popgun

China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson has lashed the “extremely absurd and irresponsible” remarks made by Peter Dutton as Senator Penny Wong declared the Defence Minister “does Australians no favours by amplifying Beijing's fatalism”.

Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian said Mr Dutton was “driven by selfish political gains” as he was asked to comment on the Minister’s latest remarks about China’s acting ambassador to Australia Wang Xining during a press conference on Monday.

Mr Wang had slammed Australia’s plan to acquire nuclear-powered submarines under the AUKUS deal in an interview with The Guardian – with Mr Dutton describing his comments as “silly” and “funny”.

"We don't see it from any other ambassador here in Australia," Mr Dutton told Channel 9.

macy's

President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden phoned in to NBC’s Al Roker during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on Thursday to deliver a holiday message to Americans. “My message is after two years, you’re back, America’s back,”Biden said. “There’s nothing we’re unable to overcome.”

omicron

Countries around the world are racing to introduce travel bans and restrictions on southern African countries in an effort to contain the new Omicron variant of Covid-19.

The moves come after the variant was officially named by health officials.

skulled

The 2021 Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded last month to three economists for their work on what are called natural experiments: the real-world equivalent of a laboratory experiment.

Economist Andrew Charlton reflected on the great value of such natural experiments when he spoke at the National Press Club in Canberra last week.

He reflected on what we had learnt about economics as the COVID-19 pandemic became a once-in-a-lifetime natural experiment "that taught us a lot about economics in Australia, and particularly about poverty in Australia".

"We did things in the pandemic that we would never ordinarily do," he said. "And the consequences of those decisions enabled us to learn things that we would never ordinarily learn."

belief

The truth is becoming increasingly unimportant in our politics and Parliament — and this bodes ill for civilised society and the survival of democracy. 

An increasing number of journalists enabled by their media ownership are focusing on Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s penchant to lie. However, lying has been a long-time bedfellow of politics, although in the past political lies were predominantly about the opposition. This modern phenomena finds politicians lying about their own behaviour. His efforts to manipulate his own history and image have brought into full view Morrison’s natural reflex to lie his way through whatever crisis he faces. Why does he continue this practice despite such exposure?

 hair

This website is called yourdemocracy — YOUR-DEMOCRACY… I hope that is is not beyond the folks who thus read this website to see that de-mo-cra-cy is in trouble, once more… It always was, despite the flux of hope that props its head from time to time, despair at personal and social construct seems to be the order of the day. 

Democracy is quite a new system of government in its present format. Barely 100 years young in most countries and it’s not even a born child in others. In the USA, democracy has suffered from racism, sexism, corruption and highway robbery at the highest of echelons of the system since its inception. People who expose the corruption of the system get shot: the Kennedys, Martin Luther King to name the most famous of the victims...

deaths

Across America in a few hours' time, turkeys will be going into ovens, millions will be hurrying from regional airports to get to see loved ones, roads will likely be jammed. 

no secret

Stephen K. Bannon, the former Trump White House adviser, has filed an opposition to the U.S. district court’s standard protective order for discovery, which prohibits either side from releasing documents or evidence publicly.

Bannon, 67, pleaded not guilty last week to contempt-of-Congress charges, and his legal team previously argued that the case would be more complicated by agreeing to the prosecution’s protective order for discovery. 

cloud

Plans for a sunny summer full of hot days lazing on the beach are far less likely now that a La Nina weather pattern has taken hold over the Pacific Ocean, bringing a stream of wet easterly trade winds to Australia’s eastern seaboard.

The Bureau of Meteorology declared on November 23 that a La Nina event was in full swing, with climate scientists saying it would bring cooler temperatures, more rainy days and higher risks of extreme weather.

liar

The overwhelming impression the Morrison government has projected this week has been one of chaos, with revolts coming from the right and the left.

And that’s accurate. But, within the shambles, there has actually been one encouraging sign. We’re seeing a new generation of Liberal moderates belatedly raise their voices.

When several moderates spoke out in the Coalition party room, airing their reservations about the Religious Discrimination Bill, or aspects of it, it was the most significant indication so far they aren’t willing to be quiescent any longer.

They may be partly driven by the looming election, but whatever the motive, it was an important moment.

vindicated

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has launched a scathing attack on the NSW anti-corruption watchdog, labelling it a “kangaroo court” that “did over’ former premier Gladys Berejiklian.

In a fiery defence of his government’s proposed federal integrity commission on Thursday, Mr Morrison said the government did not want to create anything like NSW’s Independent Commission Against Corruption

“Those opposite want to support the sort of show in NSW, which has seen the most shameful attacks on the former premier of NSW,” he said.

“The Australian people know that the former premier of NSW was done over by a bad process.

“I’m not going to have a kangaroo court taken into this parliament.”

oil...

Global demand for crude oil (including biofuels) in 2020 fell to 91 million barrels per day and is projected to increase to 96.5 million barrels per day in 2021. The decrease in 2020 was due to the economic and mobility impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, including widespread shutdowns across the world. When compared to the daily oil demand of 86.4 million barrels in 2010, the increasing demand trajectory that occurred in the past decade is nevertheless still clear.

dutton...

Defence Minister Peter Dutton will receive $35,000 in damages after he won a defamation case against refugee advocate Shane Bazzi, who referred to the politician as a “rape apologist” on social media.

Mr Dutton, 51, who was formerly home affairs minister and immigration minister, sued Mr Bazzi in the Federal Court over a tweet posted on February 25 this year which said: “Peter Dutton is a rape apologist.”

The post linked to a Guardian Australia article reporting Mr Dutton’s comments in 2019 that some women on Nauru “have claimed that they’ve been raped and came to Australia to seek an abortion”. Mr Dutton suggested they were “trying it on” to secure a medical transfer to Australia.

cia

According to a report by US National Intelligence Director Avril Haines, dated 15 March 2021 [1], Russia and Iran, as well as Lebanese Hezbollah, Cuba and Venezuela interfered in the US presidential election to the detriment of Joe Biden.

 idiot

Edward Norton Lorenz, (born May 23, 1917, West Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.—died April 16, 2008, Cambridge, Massachusetts), American meteorologist and discoverer of the underlying mechanism of deterministic chaos, one of the principles of complexity.