I live in Australia so borders here are a signpost on the side of the road saying “Welcome to the Australian Capital Territory/Queensland/etc” to let you know that different state based road rules are in place. And there are some different laws in other areas too but the point is that you don’t need a passport, a visa or diplomatic plates on your car to traverse from one place to the next.

So the borders I’m really talking about are international borders and since Australia is one of a very few large nations to cover an entire island you need to fly or head out to sea to cross a national border. Here we put up with hearing a lot about “boat people”, “people smugglers” and our frankly insane and inhumane “offshore processing centres”. You also occasionally will hear about our “fishing grounds” and Navy vessels out protecting our fisheries from illegal overfishing. And of course oil and gas drilling shenanigans – especially with Timor Leste – a shameful episode in our country’s relations with a fledging nation that could use a bit of assistance to get onto their own feet – but that is a story for another day. But that is about it for border discussions – unless you watch those TV shows about people going through Customs at the airport. You hear about Border Force a lot there. Bizarre TV that is but that’s not what I wanted to get into right now.

We currently have a total mess happening in the Middle East which I covered, in some detail, a couple of posts back. And in there I mentioned Israel firing missiles at Syria, for effectively no repercussions at all.

Since then Israel have been doing the same to Lebanon, doing targeted assassinations of Hezbollah members. They have continued to launch into Syria as well, killing a highly ranked Iranian there. The US have launched missile strikes into Iraq, supposedly to stop “attacks on their troops” in Iraq. Iraq look to be very close to kicking those troops out now as a result. The latest of these types of cross-border attacks involves the UK and US bombing targets in Yemen allegedly belonging to the Houthi rebels who have been attacking merchant shipping as their way of showing support to the Palestinians. Supposedly targeting shipping going to and from Israel or owned by Israeli interests or something. It’s getting hard to keep up with the detail.

So, here are my long awaited questions/points to this whole post.

Question 1: How the actual fuck is it ok to attack Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, et al? Since when have sovereign borders ceased to mean anything? With effectively no repercussions.

Question 2: How do you think Volodymyr Zelenskyy feels about the UK and US happily popping military assets in to the Red Sea to launch some missiles into Yemen when they are utterly refusing to put a single troop into Ukraine to help them?

Firstly Q1. I believe it was in 2023 when a Chinese “weather” balloon was found to be crossing the continental United States. It caused an international furore and Joe Biden authorised it to be shot down. Yep, a balloon. We had some diplomatic sabre rattling about how it was in US airspace and how verily dare it be there. Who knows which conspiracy theory mission it was going to carry out but you cannot be in our airspace as we are the good ol U S of A and it just ain’t happening. Uh huh. Right. So where exactly is the territorial integrity of Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq respected? But, but, they are bad people and we need them gone. Oh I see. Unlike the bad people in North Korea. In Myanmar. In Somalia. In Ethiopia. On Wall Street. Or how about coming across the Ukrainian border from Russia.

Here’s my view on the might and power of the USA.

Analysis: Can it possibly fight back? It can? Shit, we’re not going there then.

What are Yemen going to do to the USA? Sweet. Fuck. All. After all they’ve been kind of busy having their own civil war of late being one of the biggest humanitarian crises on the planet for some years but that’s all right because the Saudis are going to fix that and they are the USA’s allies so we’ll just look away. But if the Saudis are doing so well in Yemen how are the Houthis actually managing to do pretty much anything against merchant shipping anyway? That I don’t know. I’ll just presume that is Iran’s influence and leave it at that. Oh hang on, could Iran get involved? Well the USA would looove that. They enjoyed kicking the snot out of Iraq, who they had armed themselves so they kind of knew what to expect. They also put Saddam Hussein in the top job too but they don’t want you to remember that bit. Well Iran are friends with one Vladimir Putin and he is the big bad bogeyman that scares the bejesus out of NATO so if Iran do more than say “WTF?” I suggest those UK and US naval vessels will be out of the area faster than you can “Perestroika”. The US will currently quite happily go after any target that has no possibility of fighting back. Which will make the whole Taiwan shit show get very interesting, very quickly if Xi goes in militarily.

Q2. Sick in the guts I expect. Sorry lad, as I’ve said before, you are on a whipping to nothing here and will be happily sacrificed by the political machine on Capitol Hill. And then they will blame each other for not helping enough while Russian borders grow. An utter fucking disgrace but it’s what I think will happen. I will be overjoyed to be wrong in that case.

So where to from here? A full Middle East war? Iran finally going after Israel? And where does that leave the Saudis, Qataris and other emirates who were beginning to see the financial (yes money again) advantages to dealing with Israel on a more cordial basis. And since the USA defends anything Israel do without any reservations, and they are allies of the Saudis in particular where does everyone stand? Arab vs Arab has never been a good thing. They have certainly gone at it previously when it was Sunni vs Shia but they’ve tended to stick together when it’s Arab vs non-Arab. There is a lot of historical tension and you can go back as far as you want to see that happening. Sunni vs Shia is nothing new and nor is Christian vs Muslim. The formation of Israel in that location after WWII utterly baffles me and the resident Bedouin and Palestinian population could hardly have appreciated being told you don’t own this land anymore – it belongs to these people instead. Would you meekly leave your land where you have lived for generations because some other arsehole persecuted a lot of people thousands of miles away? Incredible. And look at the shit storm it has created in the Middle East for almost the last 80 years.

I dunno where it ends. And I don’t have a clever closer to this article. In 13 days time it’s Australia Day or Invasion Day depending on your viewpoint. The indigenous people that were here before colonisation/invasion had borders for their own nations within this continent. And they had fights and arguments about those borders I’m sure. But their civilisation and culture lasted more than 40,000 years so they obviously sorted things out when necessary. Ours won’t last 40,000 years the way we carry on. That’s for certain.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/jan/10/peter-dutton-gina-rinehart-pilbara-party-flown-roy-hill-mine-warburton-group

You utter twat.

Planet Earth!

Well, maybe not the whole planet so let me be a little more specific.

Ukraine: still getting the shit bombed out of it by Putin’s forces so he can say he made the Motherland great again (sounds oddly familiar). He does have an “election” this year, if you can actually call what is left after the Russian process of disqualifying or imprisoning any and all actual opponents occurs, an election. Democracy all the way. Maybe not. Anyway, no fun being in Ukraine. I’ve written about this previously and nothing has changed. Including my call on how it will end. Sorry Ukraine. Without direct intervention from your so called “allies” I cannot see you withholding the entire military-industrial establishment of Russia. The bravery of these people is something else and they deserve so much more support – not just materials (which are drying up anyway), but actual armies, air forces and navies getting in to drive back Putin’s aggression. But it ain’t going to happen and Ukraine will eventually be a part of Russia again.

