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In contravention of the AFL media’s obsession with star players, the art of coaching demands so much more than a roster of stars. Indeed, the mysteries of coaching AFL are on display for all to see throughout the season. Why is one team so good and another side so bad? The talking heads would like to make it all about the talent of the players in each squad but that is decidedly not the exclusive reason for success. In truth, the athletes playing AFL at this level are all very good, which is why they ended up on a playing list at an AFL club. Most of these young men have been playing footy for much of their short lives. They are remarkably talented with ball skills and have honed their physical endurance in readiness for the big leap to AFL standard.
Culture Fresh Media News Sport
Here is an interesting fact. Support for One Nation is highest in areas where there are relatively few migrants living. Regional areas and outer suburban electorates, where the vast majority of populations are white bread. Why then do they go on about the issue of high levels of immigration in Australia? It is not actual lived experience. Could it be because they watch Sky News Australia and listen to reactionary shock jocks on the radio? Blaming immigrants, refugees and foreigners, more generally, is a right wing populist saw. Combine this with a general underlying racism inherited down through generations and you probably get what is really going on here. Pauline Hanson has been banging on about her white supremacist views for decades and now has Gina Rinehart to bankroll her hate speech infected perspective downunder.
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PM Anthony Albanese was never going to stand up to the gas industry downunder. Weak leaders follow the power elite. They are content to see inequity and inequality flourish in this time of zombie neoliberalism. Nero fiddled whilst Rome burned or so the story goes. Governments do little these days but talk and let the markets run the show to the detriment of the working poor. We have a severe housing crisis and it is not getting any better. What is the government doing about it? Talking about it, but talk is cheap. They are not actually getting their hands dirty and getting into the game by building houses themselves. No, they are ineffectually encouraging private interests to do something about the housing crisis. The figures do not stack up in terms of meeting the challenge of new housing stock being built at the required rate.
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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.
The AFL has created a game that human bodies cannot actually cope with. How do we know this? Take a look at the number of soft tissue and knee injuries on the playing lists of AFL clubs. AFL a game unfit for human bodies. The evolution of the game has AFL players running at top speed, suddenly stopping, turning, twisting and being tackled. No bloody wonder that human joints and muscles cannot cope with the stress being applied to them under this kind of duress week in and week out. The physical conditioning experts employed by the clubs would know this but their well paid jobs encourage them to stay silent on this issue.
We do not have a progressive national news platform in Australia. We have a rabid right wing News Corp, which controls most of the nation’s newspapers, has a national radio network and produces Sky News Australia and Fox News. Nine Fairfax and Seven West Media can be comfortably described as corporate legacy media on the right of centre, politically speaking. The ABC, our only truly national broadcaster, follows the News Corp lead in what it sets as the daily news agenda. This was not always the case, as a couple of decades ago the ABC contained the most intelligent and passionate journalists working around the nation. How the ABC lost its progressive soul? Is a question well worth asking.
Australia has a tax problem and I am going to suggest something to remedy that. The ATO is in a hole for some $52 billion, mostly from Australians who owe back taxes. In the most recent financial year that we have records for, some 91 Aussies who earned more than a million dollars paid no tax on that income at all. They managed to do this via creative tax accounting paying professionals hundreds of thousands to make it happen. These folk would rather do this than pay their fair share of tax on their earnings. There is an American flavour to this – the idea that the rich shouldn’t have to pay a lot of tax is promulgated by the wealthy and the GOP in the US. America has a national debt of $37 trillion and this correlates with the reduction of taxes on the wealthy over the last few decades. The top income tax rate was in the 90% range in the 1960s and that has come down to 37% as of now – that is a huge drop. Company taxes have come down substantially, as well, in recent times. Wealthy individuals and corporations are not paying their fair share of tax.
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It is amazing how often fate treats hubristic behaviour in lives of the rich and famous. It is, as if, a certain point is reached or crossed by the individual and this releases the hounds of hell upon them. Isaac Heeney, the No#1 rated player in the AFL for much of the season and the poster boy for toothpaste smiles has come a cropper in the shady wee hours of Melbourne with a lap dancer. Isaac Heeney: The boy next door is no more. No, the nice lad we once knew has morphed into a dirtbag hero. Strippers or exotic dancers crying sexual assault rings in the ears of the greater public. Victoria police are investigating an alleged sex crime and Heeney is at the centre of it.
