised.
Here are 5 reasons why Donald Trump is wrecking the global economy. The US has ruled the roost economically since WW2 and detrimental things that happen there negatively impact upon the world economy too. More than a million jobs have been lost in the US since Trump took over at the beginning of 2025. The labour market has been hit hard from tariffs and DOGE cuts shedding jobs. Things are in the doldrums in America and stagflation may well be on the horizon. Messing with the economy, as the Trump regime has, is having multiple effects.
The Trump regime is attacking boats from Venezuela, blowing them up in international waters. Why this focus on a South American nation? Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves. The US has a great tradition of going after countries with lots of oil and administrations that don’t bend over backwards for them. Donald Trump is a firm believer in fossil fuels. His administration has already reversed much of the good work that was done under Joe Biden, when it came to renewables and the transition away from climate damaging fossil fuels. Trump is the ultimate head in the sand guy, when it comes to global warming.
Politicians on the Right have no long term solutions for anything. Short termism infects everything they do and say. Their intentions are all about getting elected via the politics of grievance. Once in power they achieve little and go about milking the system for their own benefit. Donald Trump is a clear example of this, campaigning on high prices and the cost of living under Joe Biden. The US economy is now in far worse shape since he returned to the White House. More than a million jobs have been lost and stagflation is on the horizon for Americans. Trump now has the lowest approval rate in the polls in US history. If you ask many of his voters if they are happy with his handling of the economy their answer would be in the negative.
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.