Palestine: yes Gaza is being summarily destroyed by the walking bag of shit known as Netanyahu who is really enjoying the distraction from his corruption probe that Hamas ever so thoughtfully provided him with. Now before I get lambasted here allow me to say what Hamas did on October 7 2023 was utterly incomprehensible, reprehensible and those involved deserved to be expunged from history. I’d be happy for them to be launched into the Sun at this point. Fucking idiots. But then Shitsack, I’m not typing his name again, decided that he would deliver unto the Palestinians what was delivered unto his Jewish people in WW2 by another utterly reprehensible creature. (And might I quickly say Bravo to South Africa for their case they have raised at the ICJ) How many times does it need to be proven that you cannot destroy a guerilla insurgency with conventional military dogma of tanks, missiles, drones and bombs? Ask the Russians how Afghanistan went for them. Then ask the Yanks how it worked for them. And how do you equate telling people in the mostly densely populated part of the world to move to the South into already squalid and overcrowded refugee camps as being “the right thing to do” before bombing the living shit out of where these people lived. And then you bomb the refugee camps too. And then get them to move further south. And further south. But don’t open the border to let them go into Egypt – oh fuck no, some of the militants might escape. Biggest humanitarian crisis the world has seen according to the UN. So what to do about it? Let’s pass a watered down resolution through the Security Council to allow aid in. Before this shit exploded there were 500 trucks a day bringing in aid. Now they bring in 200 through one border crossing to Egypt and that is supposed to help? But don’t stop the bombing and/or the incursion into Gaza. Right. But it’s not just Gaza, they are in the West Bank too. And bombing Lebanon. Oh and Syria as well.

Slight divergence here – how the fuck do they get away with launching attacks into other countries? Barely a mention in the Security Council about those except from Iran and the countries actually being attacked. Yeah the US vetoes every single criticism of Israel but still, how is it fucking kocher? I’m not even gobsmacked. More like jaded. Deep breath….. and back on topic.

Myanmar: where a democratically elected government was overthrown by the military and then they just do whatever the hell they want, whenever they want, to whoever they want. No intervention but ASEAN decided to not invite the General leading it to the last conference. Oh man, that’ll fucking hurt. Oh wait, they’re involved in a sideline conference instead. Phew – might have hurt the poor man’s feelings or something. And if you are a Rohingyan refugee, well you’re even more fucked than the rest of Myanmar.

Guyana: most people have never even heard of Guyana, a former British colony in South America. I’m going to drop that there or there will be a 5000 word piece on Colonialism and how I wanted to take a nuclear powered submarine back in time and stop the British ever finding (and fucking up) Australia. I really did – and that was in 1982 I broadcast that to my school mates. They thought I was weird. Yep. Back to Guyana though, their lovely neighbour Venezuela has decided that part of Guyana, coincidentally a very oil-rich part (who would have guessed). would look really good being a part of Venezuela. So much so that the Venezuelan government ran a referendum on it and surprise, surprise, 99% of the vote agreed it was a grand idea. So Guyana are understandably a bit worried that the big V military force will be heading their way soon to grab a chunk of their country from them. And I don’t actually know if they asked for help but the Brits decided to send a warship down to “fly the old Union Jack”. Maybe the PM thinks this is his personal Falklands moment or something, I’m not quite across UK politics since it’s even more disturbing than Aussie politics and one can only stomach so much when your not getting paid for it, but whatever. It has certainly pissed off Venezuela who are now running military drills all over the place, mobilising troops, flying warplanes about and demanding the Brits bugger ye off instantly. So potential for conflict here is high.

Haiti: honestly these poor people have had to take a lot of shit. Natural disasters, corruption, crime gangs, kidnapping, assassinations, you name it, it has probably happened to them. I’d be amazed if these poor bastards even know what “happy” actually means.

Anywhere in the Americas: I’ve touched on Venezuela vs Guyana and the Haiti vs Haiti match ups above but the incredible scenes of thousands and thousands of refugees walking from South America to try to get to the USA is my very definition of a world gone insane. Whether they come from Ecuador (a mess), Colombia (a mess), Brazil (a mess), Argentina (a total fucking mess), Chile (a mess), Peru (you guessed it – a mess) or one of the few other nations I haven’t specifically heard is a mess in the last 5 days (yes, the last 5 days) it’s fair to say that South America is in a bit of a state right now. And a lot of people are fleeing persecution, criminal gangs, imploding economies, military bullshit, indigenous people being trampled into the ground and probably lots more. But then you are walking through Central America and well shit it’s not that much better there. Dangerous rainforest that is being controlled by more criminal gangs extorting, murdering, raping and again doing whatever they want. Then you have Panama and the massive environmental issues associated with the Canal and the changing rainfall patterns and ongoing drought they are suffering. Plus their own political nonsense that is ongoing. Then the total shit show that is Nicaragua currently, which deserves a textbook of its own as an example of how to turn a country into a family estate like North Korea. And if you get through all of that life-threatening craziness you hit Mexico. Where gang violence has burst through to stratospheric heights of lunacy in kidnapping, rape, torture, murder and extortion. Almost like they are competing with Haiti to see who can be more messed up. But even if you get through Mexico alive you then hit the wall that is the USA. Where migrants are wanted for cheap labour but they really aren’t wanted at all by anyone who votes Republican. Unfortunately for these poor people that have just walked for thousands of miles to get to that border, most of the South is staunchly Republican. And migrants are a commodity to make political mileage out of. They are not people. They are sub-human. And that is fucked up.

USA: now these lot deserve their own article right here. So let me abbreviate this. A lot. Donald J Trump. You thought I was finished there right? Nope. Joseph R Biden Jr. Still not done. Elon Fucking Musk. Not his actual middle name but it’s more appropriate. Ok, specifics. Trump – is actually running for Pres again. No real Republican opposition as they are scared shitless of his MAGA supporters who are as rusted on as you can possibly get. It’s basically a cult. He says whatever he likes and even when it is against their best interests the MAGA cult just lap it up and worship him some more. Incredible. Biden – is going around the Congress and is sending weapons to Israel which is even pissing off his own party. Who will stand against him as he says he wants to “run” again. He’s 81 and has trouble walking let alone running. Seriously, piss off the minimum age rule and just give the job to AOC. (Will never happen.) Musk – has disappeared up his own arsehole and is now denser than a neutron star. Put him in the next SpaceX rocket and launch him to Pluto. Please. While these 3 idiots are around and have even the slightest hand in the power struggle for the nation the USA can never function in any meaningful way except to eventually have a Civil War or to break up the USA into little satellite sub-nation groups like when the USSR imploded into the legion of Stans.