Crime Footy Fresh Media News Police Sport It is amazing how often fate treats hubristic behaviour in lives of the rich and famous. It is, as if, a certain point is reached or crossed by the individual and this releases the hounds of hell upon them. Isaac Heeney, the No#1 rated player in the AFL for much of the season and the poster boy for toothpaste smiles has come a cropper in the shady wee hours of Melbourne with a lap dancer. Isaac Heeney: The boy next door is no more. No, the nice lad we once knew has morphed into a dirtbag hero. Strippers or exotic dancers crying sexual assault rings in the ears of the greater public. Victoria police are investigating an alleged sex crime and Heeney is at the centre of it.
Crime Footy Fresh Media News Police Sport
It is amazing how often fate treats hubristic behaviour in lives of the rich and famous. It is, as if, a certain point is reached or crossed by the individual and this releases the hounds of hell upon them. Isaac Heeney, the No#1 rated player in the AFL for much of the season and the poster boy for toothpaste smiles has come a cropper in the shady wee hours of Melbourne with a lap dancer. Isaac Heeney: The boy next door is no more. No, the nice lad we once knew has morphed into a dirtbag hero. Strippers or exotic dancers crying sexual assault rings in the ears of the greater public. Victoria police are investigating an alleged sex crime and Heeney is at the centre of it.
Crime Footy Fresh Media News Police Sport
I am putting my hand up to confess that I am a longtime supporter of the Sydney Swans. What did Confucious say? ‘May you live during interesting times’ or words to that effect, perhaps. Regular readers may be aware of the many posts I have written about the fortunes of the red and white AFL side this year. In an ironic twist, I have been bemoaning the lack of on-field mongrel in this normally squeaky clean team. Hells bells, I did not wish to shake down the thunder from the sky. What I wanted was some more fight and desperation out on the footy field. What we have all got, it appears, is some God awful, alleged sexual assault.
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I hate to harp on a topic but… The Sydney Swans missing mongrel factor for finals remains a major concern. There I was chatting with a Brisbane Lion’s supporter whilst playing golf and this person was complimenting the Swans on a good season so far. I had to qualify the praise with a reality check because the Swans have struggled to beat top 4 teams this season. The Lions had monstered Sydney very recently in a contest at the Gabba. Things are getting real now, as the AFL finals are mere weeks away. Winning contest and applying physical pressure for 4 quarters are crucial elements if you want to win football finals.
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The Sydney Swans have taken on the old Muhammad Ali rope-a-dope strategy, it seems. Absorb the opposition’s punishment for most of the match and then come out all guns blazing at the death knock. In this edition, Bloods sacrifice to beat Saints. Unfortunately for Will Edwards and James Rowbottom it was their blood and bone sacrifices on the altar of victory. A terrible injury for the rookie defender Will Edwards has finished his brilliant season prematurely. Rowbottom will likely be back for the finals. The Swans needed this win to hold onto second spot on the AFL ladder and it did not come cheaply.
Footy Sport
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.
Do you find reading stuff to be a bit of a drag? Are you always on the look out for an easy hack? The bad news is that if you don’t exercise your brain function you will pay for it later on. Use it or lose it! Technology may seem great and so convenient, but it is dumbing us down and charging us for the service at the same time. Reading utilises different parts of the brain than watching videos. Processing the meaning of words and sentences makes you smarter and not the machine. Ruminating on important stuff via reading essays will make you wiser. Here are 5 good reasons why reading will save your brain.
The release of a trove Epstein emails has revealed Jeffrey Epstein agony aunt to billionaires and other elites. Prominent Americans sought both financial and dating advice from Jeffrey Epstein. Money and sex, it is like these two hot topics use the same hole or parts of the brain. Larry Summers, the economist and former President of Harvard University, is featured in these email conservations with Epstein, even after Epstein’s conviction for sex trafficking. It seems that the billionaire financier and sex trafficker had a reputation as an expert in both these areas of life.
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.
The 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.
If 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.
