not a lot...

US President Joe Biden announced that Washington would boost its military presence at Russia’s doorstep with more troops that would be moved to the countries in Eastern Europe in the near future. The US leader made the remark while speaking to the media on Friday evening.

Biden gave updates on the situation in Ukraine after he emerged from Air Force One.

Asked about if he had already decided “how soon” he “would be moving US troops to Eastern Europe”, Biden reportedly said that he would sent a small number of American servicemen to the region “in the near term.”

“I'll be moving US troops to Eastern Europe in (or he possibly says and) the NATO countries in the near term. Not a lot,” CBSNews’ Senior White House Correspondent Weijia Jiang reported.

scomo

Tame’s critics came from the right, and they attacked their target’s alleged rudeness rather than dealing with the legitimacy of her approach.

Some of the commentary about Grace Tame’s reaction upon meeting the Prime Minister at The Lodge has been disappointing but unsurprising. 

Parnell Palme McGuinness in The Sydney Morning Herald said it looked like “childish disobedience” and suggested Tame had “squandered her time on political sniping”: her term as Australian of the Year had begun “with a roar but ended with a whine”. Queensland senator James McGrath called her comments “political, partisan and childish,” and implied she should hand back her award.

toon

The cartoon above has been mischiefed by Gus Leonisky. Moir's cartoon today shows either Moir has been instructed by his masters (the publishers — THE SMH) to fudge the reality or he has lost his sense of understanding. Unless he's coming to an age where cartooning retirement is a possibility... But it's possible it's an old cartoon from 2014 that has been recycled without any update of political present. The original posted in comment below...

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW !!!!!!

evolution

February 1 marks two years since Scott Morrison announced the Australian border was effectively being closed to Chinese nationals or non-citizens who happened to have spent time in China.

Promising this “temporary measure” would be reviewed in a fortnight’s time, the PM also revealed Australia’s official travel advice for China had changed to “do not travel”.

While there were fears over the spread of coronavirus, Morrison was keen to assure all that everything was under control. “There is no basis for alarm,” he said.

It feels a lifetime ago. For those who have lost family or friends either to the pandemic or to the mental toll of lockdowns, it must be even worse.

 spectrum

I GET IRATE… not really, I hold MY COOL pretty well considering… But I can’t stand politicians who lie or try to fool us with crap… A friend gave me "a compliment” yesterday by intimating I was “on the spectrum”… Yes I know. I know which plane is passing overhead without looking at it. As well I can make the difference between a Tesla motor and a "three-phase Mikhail Dolivo-Dobrovolsky" motor. Or plunge into quantum mechanics without making a fool of myself too much…

nuz

Millions of US kids to be told which news is fake

A service stamping reliability ‘labels’ on media sources has teamed up with a major teachers’ union

NewsGuard, a controversial service that ranks news sources read by clients online based on how trustworthy it considers them to be, will soon be available for free to millions of schoolchildren in the US.

The New York-based company signed a licensing agreement with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the second-largest teachers’ union in the country, making the service available to members and their students, the two said this week.

 idiot

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss gave a statement on the Kremlin plan to install pro-Russian leadership in Ukraine.

We have information that indicates the Russian Government is looking to install a pro-Russian leader in Kyiv as it considers whether to invade and occupy Ukraine. The former Ukrainian MP Yevhen Murayev is being considered as a potential candidate.

We have information that the Russian intelligence services maintain links with numerous former Ukrainian politicians including:

greenstuff

The European Union’s scientific and political communities are locked in a battle over whether gas and nuclear can be considered green investments. The latest development in this years-long fight came on Monday, when the European Commission’s scientific expert group, the Platform on Sustainable Finance (PSF), pushed back against including gas and nuclear in the EU taxonomy, an official guide on sustainable investments. The expert group stated that it is “deeply concerned about the environmental impacts that may result.” 

middle east

Fanaticisms at the service of the United States

by Thierry Meyssan

The United States could reorganize the entire Middle East by reconciling Sunnis and Shiites, Saudi Arabia and Iran. They would then impose another cleavage: for or against political Islam. This new divide would allow them to revive jihadism in a much broader way.

Since President Joe Biden took office, the United States has attempted to engage in negotiations with Iran to restore the secret agreement it signed under President Barack Obama on the sidelines of the Iranian nuclear negotiations.

assange/voltaire

Rock legend Roger Waters tells RT why we ‘should build statues to Assange’

Rock legend and activist Roger Waters told RT that the prosecution of Julian Assange is a “charade”

On Monday, Julian Assange was granted permission to appeal the British High Court’s decision last month to allow his extradition to the US, where he is wanted on charges of espionage and revealing state secrets. The WikiLeaks co-founder faces up to 175 years in jail if found guilty on all counts.

Speaking to RT, Waters called the decision a “small victory” in Assange’s years-long legal battle, arguing that he “should not have spent a single day” behind bars.

day

day2

flag

bench

When is an exclusive not an exclusive? When it runs in The Australian. Pearls and Irritations had the real Paul Keating exclusive over the weekend.

Rupert Murdoch’s The Australian is at it again: “Exclusive – Paul Keating has launched a scathing attack on Britain, saying Australia’s oldest ally suffers from ‘delusions of grandeur and relevance deprivation'”. What’s the scam?

The scam is the Keating story ran in John Menadue’s Pearls and Irritations, exclusively, two days earlier. Somehow, Rupert’s rag ran a page one Keating “exclusive”, a page two Keating “exclusive” and a story on its opinion pages, all bagging Keating and failing to give attribution to earlier press reports, the actual exclusive.

confucius...

In April 1998, Sony Corporation chairman Norio Ohga made world headlines with his comment, “The Japanese economy is on the verge of collapsing.” In reality, nothing in Sony’s experience supported such an assessment. On the contrary, its business boomed right through the 1990s. More generally, Japanese industrial corporations continued to gain share from American rivals. Yet they all talked as if Japan was a hopeless basket case.

Even the president of Toyota Motor, Hiroshi Okuda, joined in, suggesting Japan could cause a “world-wide financial crash.” This despite the fact that Toyota’s sales soared fully 95 percent in the 1990s. Between 1989 and 2019, Toyota went from little more than one-quarter of General Motors’ revenues to nearly twice G.M.’s.

flag

The iconic flag that has become a symbol of Aboriginal Australia is now freely available for public use, after its designer agreed to transfer copyright to the Commonwealth following long negotiations.

julia

The Australian Republic president should be a Woman, an Atheist and a Red Head.

Or an Aboriginal Woman or Man...

Or Julian Assange...

Or Kylie Minogue...