Canada: seriously, no one can dislike Canada right? I mean Justin Trudeau is awesome right? Well, dig a little. He talks up Climate Change and liberal issues and just doesn’t follow through. So if you are Indigenous, you may well be fighting to keep your land free of pipelines, mining and all sorts of other crap that you don’t want despite all of the First Nations stuff that has happened over the last bundle of years. Plus all of the natural disasters they have been though with the fires in the North can they possibly have a Happy New Year?

Africa: oh fuck, there’s a thesis in this category. From famine in Ethiopia and Kenya to war (or at least serious civil unrest) in many countries including Sudan, Mali, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso for starters, plus the astonishing destruction of Derna in Libya from broken dams that ripped a city apart and washed a third of it out to sea, I’m not too sure there would be a huge amount of good cheer in Africa. And really, I only see any of this because I watch SBS News. African events are not generally covered in great depth in Australian media so there is probably a shit load I am missing here.

UK: Brexit for the win! Tories who can’t stand each other but somehow hang on to power. Cost of living issues running wild. Immigration issues tearing a country apart. And how did that extra 350 million pounds a week on the NHS go, hmm? And is the monarchy still relevant now that much loved Lizzie has passed on the mantle to Chuckie?

China: the very, very big elephant in the room. The trade powerhouse. The hoarder of rare-earth metals. The mob who want Taiwan back and were pretty damn ruthless about how they reintegrated Hong Kong back into mainland China. And of course there is the Party overseeing everything. A party of one. Xi. He rules, no one else. He replaces people in an instant when they don’t toe the line. They tend to disappear, quicker than Alexei Navalny in fact. They’ve had their own fair share of natural disasters of late – earthquakes, super typhoons, droughts, just to name a few. Political dissent is not allowed to exist in China so I guess if Xi says Happy New Year then it is a bloody Happy New Year whether you like it or not.

Europe: immigration from Africa is a massive problem, Hungary are deciding they don’t want to play as part of the EU now and demand their own rules, rise of right-wing populist governments all across Europe, Turkiye – are they in or out of the EU? Sweden and Finland going in – is it really worth it after seeing what is happening in Ukraine and the reticence now of member states to put in to help Ukraine. As I said in another post ages ago – will your fellow member states bleed for you? I highly doubt it.

Island nations: sorry, you’re fucked. No one cares. COP28 certainly didn’t. And neither did any one before it either. Oh, we’ll start a support fund to give you some cash. And how does that help when your country is underwater? When all of those nations giving you cash tell you how sacred their land is to their nation. So how is it supposed to be different for you?

Antarctica: smallest winter sea ice ever recorded. Oh dear, no joy here. Au revoir West Antarctican Ice Sheet. Coming soon to a coastline near you.

Australia: ah, no one gives a shit about what happens to us or what we think anyway. (Been covered to death in earlier posts/rants)

New Zealand: new right wing government could make things interesting in an “oh shit” kind of way, especially with the Waitangi Treaty being talked about. Otherwise, see entry for Australia.

Rest of the world: cost of living skyrocketing, effective wages decreasing, climate change impacts increasing, standard of living decreasing. Yep, it is all good, right?

Wealthy folk: actually these lot probably are having a ball. I’m sure that like in Australia they are expecting healthy tax cuts, more opportunities to buy government infrastructure and businesses on the cheap and luckily for them I’m not running the country and taxing them so hard they bleed out of their eyeballs. The fact that people are homeless due to natural disasters or other reasons, not feeding themselves properly so they can feed and clothe their kids and so on while the wealthy go out and buy another super yacht or a country mansion or a $50,000 fucking handbag makes me want to retch. Actually, it makes me want to punch them in the face but I’m a pacifist. Mostly.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Somehow.

I get wound up about stuff. Stuff that I have no control over.

Yeah I should just chill out and get on with shit but I like to think of myself as fairly smart so I think about why the things I don’t understand happen. It generally comes down to stupidity or greed. Be it greed of power, money, ego or more likely, all three. Let me chuck in an example and you can figure out yourself what this is.

We have a new Federal government as of 2022. They are a Labor government which to non-Aussies means the Republicans/Tories lost. And that is exactly how it actually happened. Labor’s collective vote decreased in this election, but since the right wing nutjobs collective went down even more, Labor won the election in typical Aussie Steven Bradbury fashion.

You see, down here we only have 2 major political parties. There are also The Greens (left), One Nation (very right) and technically the Nationals (also right) but they are joined to the Liberal Party (who are not Liberal but conservative – go figure that one out) at the hip in an absolutely permanent alliance. The Greens pick up a few seats here and there and generally do well in the Upper House (Senate) where they have held the balance of power Federally a few times. One Nation are, to my mind, a bunch of shrieking banshees who are xenophobic and terrified of the Chinese as well as anyone sensible, and they tend to do well in Queensland for some reason. But the biggest winners in our election were a bunch of Independents who were aided by a pool of private funding from a Climate Change activist fund to get the existing Government out at any cost.

It worked.

Problem is that Labor, the party of the Trade Union movement and allegedly the working class, now have to actually do something to try and prove that they deserved to win and didn’t just fall in due to rank incompetence of the other lot.

Now one of the biggest problems we are having now in the land of Oz is the cost of living and ultimately a housing affordability crisis. I’m fortunate that I own my own home. It’s small, it’s old, and it’s not in a great area for my kids to get work or anything else happening in their lives, but it’s mine and no bank or landlord can take it from me. So yeah, very fortunate. I work for a department of the NSW Government, in what is I think a decent paying, fairly secure role. But I am currently the sole income earner here. If I had to pay rent, or a mortgage that is increasing almost every time the Reserve Bank have a meeting due to interest rate hikes to curb inflation (and I’ll get to that on another day) I would probably be screwed. Food, electricity, fuel, insurance, water, council rates – basically anything you can name, has got a lot more expensive of late. Which leaves less cash in hand for those not in the fortunate spot I am. Consequently many people are getting booted from rental properties as those renting them out know they can bring someone else in who will pay more. And that is a large part of the point I am about to make.

Since when was it ok in our society to make shelter a ruthless investment?

I know people have owned properties to rent them out since feudal times but since interest rates dropped to basically zero an absolute shit load of homes have been built and snapped up by investors looking to get renters into them to pay off their mortgages for them. People have borrowed 90-95% of the value of the home, banking on interest rates staying low and getting someone else to pay it off for them. Well, that ain’t so easy now and interest rates are climbing faster than your local bamboo crop. So now we wait for the Government to bring in some meaningful reform that will help those on lower incomes survive these times. To help older people who cannot afford their rent anymore, plus the sick and unemployed. House prices are wayyyyyyy too high for most people to break into the housing market without going up to their eyeballs in debt. And rents are skyrocketing everywhere. My solution?

You can own one investment property and receive the current taxation treatment on that property. For any after the first one you are taxed on your collected rent marginally.

