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104.1 CHYFM is once again running its John Townsend Golf Classic fundraiser on Sunday 15 October at the Sawtell Golf Club. Launched last year to great success, it’s a vital money-maker for the not-for-profit, fully independent community radio station which runs on the goodwill, hard work, passion and dedication of volunteers and staff and the...

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TO celebrate Spring, the Rotary Club of Coffs Harbour Daybreak, in conjunction with the North Coast Regional Botanic Garden, is inviting you to their sixth Japanese Lantern Festival and Feast on Saturday 21 October. The Festival will be set in the Japanese Waterside Pavilion, which will be bathed in the light of the moon and...

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The nation’s most popular public health care program is under attack — so here’s what we need to do.

Use to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts.

I thought I’d paw through the “sci-fi” section of my collection and share 25 of my favorites. Keep in mind that these are personal favorites; I was careful not to title the post “Top 25 Sci-fi Movies of All Time” (there is no more surefire way to spark a virtual bare-knuckled fracas). Anyway, here are 25 off-world adventures awaiting you now… Alien – Ridley Scott’s first (and best) entry in what has become a never-ending (albeit lucrative) franchise is the least bombastic and most character-driven of the series. This 1979 sci-fi thriller concerns the workaday crew of a space merchant vessel who are forced to deal with the, erm, complications that ensue after the discovery of an otherworldly stowaway on board. It’s a taut, nail-biting affair from start to finish, with outstanding production design. A top-notch cast helps: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerrit, John Hurt, Ian Holm, Yaphet Kotto, Veronica Cartwright, and Harry Dean Stanton.

Source - Patreon

Source - Patreon

The massively corrupt Texas GOP AG Ken Paxton was acquitted in his impeachment trial today. They just can’t quit him. But the Texas GOP is at each others’ throats and it’s going to be a bloodbath. But that’s not unusual. The inmates are running the asylum everywhere and even the power brokers and the money men seem to be impotent in the face of it. Even among those Party leaders who cast their lot with Trump in the lead-up to the 2020 election, very few are still with him: NBC News surveyed forty-four of Trump’s former Cabinet members and found that just four supported his reëlection.

I’m shocked. It was only a matter of time before this clash manifested somewhere: This city of 28,000 was once so Polish it was dubbed “Little Warsaw.” But in recent decades, an influx of immigrants gave Hamtramck new character. Bengali and Arabic joined English on signs at City Hall. Yemeni and Bangladeshi mosques, restaurants and shops proliferated. And last year, a Muslim who emigrated from Yemen as a teenager became mayor — the city’s first leader in nearly a century with no Polish roots — alongside what is believed to be the nation’s only all-Muslim city council. Many residents in this tiny enclave just north of downtown Detroit saw these changes as a sign of the Hamtramck’s progressiveness. The Muslim community that had previously experienced discrimination, including voter intimidation and resistance to mosques’ public call to prayer, had finally taken its seats at the table. Yet the ethnic, cultural and religious diversity that made Hamtramck something of a model is being put severely to the test.

Or maybe she just sees a new career move: Jenna Ellis – the Donald Trump lawyer who like the former president faces criminal charges regarding attempted election subversion in his defeat by Joe Biden in 2020 – says she will not vote for him in the future because he is a “malignant narcissist” who cannot admit mistakes. “I simply can’t support him for elected office again,” Ellis said. “Why I have chosen to distance is because of that frankly malignant narcissistic tendency to simply say that he’s never done anything wrong.” Ellis, 38, was speaking on her show on American Family Radio, a rightwing evangelical network run by the American Family Association, a non-profit that by its own description has been “on the frontlines of America’s culture war” since 1977. Ellis was one of 18 Trump associates charged with him in Georgia over attempts to overturn Biden’s victory there. Charged with violating state anti-racketeering laws and solicitation of violation of an oath by a public officer, she was granted $100,000 bail and pleaded not guilty.

