greg

Our leaders have used a pandemic to divide us, and we have taken the bait.

Public health is now a pawn on a political chessboard as Australia’s major parties seek to wedge each other over whose fault it is that much of the eastern seaboard remains locked down and under-vaccinated, and whose strategy is better.

The timing of the forthcoming federal election is entirely linked to COVID, and whether there will be enough vaccine in arms to allow liberty to return before Christmas, or whether the Festive Season will come with a huge spike in hospital admissions.

That would be bad optics.

superman

ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, I woke up around 8:30 a.m., took a shower, and made a mug of Nescafé instant coffee. By the time I opened up my laptop and maneuvered to Common Dreams — the favorite website of all progressives of that time — it was 9 a.m.

Common Dreams was then designed with the important stories in the middle of the page, with brief snippets about less significant issues in a column on the left. It was the left-hand column that featured one sentence in red: “Plane hits World Trade Center.”

mice

Humanized mouse is a general term that refers to a mouse that has been engrafted with something from a human. This could be a short strand of human DNA, human tissue, a human tumor, a humanized immune system, or parts of the human microbiome.

Meanwhile:

9/11

"A really bad idea, embraced by millions of people, is still a really bad idea.” ~ Tony Blauer

“A personal creative idea outside the box can still be a really bad idea" — Gus Leonisky

WELCOME...

Here we follow a couple of videos on YouTube. 

One is by John Cleese about creativity for managers. 

nuz flash

When a news network based in India or a newspaper based in Nigeria or Hong Kong can be held in the same high regard as The New York Times or the Financial Times, we will know that we have succeeded in eradicating global white privilege in the media.

In the Western liberal tradition, the media is deemed to have a critical role in speaking truth to power, exposing injustices and scandals, and even seeking notoriety to attract eyeballs.

sunday

Water crashing through New York subways, extreme wildfires tearing through California, Greece and Australia’s own black summer: All media companies, but especially those with populist and tabloid voices, know the power of these images in a world dealing with the catastrophic impact of climate change.

News Corp Australia’s decision to end its long-standing editorial hostilitytowards carbon-reduction policies and advocate for the world’s leading economies to hit net zero emissions by 2050 is welcome, but lags far behind a broader shift in the business community and among voters.

care

The Health Minister's office didn't meet Pfizer executives to negotiate a vaccine purchase until a fortnight after the USA and UK had already signed supply deals for COVID-19 vaccines, despite the pharmaceutical giant repeatedly advising the federal government to show urgency.

summit

The national women's safety summit has ended in a political stoush, with some state ministers backing critics of the federal government who argue it has failed to address violence towards women.

jerry wins

Power and money: That’s all the old boss cares about (“Climate change shift at News Corp is long overdue”, September 7). On climate it’s a misinformation juggernaut: it divides countries, states, workplaces and families – even his own – and it sells. Everybody fights and he’s already picked his side. Blessed is the country without Rupert Murdoch – like New Zealand.

 Sue Young, Bensville

farther's day

Prime Minister Scott Morrison is under fire for accepting exemptions for a Father’s Day trip to Sydney to see his family, with Labor accusing him of “appalling judgment” after crossing borders with the nation’s two biggest states in hard lockdowns.

“You’ve got to have the same rules for people,” former opposition leader Bill Shorten said on Tuesday.

Mr Morrison has been in Canberra for several weeks as federal parliament sat in the capital.

tip...

By responding to the Palestinian call for boycotting apartheid Israel, the ice cream giant has delivered a blow to Israel’s attempts at criminalizing and, ultimately, ending the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. 

surge

ON THE AFTERNOON of October 9, 2009, President Barack Obama met with his top generals, Cabinet officials, and his vice president to hash out strategy for the war in Afghanistan. Earlier that morning, Obama learned he’d been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The war in Afghanistan was now eight years old, and Obama had campaigned on the idea that the Bush administration’s effort there had been headed in the wrong direction.

By Ryan Grim at The Intercept

"Live with the Virus"
did ScoMo decree
"first chance we get
Let's frolic so free
While you folks wait for
a Lockdown Redemption
I'm gonna order
a Special Exemption
It's all about you
It's not about me
Would I lie to you?
Definitely"

freedoom...

Lorraine Finlay’s appointment as Human Rights Commissioner is yet another attack from the Coalition on the commission’s independence.