Marginally means added to your income as taxed like it was Overtime. If that doesn’t drop the prices of homes by 50% in 6 months I’ll be utterly amazed. Farewell to idiotic bank profits of billions every three months. Sayonara to real estate agents mega fees. And a firm goodbye to the arseholes who are profiting off people struggling to put a roof over the heads. Oh and allow me to wave Auf Weidersehen to all of the AirBNB hosts who kicked their long term tenants out to gain short term travelers at 4 times the profit margins. I’m swearing in here but even I won’t put the word I’d like to call them all. Rhymes with runts and isn’t considered to be very nice.

Will it cause chaos to the economy? Yep, certainly. Will a lot of people suffer as they have to be foreclosed on for not meeting their mortgages on their third, fourth and seventeenth homes. Absolutely. Cry me a fucking river. Maybe hock your Lexus. Honestly it sickens me to see people think they are better than others because they have money when others don’t. Did they work really hard for that money? Yeah? Ok, fine. But you are not better than anyone because you have it. People often struggle to feed their kids, keep a roof over their heads and look after their elderly relatives through no fault of their own. Maybe their home was burned down in bushfires and still haven’t received the support they were promised. Maybe they got flooded out and their home was written off and they are living in temporary housing. Maybe they were in a good job and were made redundant and now can’t find work as they are my age and employers don’t want people in their 50’s, they want younger people. Maybe they got sick, maybe their kids or parents got sick, and they had insufficient health insurance or their treatment costs ate up their savings. Not everyone is a bludger that gets caught out in these scenarios.

And then our new Labor (for the working class) government promises to keep tax cuts starting in 2024 that are only for the wealthiest Australians (a totally fucked up policy from their predecessors), commit to spending $368 billion dollars on nuclear powered submarines (also started by their predecessors but they were all in on that one from the start anyway so it may as well be their policy) and then the same Government does not overturn the ending of a program to help the poorest people who are in low income housing, initiated by one of their own (Kevin Rudd) many years ago, meaning they are getting evicted across the country to become homeless?

0/10 rating for that shit. Which is basically the rating I gave the previous Government on most things. Conservative governments are not strong on compassion, never have been, never will be. I expect better from a Labor Government. Not that I voted for them. I have in the past but I vote based on policy. I’m one of those weirdos that actually reads what the Libs, Labor and Greens say they are going to do. One Nation don’t say they are going to do anything so there is nothing from them to read. And the Nationals only say what the Libs let them so what’s the point of reading theirs anyway? Not like they get an actual say in anything. I’m also that weirdo in the polling booth forever numbering lots and lots of boxes. I’ll admit the last NSW senate paper defeated me for the first time ever – I only numbered to 77 as it was getting hard to keep it legible with the pencil I had in the tiny boxes. Lucky I brought my glasses. But I never thought I’d see the day when I was giving Labor a 0/10 on housing policy. Well, there it is. Well done you pack of fools.

So as the title says: the more something changes (in this case our Government overlords), the more it stays the same. Which is great. Just fucking great. I leave you with the question of stupidity or greed. Totally your call.

I’m an old bastard and being born in the second half of the 60’s meant that I grew up when bad Nuclear things were seriously discussed as being a possibility. And that doesn’t even include Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. These were visions of Nuclear War, discussions of Nuclear Winter, of the end of civilisation as we know it. I remember watching a BBC telemovie called Threads and it literally scared the shit out of me. I’ve just looked it up and that was 1983 apparently that I would have seen it. Lots of sabre rattling from both East and West was collectively known as the Cold War and in all honesty, I had bugger all confidence in those nutters not to just hit the button at some point and kick it all off. Luckily they didn’t.

Then along came 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall. The beginnings of the actual reunification of Germany and the sharp decline of the Soviet Union following shortly thereafter. The Cold War was kind of over but it didn’t stop geopolitics from being seriously messed up with many actors getting involved outside of their borders in other nation’s business. The USA being the major culprit with all sorts of shithousery in Panama, Nicaragua, Iran, Iraq and probably a heap of others that don’t immediately come to mind.

In 2001 we had the World Trade Centre attack and we’ve all seen and read a lot about that including the amazing footage of George W Bush in a classroom with a children’s book in his hand thinking to himself “Oh shit, this President thing is about to get hard”. Then the invasion of Iraq looking for the mystical Weapons of Mass Destruction that Saddam Hussein had obviously hidden under his bed since they couldn’t be found anywhere else. Then Afghanistan and the hunt for Al Qaeda or Daesh and then IS and whatever splinter groups that came from them.

Bear with me here, there is a theme to all of this.

Oh fuck it, I’ll come right out with it then. The US have always been very ready to get stuck into something when there is something in it for them.

In Central America it was about control of nearby nations within their local Sphere of Influence, making sure they were no hotbeds of Communists ready to cause trouble for the nearby Star Spangled Nation. In South America it was to do anything to stop Hugo Chavez from building too much influence with all of his oil money. It’s all about Freedom you see. Freedom for America.

Then there is the Middle East. They gleefully dived into Iraq to stop Hussein who was somewhat less reliable now than when they put him on the throne after deposing an earlier Iraqi government. Plus the immense distrust of the USA held by Iran after all of the messing about in their politics in the previous five decades. Payoff from Iraq – give US companies fat contracts to rebuild the infrastructure specifically targeted by the bombing and of course there is a shit ton of oil there. Let’s just add Afghanistan in here as a footnote as well since they were allegedly “assisting Al Qaeda”, despite a substantial amount of intelligence actually indicating it was the warlords in remote Pakistan that were actually the hotbed of Al Qaeda resistance since the Taliban and Al Qaeda really didn’t get on at all. Payoff – build a Western style democracy there to stop terrorist cells coming out of there in future plus get to one up the Russians who got the snot kicked out of them over many years in Afghanistan. Result – epic fail.

Now let me home in on this “theme” a bit here without being too disparaging towards those the USA have messed with. Compared to the might of the US military every single one of these involvements were pretty much nailed on wins. Since Vietnam, and I’m calling that a lesson learned by the US, we have not seen the US involved in anything at all where they really didn’t have a massive manpower and firepower advantage, through sheer numbers and/or technological means. Or let’s put in this in sporting terms, it’s the USA basketball team against any other national team from 2000-2016 or so. No chance of a loss really. Not so much now: in basketball or in global domination.

So I ask, where were the USA, the defenders of freedom and the forces to be relied upon to get rid of terrible despots like Saddam Hussein when Yemen exploded into one of the greatest humanitarian disasters which kicked off in 2014? Where were they, the bombers of Sarajevo during the Croatian-Serbian conflict during the implosion of the former Yugoslavia, when Russia just steamrolled into Crimea and said “it’s mine”? Where were the invaders of Afghanistan when the Myanmar military overthrew a lawfully elected government in 2021 and just decided to kill protestors and do whatever the fuck they want? And just to prove I don’t have an anti-American slant where are the former colonial powers who ruled Ethiopia and Sudan to offer some practical assistance as those nations implode in savagery? Only yesterday I saw a news item from Ethiopia about “uniformed soldiers burning civilians alive”.

