The overriding fact of federal government finances in 2022, and everything about Tuesday night’s budget, is that Treasury got the pandemic entirely wrong.

It’s perhaps hard to blame the spreadsheet jockeys too much – no one was alive during the previous pandemic and in the depths of the 2020 panic, forecasts about what this one might do to the economy and government income and expenses were a complete guess.

But let it be recorded, and not forgotten, that Treasury, and therefore the Treasurer, guessed wrong, with the result that they over-compensated and under-forecast – by a lot.

Few normal people were thinking about the Oscars before Will Smith struck. (I didn’t know it was happening until I saw the slap on Twitter.) However, even if it was a stunt, it’s hard to imagine that a white man who slapped someone on stage would get a standing ovation instead of a lecture about “toxic masculinity” and a back seat in a police car. When an antifa thug sucker-punched Richard Spencer at President Trump’s inauguration, media celebrated. I find it hard to believe they are suddenly worried about violent reactions to speech.

The Ukrainian events have been a constant item on the agenda for media outlets of Middle Eastern countries since the start of Russia’s special operation. Observers note a never before seen information onslaught against Moscow coming from the West, when it comes to covering the Ukrainian crisis.

According to many estimates, this torrent of content is notably prejudiced and biased, intended to add fuel to the fire, overshadow the reason, hold Russia accountable for the conflict and its causes, and silence all contrary opinions in the media and social networks.

The onslaught is vigorous. Nevertheless a number of local analysts view these events as a part of the historical background as well as real experience of relations between Arabs and the West.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg will spend billions of dollars on middle-class welfare in a pre-election budget he says gives voters a share in Australia’s surging post-pandemic economy.

Pre-budget speculation abounded about how Mr Frydenberg would balance economic management against the temptation to offer voters cost-of-living giveaways before the May election.

But his most striking policy announcement had not been expected at all: A major expansion to a tax offset that will now allow people in 10 million Australian households on up to $125,000 a year to get a $1500 tax refund. The total program will cost $12 billion.

But the tax break is scheduled to expire in July.

The United States president Joe Biden has recently visited Poland and made a speech which on one hand was barely coherent, and on the other displayed yet again the incredible American capacity to gloss over its own history of waging almost non-stop war on any country that dares to refuse to abide by United States dictates about how they should behave.

In his speech, Biden demanded president Putin of Russia should go. Who would replace them [Putin] is uncertain, so long as it is someone that is willing to bow to United States dictates on the unchallenged role of the United States as the world arbiter of right and wrong. It was an extraordinary exercise in self-delusion and complete blindness to the United States’ own multiple failings in endeavouring to shape the world in its own image.

The Group of Seven major economies have collectively agreed to reject Moscow’s demand to pay for gas imports from Russia in rubles, according to German Energy Minister Robert Habeck.

“All G7 ministers agreed completely that this [would be] a one-sided and clear breach of the existing contracts,” Habeck told journalists on Monday.

The minister added that “payment in rubles is not acceptable” and that the nations will urge the companies affected “not to follow” the demand issued by Russian President Vladimir Putin last week.

On Monday, Putin ordered the government, the central bank, and Gazprombank to develop the necessary tools to switch all payments for Russian natural gas from “unfriendly states” to rubles from March 31.

All eyes are on Mariupol. As of Wednesday night, over 70% of residential areas were under control of Donetsk and Russian forces, while Russian Marines, Donetsk’s 107thbatallion and Chechen Spetsnaz, led by the charismatic Adam Delimkhanov, had entered the Azov-Stal plant – the HQ of the neo-Nazi Azov batallion.

Azov was sent a last ultimatum: surrender until midnight – or else, as in a take no prisoners highway to hell.

That implies a major game-changer in the Ukrainian battlefield; Mariupol is finally about to be thoroughly denazified – as the Azov contingent long entrenched in the city and using civilians as human shields were their most hardened fighting force.

zelensky

The interviews with terrified, distraught people on buses out of Ukraine with nothing but the clothes on their backs, and images of bombed-out homes behind them, are very hard to watch.