There is no more important issue in Australian taxation reform than replacing current arrangements by efficient mineral rent taxation. That requires large analytic effort and effective political leadership. Success would bring high rewards to the Australian polity, and I expect electoral rewards to the Government that is seen as being responsible for a good outcome. Continue reading »

Doesn’t matter how much harm fossil fuels cause, governments have an ‘Everlasting Love’ for subsidising them, so no surprise that coal and oil consumption is increasing. The global love affair with electricity started in 1950.   Fossil fuel subsidies keep increasing According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the optimal (or efficient) price of fossil Continue reading »

Can regulation of Biotechnology provide clues for the regulatory measures now required to limit risks in the use of AI? Already, digital technologies have permeated most corners of human activities, with some good and some bad effects. Now, global authorities are trying to introduce some form of regulation to rein in the riskiest products launched Continue reading »

If you don’t know about the voice, dont just say No! If you don’t know About The Voice Don’t just say ‘No!’ Or maybe guess, Perhaps say, ‘Yes?’ Go to that link, Read, have a think, Then make your choice About The Voice! PS I must confess My vote is, ‘YES!’ Be ready to vote Continue reading »

Discussion of the tenure of senior officials in the Australian public service continues in P&I, with some former officials recently pointing to the difficulty of giving the fabled “frank and fearless” advice when contracts may not be renewed. Others maintain that they retained autonomy under the current regime. Chris Wallace argues that a reversion to Continue reading »

In previous articles, I’ve articulated why I adopted a skeptical and analytical mindset from a young age, particularly in the realm of geopolitical claims made by nation-states in the nuclear age. Now, let’s shift our focus to China’s nuclear strategy. China, recognising that it couldn’t feasibly compete in the ongoing nuclear arms race, chose a Continue reading »

South Korea is among the nations with the highest coal power generation. South Korean government is moving ahead to launch commercial operation of the Samcheok coal power plant in Gangwon-do province in October defying opposition from civil society groups and the Catholic Church. Since October 2021, Catholic groups have been staging protests every month at Continue reading »

A new BBC One "glitch" appears to have confirmed next Saturday for a Doctor Who 60th Anniversary preview; #WhoSpy drops a new teaser image.

With the ongoing hysteria over Biden’s age, it’s long past time to look more closely at Trump’s mental gyrations which are much more indicative of a disordered mind which, along with his massive psychological defects, is getting worse every day. Here are some examples from this weekend alone. Watch this whole thing to see him try in vain to pretend he didn’t stumble and becomes even more incoherent. It’s pathetic. Trump: As you know, crooked Joe Biden and the radical left thugs who have weaponized law enforcement to arrest their leading political opponent that leading by a lot, including Obama pic.twitter.com/T5mx6LhH5D — Acyn (@Acyn) September 16, 2023 “You have voted ID to buy a loaf of bread” — Trump still doesn’t know how buying groceries works pic.twitter.com/XI61Qva8yA — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 16, 2023   You know people have told him that isn’t true and the press has certainly covered this as a gaffe. It’s not the only way to express this concept. He could say that you have to show ID to get on an airplane, for instance.

Gallup: Labor unions continue to enjoy high support in the U.S., with 67% of Americans approving of them, similar to the elevated level seen in recent years after more than a decade of rising support. Mirroring this trend, Americans have gradually become more likely than a decade ago to want unions’ influence to strengthen and to believe unions benefit various aspects of business and the economy. In contrast to the incremental changes seen in U.S. adults’ support of unions over time, the new poll documents an unprecedented uptick since the prior measure, in 2018, in perceptions that unions in the country will become stronger in the future than they are today. A third of Americans (34%) believe this today, compared with 19% five years ago and no more than 25% at any time in the trend since 1999. Union Approval Steady Near Recent High Point The 67% of Americans who approve of labor unions today is down slightly from 71% a year ago but marks the fifth straight year this reading has exceeded its long-term average of 62%. Here’s Trump, ignorant as always: EXCLUSIVE: Ahead of the UAW strike, Kristen Welker asked fmr. Pres. Trump whose side he's on in negotiations.

Get the new booster My friend DocDawg (@AnalyticsEqv) runs a small biotech lab in the Research Triangle and keeps track of things like local wastewater assays for SARS-CoV-2 (above). Have a gander. “This isn’t an ‘uptick,’ it’s a tsunami,” he believes. “Do yourself a favor and wear an N95 in crowded indoor conditions.“ But you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the COVID-19 blows. Several friends have been down with repeat bouts of COVID in the last few weeks. Mild cases, fortunately, but DocDawg believes, “Each reinfection (even mild) increases your risk of Long COVID disability.” Long Covid, he writes caustically, is “the disability whose name must not be spoken b/c fighting it requires infection control, which Dems fear would lose them elections.” I’m back to wearing a mask in stores, although few others do.

Let's take a moment to look back at Peter Capaldi's first Doctor Who series, where he played a more prickly and nearly unlikable Doctor.

An inside look at a huge university climate win.