Now that they have had no victory in Afghanistan and withdrawn with tails firmly tucked between their legs after what can only be called a failed “experiment” with horrific consequences for the people of that nation, all of that military might and combat experience is cooling it’s heels on home soil. Is it because they have learned how tough beating an insurgency can be? Pretty tough to set a Stealth Fighter into a guerilla war scenario. And it gets ugly for the unfortunate population stuck in the crossfire as all of Afghanistan and Iraq and Syria (who I failed to mention up to this point) can brutally attest.

Well then, let’s talk about Ukraine. We can start with Crimea. The Russians took it. The world put sanctions on some Russians. Did they leave? No. Therefore sanctions are not effective. Or at least those sanctions weren’t. So now Russia rattles the sabre some more and start talking about the rest of the Ukraine under the most ridiculous of clauses imaginable – freeing Donbas and Luhansk from a genocidal threat posed by Ukraine. Blimey, that one could have come out of Donald Trump’s mouth it’s so unbelievable. He’ll probably take the credit for it. The collective might of the EU, UK, US and others are quick to say “don’t” and when Russia does what do they do? Sanctions. Well it didn’t work last time so let’s do it again and see if it does this time! But they are harder this time. And if Russia don’t get out the Ukraine and stop killing people soon we might even stop buying their oil and gas.

What the actual fuck?

Cities are being pummelled into rubble and the world powers do NOTHING about it.

Let me define NOTHING.

They send money for the Ukrainians to buy arms or they send some actual armaments in. Missiles, etc. They go to the United Nations and say how they “deplore” and “condemn” the actions of Russia and make the Russians look bad in a vote.

Meanwhile Ukraine gets the shit bombed out of it. Nett effect of the above – basically NOTHING.

NOTHING means not implementing a no fly zone which would at least protect cities and the population from airborne bombing. Doesn’t stop mortars, artillery, cruise missiles, etc but it would be a lot better than NOTHING.

NOTHING means watching millions of women and children flocking to the borders as refugees looking to get away while the males of fighting age go and try and hold back the might of the Russian war machine with whatever they can – including a lot of Molotov cocktails being hand made by the remaining population.

NOTHING means letting us see daily on news bulletins massive columns of Russian tanks, APC and other military hardware streaming into the country NOT being attacked by any of the nations with expensive air forces who say they cannot be drawn into the war.

That last paragraph is actually the key to the whole thing. Everyone is trying to stay out of it. Oh we feel sorry for the Ukrainian citizenry having their nation destroyed because the Russian leader has grand dreams of rebuilding the Soviet Union. Even the Russian people are being arrested in droves for protesting about what their own country is doing to their neighbours.

And in all of this while the bravery of the Ukrainians to stand and fight is incredible it is those protesting in Russia who are showing the world what to do and let me put it very simply here.

THEY ARE STANDING UP TO A BULLY.

It’s what we get told as youngsters, stand up to a bully and he’ll back the fuck off like the little coward that he actually is. But that isn’t happening here because the world procrastinated on its chance to end nuclear proliferation and they know Russia has nukes. Lots of them. And they are fucking terrified he will use them. And if he really is as unhinged as he is acting then he might well do that. But standing back and letting him have Ukraine, which despite the bravery of the Ukrainians I reckon is pretty nailed on, is hardly going to deter him from going for Georgia, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, etc. Do you really think he gives a shit if they are in the EU? He is seeing right now how spineless they are as a collective. They are happy to cosy up for some cash but will they bleed for each other? No chance. And the USA who stated that they would not tolerate Russia taking Ukraine had just better learn to tolerate it. Since they are doing approximately fuck all.

We are in a new era right now. Where those with power will wield it ruthlessly unless they are stopped by similar power. In Australia we have never seen anything like what has happened in theatres of war unless you were serving as military there. Our general populace has no clue how bad it is for displaced people or refugees from oppression whether that be political, racial or religious grounds. We’ve had some big floods and savage bushfires in the past few years and I’m here to tell you that is absolutely nothing compared to what Ukraine is going through now. There are no volunteers to help. No SES, no ADF and no government agencies there to assist with clean up. No insurance to get you back on your feet. If you are lucky enough to even have insurance anyway. But the point is we have it seriously easy here. Yeah I hate our PM and cannot believe that guy is in charge of our country and I intensely dislike the rhetoric and the bullshit that flows from government every day of the week. But it is fucking paradise compared to what would happen to our nation in war. And while it’s seriously unlikely that will happen here things will change in a big way in our globalised industrial world. You want to complain about petrol prices? That’s just the start.

We now live in the age of the bully. Again. Kind of like the 70’s. Where tyrannical leaders are not just tolerated but embraced so long as they stay in their holes. When they stick their head out of their hole then it comes down to how much power they wield as to what the reaction is. And Russia has a lot of military power. So does China who refuse to condemn Russia’s actions and with their very well known lust to reintegrate Taiwan will be watching this very closely. Russia has stated Ukraine is an “integral part of Russia”. China has said the same of Taiwan for a long, long time. What difference will their be if China decide to move East? Especially given China is so integral in the manufacturing of pretty much everything. I say no difference at all. China won’t give a shit about sanctions. And having seen the remaining military powers stand idly by as Russia pulverises Ukraine I firmly believe we will see the same again should China move on Taiwan.

Enough rambling from me. But one question remains to anyone mad enough to read my dribble. I still stand up to bullies. Can you say the same? It would be nice if the leaders of our world had the balls to do that.

In a historic move the Coalition governing Australia at a Federal level, meaning the Liberal and National Parties, have combined their forces to come up with a climate plan to ensure that Australia does its fair share of lifting in the fight against catastrophic anthropological climate change.

“It is not a revolution” crowed the Prime Minister “but an evolution”.

<SNIP>

Let’s just cut to the chase here.

The National Party held the Liberal Party to ransom to agree to net zero by 2050. For that privilege our PM can go to COP26 in Glasgow saying we are doing great things. Boris Johnson called Australia’s declaration on net zero “heroic”. Seriously Boris? You jackass.

So what are the National Party getting for that change in stance? Who the fuck knows? Outside the National Party room I would suggest the PM knows and Well Done Angus, the Minister with Energy and Climate Change in his title somewhere, probably knows too. What we have gleaned so far is the Member for Solar Panels Don’t Work In The Dark someone or another Pitt has been elevated to Cabinet. I wouldn’t elevate him to reserve orange peeler as he’d probably not know which end of the knife to hold. And in a faint comedic coincidence Pitt is the Swedish word for Penis. Or is it coincidence? Hmm?

