ukulele

What does Scott Morrison stand for? He would say he stands for freedom of religion. But this week he proved incapable of delivering a legal protection for it.

He would say he stands for the protection of school kids from discrimination. But this week he showed he was prepared to allow transgender kids to suffer discrimination.

He would say he stands for a united government. But this week the government suffered a mutiny when five Liberal MPs crossed the floor of the House of Representatives to vote with Labor and the crossbench.

tranquil

Monty Don’s American Gardens TV show was a bit of a disappointment, especially the last episode. When Montagu Denis Wyatt Don OBE, British horticulturist, broadcaster and writer, best known as being lead presenter of the BBC gardening television Gardener’s World — introduced us to the European, Middle Eastern and Eastern gardens such as the Chinese and Japanese gardens, we could not be more in awe of the history and philosophy going back hundreds and thousands of years. 

words

An offhand remark made by Russian President Vladimir Putin towards his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, on Monday has earned the Kremlin a reprimand from White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, after a reporter claimed that the Russian leader’s jibe was a crude joke about rape.

The controversy began after Putin’s joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday, when he quoted a common rhyming expression, often used with children, while accusing Zelensky of failing to live up to the Minsk agreements, treaties signed in 2014 and 2015 that were meant to resolve the ongoing conflict in Ukraine’s eastern Donbass region.

lifebuoy...

Moderate Liberals were not shown legal advice the attorney-general is using to justify saying amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act would increase discrimination against students.

Liberal MPs Trent Zimmerman, Fiona Martin, Dave Sharma, Bridget Archer and Katie Allen crossed the floor to support a crossbench and Labor amendment to protect gay and transgender students from being expelled from religious schools.

Attorney-General Michaelia Cash then cited legal advice saying the non-government amendments that passed the lower house undermined existing protections and broadened the grounds on which religious schools could discriminate.

pulpit

Scott Morrison made three foolish and arrogant assumptions this week when he tried to push his controversial religious discrimination legislation through parliament.

As a result, he failed in the mission and emerged from Wednesday's all-night sitting with his authority diminished.

With time almost out before the election, this legislation — which he claimed was "very important" — has reached a dead end.

war

In the early 1990s, Karl Weick and Karlene Roberts conducted extremely influential field research to understand why, on the flight decks of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers where there were “a million accidents waiting to happen,” almost none of them did. The answers they provided set the stage for a groundswell of research into what came to be known as high-reliability organizations (HROs).

media

Australia has a deteriorating global corruption ranking — and the mainstream media is ignoring it entirely.

You won’t read about it in the mainstream Australian media. The story is missing from The Age and Sydney Morning Herald and a Google search reveals no coverage in any mainstream Australian media.

foreign policy

The US would not accept Russian influence on its borders 60 years ago. The West needs to give Russia the same security as it expects for itself.

Joe Biden says Russia is likely to invade Ukraine whereas Vladimir Putin says he is not planning to do so but will not rule it out if Ukraine joins NATO. Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky keeps pressing Biden for membership, including during his visit to the White House last September. Three months earlier the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told senators that “we support Ukraine membership in NATO.”

BY Percy Allan

love

The tennis player’s story was distorted by the [Western] media. But we won’t hear any apologies from the blame-China brigade.

I am not a media expert, but from the beginning it was clear (as I wrote on this site) that Western media were up to their usual China-bashing distortions with their claims that the Chinese champion tennis player Peng Shuai was forced to disappear after allegedly revealing she had been sexually assaulted by a top Chinese official.

By Gregory Clark

We now discover that Peng is not only alive and well but denies she was sexually assaulted by any Chinese official.

bumb...

We have already mentioned "geoengineering" on this site to deal with the warming planet. And for no small reason, we've come to the conclusion that it's a stupid idea. Not only stupid but it's dangerous like throwing a few icebergs in hell to annoy Mr Devil. But some scientists still push for "studying the feasability of throwing a blanket" on the planet, like we use one when the chips are on fire in the frying pan. Here, "we can smell the colour of money". In the 12 November 2021 issue of SCIENCE, Edward A. Parson, a fellow with a million more qualifications than Gus-in-the-Spectrum-Guy, tells us without a hint of irony:

apology

Australia's political leaders have formally apologised to all those who have experienced sexual harassment, sexual assault or bullying while working in federal parliament.

fascism

During one of numerous tense exchanges, legendary US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles asked Indian Prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, "Are you for or against America?"

Nehru replied: "Yes".

It is likely an apocryphal story from another time — the 1950s and in the midst of the Cold War — but it carries a lesson for today as the world enters Cold War 2.0 and tries to contain growing Chinese power.

meow...

We are fed the news, whether we want it or not... It comes to us daily like an assault on our good will... Everyone else is bad and we're good. Yes we need to know what's what. But "the news" does not do this. "The news" in the West is an orchestration for a CIA score, under the baton of an old decrepit kook who has never understood anything... Apparently, if I trust my feeble source, Old Joe said something like:

“Why in God’s name don’t we teach history in history classes? A black man invented the light bulb. not a white guy named Edison. Okay? There’s so much. Did anybody know?”

molecules

One can only be amazed at the 3D rendering (2D on these images) of complex molecules such as proteins and DNA. Presently one can see these amazing atom-precise representations of the spikes of Covid-19. This precision is mostly obtained through crystallography.

And computers. 

Crystallography provides specific exclusive patterns of molecules (crystallised) that are now processed by computers. Before such, it took many days and weeks to compute the structures that had been studied. As well super X-ray machines that would kill you in an instant are used.

The whole thing started with Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen who discovered the x-rays. His first image showed that these rays could penetrate through matter.

assassin bug

The essential point of assassination is the death of the subject. A human being may be killed in many ways but sureness is often overlooked by those who may be emotionally unstrung by the seriousness of this act they intend to commit.