We’re watching scenes resonant of some of the worst crimes in history, live, in full colour, that used to be seen only in newsreels of a grim, monochrome past.

BY Alan Kohler

Kohler’s rant in Italics

Bold comments by Gus

There is a growing interest in evolutionary models of human adiposity. Frequent reference has been made to ‘thrifty genes’ or ‘thrifty phenotypes’, referring to a variety of metabolic or behavioural traits that in one or the other way imply frugality in the expenditure or storage of energy. However, there is confusion over how the strategy of thrift has been incorporated into human biology. 

The phrase of the week – albeit battling for space with “Ash Barty retires” and “I haven’t been at Hillsong now for over, about 15 years” – has been “cost of living”.

It promises to be big again next week, featuring in the budget argy-bargy, and then running strong all the way to the looming federal election.

“Cost of living” automatically comes with the prefix “soaring” or at least “rising”. It is universally reported as a terrible thing.

But while nobody seems to want the cost of living to be higher, it is official policy to push inflation higher than it has been for a decade.

Bit tricky to have one without the other.

With a rainbow sticker reading "Make Kyiv Queer Again" proudly branded across his rifle, Andrii takes to the front line in the north of the capital each day.

Identifying as pansexual — which means he is attracted to all genders — the 26-year-old had no hesitation joining Ukraine's Territorial Defence Forces on day one of Russia's invasion. 

Far from his life as a psychotherapist, Andrii is out to protect the streets where he grew up and to fight against the "social-political oppressive machine".

"We're in danger, of not only imperial Tsar reign, there's also a damn lot of sexism, racism and tremendous homophobia coming to us from the east," he told the ABC. 

friday

2021.3 years of praying to Mary and to Godot in its three godototological forms — result: nil improvement of the mafia behaviour: Check the world history… But as usual the dedicated believers in miracles (sheep), apparitions and visions, but "NOT in superstitions, god forbid please", are encouraged to pray once more and more and more... As Einstein suggested, stupidity is repeating the same experiment and expecting a different result... I would agree with this, except on the delusional, the political and the economic front. We repeat the same mistakes but we SEE different results, because we can lie to ourselves with an unequal brilliant bullshit...

Anyway:

Theological significance of Act of Consecration explained 

American movie star Sean Penn is laying down the law with the organizers of the Academy Awards, threatening to destroy his Oscars if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky isn’t invited to participate in Hollywood’s biggest annual event.

Speaking from Warsaw on Saturday night in an interview with CNN, Penn said his understanding was that a decision had been made not to include a message from Zelensky in the awards show. He called for others to join him in boycotting the event if Ukraine’s leader isn’t asked to speak.

Here comes China

Kiina Tulee. Oletko Valmis?

Niin kuin mailmassa on Jin ja Jang, (陰 ja 陽, 阴 ja 阳, ☯) niin on ihmisen selviytymisessäkin olemassa kaksi toisilleen vastakkaista tapaa: ekonomistinen (raha) ja moraalinen (etiikka). Näitä ei pidä sekoittaa keskenään.

– Erityisen merkityksellistä on ymmärtää Jin’in ja Jang’in olemassaolo juuri nyt, kun sivilisaationa olemme siirtymässä Kiinan maailmanvaltiuden piiriin.

– Tähän siirtymään ei sotaa tarvita. Meidät on kasvatettu alistumaan ja geeniperimämme tukee samaa.

We will start with the (somewhat accidental) compassionate side of history when the world was ablaze under Hitler. This also should explain that Jews are not all Zionists nor all support Israel. Meanwhile, the Rise of China is creating a major upheaval in the Western nations that have been used to control other nations and are on the warpath to dominate the world. We have explored this in various instalments but for the moment we shall stay on the narrow path of niceness... until the yin and the yang of "morality and money" becomes a corrupt wrecking ball rather than a cooperative alliance of forces.

The legacy of exile: The Jews of Shanghai

The story of a man who started a new life in China, and a daughter whose life has been shaped by his persecution.