But other than the Member for SPDWITD moving to Cabinet, what else did they get? Or let me put it this way. What else am I as a taxpayer having to pay for? Cue Alan Davies with the “Nobody Knows” sign.

So at a future unspecified cost, the National Party have agreed to a policy of doing LESS THAN WHAT EVERY STATE IN AUSTRALIA IS ALREADY DOING THEMSELVES. Excellent.

And since we have a Plan, we need a shiny new brochure to go with it. It is 129 pages long. I know – I downloaded it from https://www.industry.gov.au/sites/default/files/October%202021/document/australias-long-term-emissions-reduction-plan.pdf and started to read it. But by Page 10 I was literally feeling sick and gave up and waited for the cognisant analysis by people of stronger stomachs than I. And what have those erstwhile people been saying? Here is a really brief summary, expressly for readers of the Point Of Yew.

Nothing changes.

Except for the $20B we are going to spend on technology investment over the next decade to save us from actually having to do anything. And isn’t it lucky that Twiggy Forrest has taken such an interest in Green Hydrogen since $2B is going to Hydrogen. There is also a shitload to go into Soil Carbon (which could be useful if directed properly) and a bunch more into that great working and proven CCS program, that is Carbon Capture and Storage for the young people up the back. The program that has been categorically pronounced dead, ground up into fertiliser with the ashes of whatever is left over scattered at sea. And not just once. By many studies. By many prototype plants, of which exactly none of them worked within their predictions, budgets or basically at all. When you miss your projections by 95% then basically your program is a wash up, pack your bags and don’t the let door smash you in the arse on the way out. Other than that, even after we have used every accounting trick in the book, we still missed the target by 15% and so that is covered under unspecified “technological advances”. So Magic basically. Or Prayer maybe. Our PM loves a miracle.

And don’t forget that their entire policy is based on projections and modelling done to back it all up. Which is NOT BEING RELEASED in case someone pokes a hole in it. Credibility just oozes off this policy. Well, something oozes off it.

And of course it will all be affordable says our PM because the shit you buy at JB Hi-Fi is so much cheaper now than it was 5 years ago. Seriously. He said that. Well ok, he didn’t say shit. I said that. He said something else like stuff or electronics or I don’t fucking know what word he used but shit was appropriate. Go look it up yourself if it means that much to you. Actually I’ll even put it here for you – just entertain yourselves for a moment while I find it…..

I paraphrased a bit but the message is the same. Last time I went into JB Hi Fi the stuff I looked at wasn’t a shitload cheaper than 5 years ago. Ok, TV’s are cheaper if you are not buying the 300 inch curved OLED one that cooks your breakfast and deflects bad weather from your neighbourhood. But headphones are still expensive. XBox’s are too and so are cameras. DVD’s are the same price. Tablets and PC’s have “increased in capability” for sure, but they aren’t cheaper. And I don’t know shit about the coffee machines so no judgement made there. So his JB Hi-Fi metaphor is as useful as his policy. In other words – it too is shit.

So now we can hurtle headlong towards an election with the Coalition screaming “our Green Policy is costing you nothing because we are fabulous. And don’t ask who is supplying that $20B we are handing out to our buddies”. And as soon as Labor or the Greens or anyone else mentions actually doing something they will scream “NEW TAX” at the top of their pitiful voices. And there will be just enough fucking idiots in our population to believe them, and believe the push from a sympathetic conservative media, to vote these useless morons in again.

Their strategy is set and I’m off looking for a bookie who will take my bet on them winning the next Federal Election. They are behind in the polls so I might get some juicy odds now. Please, please, please prove me wrong.

Not so funny story. My area came out of a lockdown yesterday. Apparently we have had no positive COVID cases for a week. Yet now that my local government area (LGA) is out of lockdown, and the closest major regional centre is not, we’ve been told by our local council that we cannot go there for work or grocery shopping or we will need to undergo a stay at home order for 14 days. But when we were both in lockdown many people would have gone to that major regional centre to do those very activities.

Now there is a technicality to insert there. You are not supposed to leave your LGA when in lockdown. My LGA consists of a number of small towns across a large geographical area. None of them have a lot in the way of facilities. Two of them have what you could generously call a supermarket. Nothing like the sprawling supermarkets that most people go into every week. So technically one has to go to only those small towns to do all of your food shopping. If that were to be the case, those two supermarkets would have been out of stock of lots of stuff very quickly and very consistently over the period of lockdown. Now if I needed to visit a bank branch, well, you can just forget it. There isn’t one in our LGA at all.

Now why even mention all of that? To show how unprepared, how nonsensical and how downright stupid are the policies of our elected Governments. Both State and Federal.

Let’s start with Federal.

Australia is an island nation. Surrounded by water. A fucking lot of water. Not bloody likely anyway will swim here. And we hear countless amount of chest beating bollocks over how our borders are protected from illegal migrants all the time. So one would imagine if we also used the Quarantine processes that Australia has been so proud for for the last hundred years or so we’d be just fine and dandy.

But no. We cannot do that. It will inconvenience business and cost them money. And since we cannot have international tourists here during a pandemic we need to throw a lifeline to the multinational Hotel industry that can now have no customers by using inner city hotels as places of strict quarantine.

What the actual fuck.

Ever seen a movie about Ebola? Or any other highly contagious disease? Do they lock patients up in 4 and 5 star hotels? That isn’t fucking quarantine.

According to dictionary.com quarantine means “a strict isolation to prevent the spread of disease”. Strict. Isolation. That doesn’t equate to any accommodation I have ever been put into. Especially the ones with ducted air conditioning and room service. Funnily enough we already have one of these places that actually is a proper quarantine centre in the Northern Territory not far from Darwin. Now it is in use. I saw our Olympians using it recently. You know when they came back from Japan. You know, to compete for medals. No, not to visit dying relatives or something important. But for fucking sport. The only culture this country has.

And there is vaccination. Oh yes, that clusterfuck. Because of our excellent geographic location (see the earlier bit of being surrounded by a fucking lot of water) we didn’t need to hurry with our vaccine commitments as we were protected by our quarantine. Err, maybe not then.

Lucky we placed orders with all of the big pharmaceutical companies to get vaccinated in case COVID got into the community right? What? You told Pfizer to fuck off because we didn’t need them? Oh yeah, great, thanks. Umm, shit. AstraZeneca anyone? Remember AZ? The one that had a study that our media went apeshit over when it turned out you had a 1 in 500,000 chance of getting some potentially fatal blood clots. Seriously for a moment here, that is pretty tough to take if you know or even worse are, one of those 1 in 500,000 people who have the bad reaction. But those odds versus the odds of being very, very badly ill with a much higher chance of dying from COVID – I know which call I am making a 100 times out a 100. AZ thanks.

