pope 

Rod Dreher hollifully panics with beatitude...

That’s okay… Here he goes:

As important as it generally is to vote conservative, we are not going to vote ourselves out of this crisis. The core of it is cultural. Do you see American conservatives producing a vital culture today?

sov

As the last of the skeleton staff abandoned Australia’s embassy in the Ukraine, Prime Minister Scott Morrison warned the border standoff with Russia is reaching boiling point.

Foreign Minister Marise Payne said the government has directed the departure of embassy staff to a temporary office in Lviv with the build-up of Russian troops on the border.

“The situation is deteriorating and is reaching a very dangerous stage,” Mr Morrison said on Sunday.

“I want to send a very clear message on behalf of Australia … that the autocratic, unilateral actions of Russia, to be threatening and bullying Ukraine, is something that is completely and utterly unacceptable.”

higgs

In philosophy we often travel with circular arguments at the start of which we have to make assumptions. The elasticity of these arguments make for the ebbs and flows of the questions that plague human nature and our busy-ness. We’re curious. But we don’t like not knowing. If we have no way of knowing, we invent a story, a reason, a purpose, a decree, a religious system. Science is a work in progress, and as explained in the attached comment, is an honourably self-correcting endeavour. 

dumb...

Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline takes diplomatic center stage as tensions continue to mount over Ukraine. RT’s Ben Swann explains why the US isn’t too keen on the project’s completion. Wirtschaft Aktuell publisher Dr. Eike Hamer discusses how Germany is caught in the crossfire and is weighing alternative energy suppliers in case Russia decides to turn off the spigot.

koalas

The Australian Koala Foundation has called for a koala protection act and legislative action to curb land clearing.

It warns koalas are also in danger in Victoria and South Australia.

“This change in status, unfortunately, is nothing but a token gesture that results in no legislative change to save the koala,” foundation chair Deborah Tabart said.

“Behind all the photo opportunities and political rhetoric they (the federal government) continue to approve the destruction of koala habitat.”

Ms Ley pointed to chlamydia vaccines for koalas, the use of drones to surveil populations and habitat restoration as ways governments were working to protect the marsupial.

rot

Sometimes it is hard to keep up, so let's just quickly recap the political week.

It started with revelations that the Deputy Prime Minister thought the Prime Minister was a "hypocrite", "a liar" and that he had "never trusted him".

jenny

ScoMo is very nice

Like a rat poison called Morrison

To a packet of mice

After some French saucisson.

Howard had his Janet

Jenny is Scomo's biggest asset,

Because he’s got a tin ear

She’ll convince us he can hear.

Now the Jenny godly-goody charm

On the sixty-minutes offensive,

Will require some haemorrhoid balm

For us to stay on the defensive.

Hazel was steely,

Julia was ballsy,

Loony Abbott had Margie

Turnbull had Lucy,

ScoMo has lucky Jenny.

ScoMo does not lie

But tells massive porkies,

wages

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s recent declaration – that wage-restrained workers need simply participate in the so-called “Great Reshuffle” to find better-paid jobs – underscores just how disconnected the federal government is from the harsh realities facing many Australian workers.

ukulele

What does Scott Morrison stand for? He would say he stands for freedom of religion. But this week he proved incapable of delivering a legal protection for it.

He would say he stands for the protection of school kids from discrimination. But this week he showed he was prepared to allow transgender kids to suffer discrimination.

He would say he stands for a united government. But this week the government suffered a mutiny when five Liberal MPs crossed the floor of the House of Representatives to vote with Labor and the crossbench.

tranquil

Monty Don’s American Gardens TV show was a bit of a disappointment, especially the last episode. When Montagu Denis Wyatt Don OBE, British horticulturist, broadcaster and writer, best known as being lead presenter of the BBC gardening television Gardener’s World — introduced us to the European, Middle Eastern and Eastern gardens such as the Chinese and Japanese gardens, we could not be more in awe of the history and philosophy going back hundreds and thousands of years. 

words

An offhand remark made by Russian President Vladimir Putin towards his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, on Monday has earned the Kremlin a reprimand from White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, after a reporter claimed that the Russian leader’s jibe was a crude joke about rape.

The controversy began after Putin’s joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday, when he quoted a common rhyming expression, often used with children, while accusing Zelensky of failing to live up to the Minsk agreements, treaties signed in 2014 and 2015 that were meant to resolve the ongoing conflict in Ukraine’s eastern Donbass region.

lifebuoy...

Moderate Liberals were not shown legal advice the attorney-general is using to justify saying amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act would increase discrimination against students.

Liberal MPs Trent Zimmerman, Fiona Martin, Dave Sharma, Bridget Archer and Katie Allen crossed the floor to support a crossbench and Labor amendment to protect gay and transgender students from being expelled from religious schools.

Attorney-General Michaelia Cash then cited legal advice saying the non-government amendments that passed the lower house undermined existing protections and broadened the grounds on which religious schools could discriminate.

pulpit

Scott Morrison made three foolish and arrogant assumptions this week when he tried to push his controversial religious discrimination legislation through parliament.

As a result, he failed in the mission and emerged from Wednesday's all-night sitting with his authority diminished.

With time almost out before the election, this legislation — which he claimed was "very important" — has reached a dead end.

war

In the early 1990s, Karl Weick and Karlene Roberts conducted extremely influential field research to understand why, on the flight decks of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers where there were “a million accidents waiting to happen,” almost none of them did. The answers they provided set the stage for a groundswell of research into what came to be known as high-reliability organizations (HROs).

media

Australia has a deteriorating global corruption ranking — and the mainstream media is ignoring it entirely.

You won’t read about it in the mainstream Australian media. The story is missing from The Age and Sydney Morning Herald and a Google search reveals no coverage in any mainstream Australian media.