Right now, with Israel about to bomb Rafah to smithereens, world leaders including our own are chorusing—as they have repeatedly done for decades—that ‘We support a two-state solution’. And what has that chorus achieved over the years? Other than making the people saying it feel good, nothing! The death count of Palestinians in Gaza since Continue reading »
politics
A criminal is one who seriously breaks the law. By that measure Albanese, Dutton and most pollies across Australia are criminals together with their supporters. Human laws can be broken and repaired with a gaol term or a fine. Nature’s laws cannot be broken without continuing adverse consequences which cannot be repaired, and which persist Continue reading »
Australia is conducting its first climate risk assessment and developing an adaptation plan. Not only humans experience heat stress, so do other animals and plants. If you must feed wild birds, listen to the experts’ tips. Assessing Australia’s climate risks The Commonwealth Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) has released the Continue reading »
One aspect of the recent revelations about the IDF’s Lavender AI system that’s not getting enough consideration is the fact that it is completely devastating to the narrative that Israel has been killing so many civilians because Hamas uses “human shields”. If you missed this story, a major report from +972 revealed that Israel has Continue reading »
As European leaders continue to import a version of U.S. militarism, rearmament will cost the Continent its postwar social contract. It is many years now since the French, bless them, revolted as Disneyland Paris arose near the previously uninvaded village of Marne-la–Vallée–Chessy. Soon enough came the Disney Hôtel New York, the Disney Hôtel Santa Fe, Continue reading »
What a flat white coffee reveals about our economy, $27 billion on the table for state governments, nothing about the Bruce Lehrmann defamation case, and Labor is slipping in the polls. Read on for the weekly roundup of links to articles, podcasts, reports and other media on current economic and political issues. Economics Australia’s position Continue reading »
There is no government or agency or combination of them capable of conceiving and driving the kind and scale of change Australian schooling now requires. The ‘national approach’ installed by the Rudd and Gillard governments fifteen years ago has not worked and cannot. Its sponsor, the Commonwealth, should move or be moved to the margins or Continue reading »
Boris Johnson did it, Donald Trump specialises in it, Peter Dutton is trying it. All these conservatives whose economic policies serve the special interests of the highest income earners have based, or are trying to base, their political strategy on winning the votes of working class voters, particularly working class men, and even more specifically, Continue reading »
There is now a policy dispute about the roles of nuclear and renewable energy in future Australian low emission energy systems. The experience of China over more than a decade provides compelling evidence on how this debate will be resolved. In December 2011 China’s National Energy Administration announced that China would make nuclear energy the Continue reading »
On Easter Saturday, a friend and I drove down to Mullumbimby to hear Afghan war crimes whistleblower David McBride speaking at the Mullumbimby RSL. The previous Monday, I had watched the Four Corners program about David McBride, called Rules of Engagement. My friend hadn’t seen it, so we listened to it on the iPhone as Continue reading »