Now I’ve had AZ, 2 doses of it. Booked in the first day I could. Had a day of major fatigue where I just slept a lot after the first shot. I had a sore arm after the second shot but that was more from the guy who gave me the needle looked like he took a run up went he put it in my arm. We were talking about the media coverage before he gave me the shot and was sounding very frustrated and I think I copped some of that. Not a mistake I’ll make again. Next time (if they do boosters) ask AFTER the shot. Back on topic now my wife got a very sore arm with some localised swelling for a few days. I have had some mates who were a bit poorly. One of my old football teammates was apparently quite sick for a day. That’s it. But the media drummed it up to be “we’re all gunna die from AZ” and people got nervous. Anti-vaxxers (or as I refer to them ‘fuckwits’) had a field day, and people avoided the jab.

But in the meantime the jabs we did have available, where did they go? We originally got told “into our most vulnerable” like aged care homes. So when COVID Alpha hit Sydney and Melbourne it went through the aged care sector like a bad curry. A lot of older Australians died. And to be fair some would have died regardless of vaccinations. But that some is a very small percentage of those who did. I don’t know where those vaccines went. I know our politicians got jabbed very bloody quickly. But then COVID got into the hospitals. And nurses started getting ill. Now I am going to say ‘what the fuck’ again. And here begins the Grumpy Plan to protecting an island nation from a Pandemic.

1. Close the fucking borders. Not a little bit. Close them. Any passengers come in go into REAL quarantine. Not a 4 star hotel. A fucking quarantine station where people are isolated. It’s not a holiday and it’s not supposed to be. Ever been to the Q Station on North Head? Ever hear how the migrants when they arrived by ship back then were treated? Quarantine is NOT a holiday. And anyone who leaves the country DOESN’T GET BACK IN. Not for sport, not for meetings to influence whether the Great Barrier Reef goes onto an Endangered list or not, not for anything. Life and death here buddy. Don’t give me any poli speak about ‘the tough decisions’ because there is one our Federal Govt did not have the balls to make.
2. Vaccinations are to be done. They are compulsory unless getting it will kill you. No “I choose not to” unless you hand me back your Medicare card for LIFE. None of this “I don’t know what is in it” bullshit. You don’t know what is in your coffee, your fags, your beer, your burger, your tofu, your smashed avo on toast so don’t try and play the fucking molecular biologist with me. When you can supply me the chemical formula for your morning latte I’ll think about giving you vaccination choice. Until then, fuck off. (see point 1 and tough decisions)
3. First cab off the rank for the jab is Medical Staff, Police, Ambulance, Firefighters, Customs and Quarantine staff and the entire Logistics industry (truck drivers, warehousing, cleaners, etc). Not politicians. You wait until the rest of us get it you self serving bastards. After that first group comes aged care residents and anyone working in aged care. At that time you also do any other care groups like disability homes, mental health, domestic violence refuges, etc. People who cannot look after themselves or under such intense stress that any infection will have a greatly enhanced effect. Also school teachers and child care staff. Then the aged amongst our general population and those with underlying health conditions, especially those who have more difficulty breathing since we know COVID affects your breathing in particular.
4. Jabs continue happening as we go through the age groups. Hopefully the younger people will be more resilient if any COVID gets into the community. But if it does somehow, despite the excellent REAL quarantine measures and much improved dynamics around vaccination, get into the community we do lockdowns. The very lockdowns that Victoria did to snuff out COVID Alpha, admittedly at the tragic cost of lives that it took because no one enacted the above plan.

Enough Federal bashing for the moment, even though I love doing it – let’s go after the State Govt of NSW now….

And then along came Delta. Not Goodrem. With a highly infectious vector COVID was now spreading like wildfire through our porous hotel quarantine system (admittedly not the NSW State Govt’s fault), our ridiculously soft and ineffective partial fairy lockdowns (totally their fault) or as one wit cleverly called them “mockdowns” and our hesitant on AZ vaccination (thanks to media blitz on blood clots) and largely unvaccinated community. Daily reported cases were rising rapidly, hospitals were being put under intense pressure and ambulances forced to queue for over an hour to discharge patients. Eventually real lockdowns happened but initially only by LGA’s. So when it all started the affluent Eastern suburbs did not get a lockdown. A watered down ‘behave yourself’ note was basically what they got. When it hit South Western Sydney, a far less affluent area, they got full lock down, police and military personnel walking the streets asking why you weren’t at home. Mounted police too. And a curfew. And while that happens they see footage on the news of the Eastern Suburbs populace walking their dogs on the beach while they have to entertain their children in an apartment because playgrounds are closed in their local area. Here is another ‘what the fuck’ moment.

A tale of two cities? You betcha. Then it got into Western Sydney proper, where I grew up. Then they get lockdowns. Not sure if they got curfew too. I didn’t see that. But the largely diverse communities of SW Sydney got the full gamut of measures.

And then the worst of all. It got into Regional NSW. Largely thanks to dickhead Sydney people doing the wrong thing and not staying at home like they were supposed to. And for those who could legally move about for their work, not wearing masks, etc. They also took it to Victoria. And Canberra. And eventually NZ. But in the regions we don’t have the health facilities. And when it gets into seriously disadvantaged communities, especially predominantly Indigenous communities, it is a recipe for disaster. And that is what happened in Wilcannia. A largely Indigenous community between Cobar and Broken Hill. There is literally nothing for hours in any direction in terms of infrastructure other than roads and power cables. So when COVID hit Wilcannia that was the ultimate evidence of the incompetence of the State Govt and their so called ‘plan’ to keep us safe. And the fact that they totally ignored the pleas of Wilcannia’s own Maari Ma organisation that pleaded with them more than 12 months earlier to take steps to be prepared should COVID come to Wilcannia. Pleas ignored. Utterly shocking. In my opinion it is criminal negligence. But I’m no lawyer, just a good judge of a shit show.

So there you have it in a nutshell. The Grumpy Plan to have avoided this mess. No 20-20 hindsight required there. All of it was spelled out by experts long before I wrote it up. But all of that expert advice was ignored as it wasn’t politically expedient, it was going to cost business too much, it was going to cost the Government too much, it was too risky for votes or it was just too fucking sensible and obvious to anyone with half a brain. Which leaves out the Govt groups I mentioned earlier who would be lucky to be able blow their nose collectively if brain cells were dynamite. Such chronic failures in planning, intelligence and courage should lead to criminal prosecution and political oblivion at the Ballot Box as well. Should. But I’ll sadly end with this.

Won’t.

It’s only short but it’s one I do like to read every year or so when I get jaded. Jaded about what? About respect for science. About how pure bullshit can be disseminated and believed by people. About how there is a chip in your COVID vaccine so the government can track you. About how vaccines give your kids autism. About how children are taught to doubt evolution. About how climate change is all crap and it’s just scientists making sure they get their grant money.

