coal

Josh Frydenberg has acknowledged that managing carbon risk is now a major preoccupation in global capital markets as the Morrison government mulls what commitments it will take to the Cop26 in Glasgow later this year.

blinken

Dozens of Australian nationals and visa holders stranded in Afghanistan were plucked from the suburbs of Kabul this week as part of a tense multinational extraction effort to get foreigners into the airport and on board evacuation flights, the ABC can reveal.

history

"We spend a great deal of time studying history, which, let's face it, is mostly the history of stupidity." 

Stephen Hawking 

"Rulers, Statesmen, Nations, are wont to be emphatically commended to the teaching which experience offers in history. But what experience and history teach is this - that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it. Each period is involved in such peculiar circumstances, exhibits a condition of things so strictly idiosyncratic, that its conduct must be regulated by considerations connected with itself, and itself alone." 

infectious...

The NSW government has unveiled its long-awaited roadmap for schools to return to face-to-face teaching, as the state recorded 882 COVID-19 cases and two deaths.

pies

"it is clear that the West believes in diversity rather than in uniformity, in pluralism rather than in monism or dualism, in inclusion rather than exclusion, in liberty rather than in authority, in truth rather than in power, in conversion rather than in annihilation, in the individual rather than in the organization, in reconciliation rather than in triumph, in heterogeneity rather than in homogeneity, in relativisms rather than in absolutes, and in approximations rather than in final answers.”

amateurs

The mainstream media are divided between two ways of interpreting the fall of Kabul. For some, the Democrats are cowards and the departure from Afghanistan discourages the allies. For others, they have played well and placed a thorn in the side of the Russians and the Chinese. These two views correspond to the traditional paradigm of the American Empire.

common sense...

A post on the AAAS community from a member and, guessing by the post, Gus Leonisky believes that the member seems to be a global warming “denialist” or at least a sceptic… Nothing wrong with this... But?

A denialist of global warming on AAAS? Hum... Interesting.

Aug 24, 2021 9:08 AM

Harold Seelig

marat

Any cow in a paddock would be able to tell you that it takes only a few hours for a cowpat to dry hard… This observation would be appreciated by a certain Mr Lavoisier, but he would demand accurate measurement of time, of weather conditions and place.

no war

In "A Time to Lead: For Duty, Honor and Country," published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2007, General Wesley Clark, former four-star general, recalls two visits to the Pentagon following the terrorist attacks of September 2001. On the first visit, less than two weeks after September 11, he writes, a "senior general" told him, "We're going to attack Iraq. The decision has ... been made.”

help

Hundreds of former Australian embassy guards and their families were left standing in sewage in a moat for hours outside Kabul airport yesterday, before being told they could not enter because they did not have visas in their passports.

herd...

Long COVID: Patients fight to be believed

Millions of COVID patients still experience debilitating symptoms months after their infection. Many of them have to fight the additional battle of convincing their doctors or loved ones to take them seriously.

In the past 18 months, the answer Marta Esperti has heard from doctors most often is: "You will have to wait it out."

china

Many leaders were shocked at America’s disastrous abandonment of Afghanistan. One who was not? China’s President Xi Jinping.

He has long been convinced of the inevitability of US decline and Chinese ascendancy: “The East is rising,” he likes to say, “and the West is declining.” He is setting China up to be the world’s leading power and he’s well on the way.

blame

Scott Morrison warns leaders not to break Covid reopening ‘deal’ as states call for new vaccine modelling

The prime minister says states and territories must not backtrack on the plan to ease restrictions once 70% and 80% vaccination targets are met.

Peep on the other side of the Guardian firewall to see the rest of this story... Meanwhile or beforehand:

amusing

The vice president has a nervous habit of laughing when faced with tough questions about serious political topics.

Before Harris went to the U.S.-Mexico border — 93 days after President Joe Biden assigned her the immigration crisis — she chuckled during an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt when pressured about her delay in visiting.

Holt stated, “You haven’t been to the border.”

dino

Liberal-turned-independent politician Craig Kelly has jumped ship to Clive Palmer’s political party, promising the mining magnate will pour tens of millions of dollars into the next election campaign.

Mr Kelly, who was forced to quit the government for his support for discredited COVID “treatments” and opposition to COVID measures, claimed he would set United Australia Party policies, focusing on an anti-lockdown platform.