The book is called The Collapse of Western Civilisation and is written by two science historians (Naomi Oreskes of Harvard U and Erik M Conway of the NASA JPL Laboratory) and looks back on the period of the 1980’s through to the 2080’s from a future historians point of view. It’s intriguing reading. One thing it never fails to make me do is think. And that is a good thing. So what do I think when I’m finished that book? A lot of things. But mostly that I don’t believe it is a work of fiction anymore. I think there is a large element of prediction in there. I don’t have the endless faith that so many have in our ability to avoid catastrophic climate change. So much so that I’ve basically given up talking about it. Explaining it. Or as one person put it to me – “preaching it”. Man was it hard not to punch that person in the mouth. I spent 4.5 years doing a degree in Environmental Science majoring in Sustainable Ecosystems so I don’t particularly appreciate being told I don’t know what I’m talking about and to “stop preaching my bullshit gospel” at them. (And a big middle finger will always be raised in that person’s direction for eternity and I’ll leave it at that) But anyway our total lack of interest in making the required changes to our habits, our lifestyles, and particularly our economies is making it harder and harder for us to avoid catastrophic climate change. Whatever. It’s your kids that’ll cop the worst of it. They get to deal with it because my generation, and what the hell I’ll say your generation too, were a bunch of selfish arseholes. Our duty under the concept of sustainability is to hand on to our progeny a world that is at least as good as what we inherited. Fat chance kiddos. Good luck with that.

So for my next book I’ll probably read the work of another great scientist. I’m considering The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins or perhaps The Demon Haunted World by the late Carl Sagan. And if ever there was a scientist we needed at this very moment in time to explain things to people, it’s Carl Sagan. He was calm, erudite and almost hypnotic in his ability to get you interested in what he was talking about. And we really, really need that now. Instead we get whatever the media want to feed us. And on the rare occasion when the media feed us properly, generally only the ABC in Australia at least, we hear that it wasn’t fair and should have included someone with an alternative viewpoint “for balance”. But that only happens when anything Science is discussed. Never Economics, where I would get up and mention how cost/benefits are never included for environmental services performed by natural functions – I would be told “sit down you heathen” very swiftly indeed. Never Politics, where only the conservative line is allowed air time. To hell with those pesky tree-hugging refugee-loving Greens. Or Religion. Ka-wow. Imagine your school’s scripture class and the local Catholic preacher gives his spiel and then an Imam gets up and gives the Islamic “alternative view”. Oh the horror. Imagine the calls to the Principal. Nay, direct to the Minister of Education himself. Oh the Twitter and Facebook storm fills me with fear just thinking about it. Well, not fear. Revulsion more like.

So in the end re-reading a book made me think. Outside the square. Actually think. About stuff that our political leaders probably wished I wasn’t thinking about. Science. Climate Change. Sustainability. Yeah, nah mate, we’d much rather you turn the TV on and watch something there on commercial TV you know. Big Brother is back on 7, that’s good shit, how about that. Maybe some footy later too eh mate. Whaddya reckon?

I reckon it’s lucky more people don’t read books then isn’t it?

I mean shit, they look like fun. You get to play dress-ups, wander around in a boring building, evading security guards, hoping not to get trampled to death by your friends and having the opportunity to fire a taser accidentally into your own testicles. I mean what more could you possibly want for a day out? You may even snare a nice souvenir.

Unfortunately though the security forces you were avoiding will just use the footage from the cameras located about every 6 feet in every corridor. Next thing you know you get dobbed in by your unsympathetic workmates, children and ex-spouses and end up arrested by the FBI. But that is the risk you run for such a shit hot day out in the Capitol eh?

Yeah, yeah. I’m taking the piss. What you didn’t notice? Out with you then laddie!

It’s pretty obvious that the POTUS was the ringleader of this and somehow he thought this was a really good idea that would perhaps intimidate those of lesser heart than he in the Congress to just say “screw the Election – let’s just let him another term right?”. Well what else could he have been thinking? If a bunch of protestors storm a building where the parliament is in session they aren’t going to be invited in for tea and biscuits and given a vote each. So it must be an intimidation tactic. So how does the POTUS, leader of the so-called free world, seriously think this is going to end? If that isn’t evidence enough that he isn’t fit to lead a large country with some scary political divisions and more armed local militias than you can poke a stick at then I don’t know what is. Enough of the unnamed POTUS. What about his fan base?

Well they didn’t take it too well when their beloved icon said “violence is bad”. But that’s what we do? We are good at violence. And intimidation. And having our way at the expense of others. Because we deserve it. Riiiiiiight. Are their natural political allegiances to the Republican Party now going to be too soft to continue. And will they now decide they need to act as a cohesive and coordinated force on their own. Whether that is politically or physically. Will there be a third political force appear in the Ignited States to cater for the “more to the right than Republicans” people? I don’t know if they are that organised. Or realise it is necessary. If you have enough guns you win don’t you?

Early in 2019 I said their icon would win a second term. Happily, I was wrong. But given what he has done politically in the last four years, how the fuck did it get that close? The fake news, alternative facts, the Twitter rampages, the Fox News allies, the Breitbarts, QAnon and all the other bullshit worked for him. Now for someone as intelligent as a cucumber to do that well with it is fairly frightening. Imagine now that someone who is actually intelligent and cunning uses those same techniques with more polish, more panache and less insanity comes along in 2024. Under the banner of the Republican’s or some other right leaning organisation. That would be pretty scary. The POTUS almost got away with it this time. And I’m prepared to say if there was no COVID, he would have got away with it. But that bungle cost a lot of lives and I reckon that cost him dearly. I’ll just go out and assert that as bizarre as this sounds COVID won Biden the Presidency.

And we’re fucked if we need to rely on a pandemic to save us next time.

But back to the title of yet another essay length ramble and could it happen here too? In the Clever Country? (snigger) Or are we too apathetic to bother down here? That is a valid point. Political interest here in the land of compulsory voting is insanely low. And some of the things our Government and its members do now truly beggars belief and nothing happens other than a story in the Guardian to engage the wrath of the left to make comments on the web site before they tire out and need a rest. Or a story on the ABC which will be kept in the mind of the Government next time they take an axe to their budget. All the true outrage belongs to the Murdoch press and those who partake in its simulations which are of course those leaning to the Right of the political spectrum. They certainly seem to have more energy on the right and since their mob are in control now there is no reason for an insurrection. And those of us on the Left (where I guess I would have to be categorised) just don’t have the energy, the temerity or frankly the stupidity to do it. So maybe I should revisit the topic when a Leftist government wins federally. I should be in a solar powered climate controlled hovering mobility scooter with VR controls and its own composting toilet by then I reckon.

Sigh.